What is the AVACCC Project?

The WEA and other voluntary and community sector providers organise and deliver courses to hard-to-reach groups in community settings. Some of our courses are accredited and some are non-accredited but due to funding policies, there tends to be a Level 2 ceiling and there are many people who have studied in the community with a number of level 2 credits who have no awareness of their currency and value in terms of the possibilities for progression. We were also conscious that our WEA tutors and frontline staff had limited understanding of where their learners could progress. On the ‘flip side’ when we come into contact with FE or HE, it is clear that there is a general ignorance about us and other voluntary sector-learning providers and that we deliver acknowledged (evidenced by our recent inspection) quality provision. We knew that some of our learners did progress to Level 3 courses in mainstream FE and also a variety of foundation degrees and foundation programmes in HE, but there were no formalised agreements because of this funding was sought from WYLLN (West Yorkshire Lifelong Learning Network) in order to ease the progression for our learners. The AVACCC Project (Adding Value and Currency to Community Courses) was undertaken in 2009 and completed in July 2010. Progression agreements with two FE and one HE Provider. (Open University (FE/ HE) and Leeds University (FE) were produced as well as some resources and an interactive website open for all to use. The AVACCC project was disseminated to the WEA tutors and other voluntary and community sector providers at a conference in July 2010 where it was well received.

Progression Agreements

The University of Leeds progression agreement detailed the arrangements in place to support learners on the WEA Helping in School course to progress to the Foundation Degree in Learning and Teaching.

The Open University progression agreement details the arrangements in place for the learners to progress onto a number of different Open University courses both short and long term at a number of educational levels.

Both the progression agreements also offer support for the tutors and visits and speakers for the learners. Copies of the progression agreements are to be given to all tutors during their course and are also available online and to view on the website.

Resources produced included;

5-progression route guides that focussed on the following areas; childcare, support assistant/ work in schools, working with family centres, counsellor and teaching/ education, an explanation sheet to explain the qualifications and levels that is to be presented separately and a contact sheet of all the educational providers within West Yorkshire (including those in the voluntary sector), Awarding Bodies, other useful contacts. Also an interactive WEA website was also produced that has all this information with links to the educational providers available to all and it will be updated when appropriate. Also on the website you will find a range of interesting case studies.