CASE STUDY:LEAGUEFOOTBALLEDUCATION

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For Skills Limited Mansfield i-centre Oakham Business Park Hamilton Way Mansfield Nottinghamshire NG18 5BR www.forskills.co.uk

LFE’s learner assessment strategy gathers pace

Incorporated in 2004, League Football Education is a partnership between The Football League and the Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA). Its primary goal is to promote and enhance educational and vocational training for 16-18 year old apprentice footballers.

All apprentices are put through a two-year Sporting Excellence (ASE) Programme which provides them with a qualification and a route to an alternative career path, should they need it. With only 30 to 40% of trainees offered a professional contract, the ASE qualification can be used by the apprentices to pursue an alternative career within a sports-related field, such as football coaching, or away from football altogether.

The challenge for LFE was to develop a strategy which would enable it to move away from its existing paper-based assess-

ment processes and to utilise technology so it could be more effective and efficient in meeting the needs of the ASE programme. With over 1000 learners on the programme at any one time, LFE recognised the need to create a uniform programme that could be consistently applied by Regional Officers, at all of the 74 participating Football League clubs located around the country.

OBJECTIVES & CHALLENGESThe main objective was to introduce a quality online solution that could assess, track and record their learners’ journey. It needed to incorporate a rugged and reliable initial and diagnostic assessment tool and be capable of supporting every part of the process to track and manage their learners’ qualifications online.

There was also a requirement for an online portfolio management tool, so that a portfolio of evidence for the apprentices could be built. It was also crucial that the tools were accessible from anywhere. This assisted the learner, who could login at home, and also facilitate the Regional Officers, when they undertook their reviews onsite with the apprentices.

Another key challenge was to remove the need to collect huge volumes of paper-based documentation. The old system relied on collecting a mountain of papers used to track the progress of each apprentice. This placed an enormous burden on Regional Officers, who had to use at least five paper documents for each apprentice

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SOLUTION1. Introduction of online assessments to assess English and maths

LFE converted from paper-based assessments to the ForSkills suite of highly interactive online assessments and learning resources. The assessments are employed at the start of the programme to assess a learner’s English and maths ability and signpost apprentices to appropriate learning resources to fill the knowledge gaps. The results of the assessments are used to create the learner’s Individual Learning Plan which is stored online. The Regional Officers also have access to a range of useful management reports which can be used to obtain an overall picture of an individual or group’s progress.

2. Tracking apprentices through their qualification

To track learners’ progress, Regional Officers visit the clubs every twelve weeks to undertake formal apprentice reviews. SkillsTrack is now being used as the primary tool to undertake the reviews and has completely replaced the paper-based system.

LFE use it to set and sign-off learner targets, enrol apprentices to qualifications, track qualifications by criteria, record

evidence of achievement, and store and update the Individual Learning Plan. Because it is fully accessible over the internet, Regional Officers can undertake reviews anywhere and are assured that all of the learners’ data will be available when they need it.

ADDED VALUE &BENEFITSLearners can accelerate progress by accessing work from anywhere with an internet linked computer. Annual cost savings from printing and postage of circa £15,000, and as more materials are added to the online system, printing and resource costs are continually diminishing

New courses to enhance the programme and meet Every Child Matters requirements, can be added quickly and simply.

“The systems we use today to track and manage our apprenticeship programme have been transformational for LFE. We can now access apprentices data, wherever they are, and paper-based documentation has almost been eliminated.”

-Paul Bartlett, Project Manager and Regional Officer East and North, LFE

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