An Enterprising Solution at New College Nottingham
New College Nottingham is giving new learners a warm welcome with the help of NCFE's Level 1 Award in Exploring Enterprise Capabilities. The College has used the qualification as part of a 2 day 'Keeping Warm' induction programme to introduce new learners.
The programme is full of fun activities and helps learners become familiar with the College environment, as well as giving them the chance to meet staff and fellow students for the first time. Activities include Giant Jenga competitions, building tall paper towers, parachute challenges and crossing crocodile infested waters!
Programme Area Manager, Anne Hallam, and her colleagues have used the NCFE Level 1 Award in Exploring Enterprise Capabilities as a way of capturing and recording the skills learned and practiced by the young people during the Keeping Warm activities. The learners complete a workbook over 2 days which provides fantastic evidence of their achievements. Last year the NCFE programme ran as a pilot and almost 500 learners achieved the qualification!
One of the major benefits that the programme provides is increased retention rates for new learners. Learners that completed the Keeping Warm induction days in 2008 had a 30% higher retention rate after their first year than those who did not attend. The pilot has been deemed an outstanding success and around 800 learners are expected to participate in this summer's programmes.
Anne Hallam said: "Last year's Keeping Warm event was a great success. All feedback from the learners was positive and they felt more confident about joining New College Nottingham in September as a result of the induction.
"They had had great fun meeting fellow learners and tutors. They stated that they would recommend it to all new learners and it was a fantastic way to achieve a qualification before they had even started College."
To find out more about our Enterprise qualifications, please contact Jayne Tighe on 0191 239 8074 or email jaynetighe@ncfe.org.uk.