SCQF College Ambassador Case Study - Glasgow Clyde College

Background to SCQF College Ambassador programme

The College Ambassador Programme aims to encourage colleges to engage with the SCQF in a range of different ways to raise awareness and understanding of the Framework among a wider audience. This will enable college staff to cascade their knowledge of the benefits of the Framework and credit rating across the college with the full support of the SCQF Partnership Executive Team. 

It is anticipated that the programme will maximise the impact of the Framework, ensuring that it is perceived as a vital tool for progression; facilitating Senior Phase learning pathways and supporting the aims of the Developing the Young Workforce agenda. It will also ensure that the benefits of the Framework are being communicated to staff and learners right across the college landscape. 

Background to the College

Mission - “Inspirational Learning; Changing Lives”

Glasgow Clyde College believes in inspirational teaching and learning and that this can make positive changes in people’s lives. The College delivers a diverse range of courses from Access to Degree level, over three campuses in Glasgow, each with dedicated support services and a proactive Student Association. With strong employer partnerships, the College provides learners with relevant industry skills, and its award-winning teaching staff­ offer excellent, current industry experience, crucial in preparing Scotland’s workforce with the necessary skills to sustain our economy. Glasgow Clyde College is the largest further education provider in Glasgow and has the highest attainment rates for further education and higher education in the region.

The College is also proud of the Community Based Adult Learning opportunities offered and has credit rated a number of programmes ranging from STEM subjects to ESOL through Storytelling.  This supports the college’s widening access agenda by offering individuals who are often the most distant from learning the opportunity to re-engage in learning and gain an SCQF qualification.

Can you tell us about one way in which the college has successfully used the SCQF? 

The College Community Learning and Development (CLD) team has been using the SCQF to credit rate learning programmes that support transition and widen access. These have been viewed by community partners as an innovative and responsive way to meet the needs of our diverse community and national key policy drivers such as the Glasgow CLD Strategic Plan, Adult Literacies in Scotland 20/20 and the New Scots Integration Strategy. 

One example of the way that the college has successfully used the SCQF is through credit rating and delivering an SCQF Level 4 programme - ESOL through Storytelling - with parents of children attending local Glasgow Primary Schools.  This partnership approach has helped parents, for whom English is a second language, to gain practical skills and knowledge to engage in their children’s learning more effectively through storytelling, using a family learning approach.

ESOL through Storytelling was developed to encompass the standard areas of ESOL provision such as grammar, vocabulary, reading and writing alongside how to read and engage children in a story and how to use interrogative questioning as a creative solution to developing these skills.

The improvement of the parents’ English language skills then has a positive impact on their children’s learning and allows the parent to take on the role of educator with increased confidence.

And what have the benefits been for learners, the college, partners and any other organisations/third party organisation?

The benefits of credit rating our CLD programmes mean that learners who are often the furthest removed from education have the opportunity to gain SCQF credit rated qualifications.  These qualifications can then be used to access other learning and promote confidence in their own abilities.  Glasgow has a diverse population of non-native English speakers and the ESOL programme is a valuable tool in promoting social inclusion.

Nuala Walsh, Principal Teacher from St Patrick’s Primary School in Glasgow reported the following benefits and impacts following on from the ESOL through Storytelling course:

• Parents have gained a solid grounding in grammar and vocabulary while learning the skills of reading to their children in English;
• Greater confidence amongst parents to take on the responsibilities of reading to their children, as part of school homework but also outwith this. Many have joined their local library;
• Increased parental confidence to develop their own learning and actually go on to further learning;
• Increased levels of attainment amongst children whose parents have participated in the course;
• Increased parental engagement in their children’s learning and involvement in the wider life of the school.

Benefits to the College

Delivering excellence and equity in Scottish education is a key priority in the Scottish Government’s Delivery Plan and  Glasgow Clyde College has a widening access remit. This collaborative family learning approach helps to address that commitment and the College’s reputation as being a community college that welcomes students from all ages and abilities to study an SCQF credit rated programme.

As an SCQF College Ambassador what are your future plans for using and promoting the SCQF?

Following on from the SCQF programmes that have been credit rated, the CLD team are developing the next level of programmes within the ESOL suite and are working to develop more community based learning to support our local community. 

Additionally, due to the success of the units developed and delivered by Glasgow Clyde College, there have been requests to use these units from third parties, including Local Authorities.

The CLD team will support these requests by helping these organisations to become Third Party Approved Centres in partnership with Glasgow Clyde College. This agreement will allow them to deliver our SCQF programmes in their own areas with the College offering external verification and certification. This in turn will support awareness raising of SCQF and the range of qualifications that are available.