Excellence Gateway
This case study was produced by JISC RSC (Regional Support Centres) East Midlands on behalf of the Excellence Gateway.
Sector relevance:Specialist Colleges
Keywords: Improving teaching and learning, improving responsiveness to learners, IT skills, learning difficulties, retail and commercial enterprise, curriculum good practice, planning and resources, learner support, assessment, reviewing learners' progress, progression, equality and diversity
In April 2008 a new vocational enterprise called Aladkins Cave was created by Homefield College as a project to develop the functional and IT skills of its students. The enterprise provides a service buying and selling items on the online auction site, eBay, thereby providing a wealth of learning opportunities for its students.
The enterprise is located within a working factory in order to provide a realistic work placement for students who are anticipated to gain some sort of employment in the future. This project is seen as the ‘next step,' leading on from placements provided within the College.
Homefield College is a residential specialist college for young adults (aged over 16) with learning difficulties and is based in Leicestershire.
The College caters for students with learning difficulties, communication difficulties and autistic spectrum disorders. All students need a small highly-structured and supportive learning environment as a precursor to learning.
Pre-vocational Manager, Victoria Myko, wanted to create a new opportunity for students at the College which would develop their functional and IT skills, as well as provide a realistic work experience for them. With some knowledge of the world of online auctions from her own experience she could see how the creation of an enterprise - buying and selling goods via the internet would make an ideal learning opportunity for students.
The initial set-up for the enterprise was mainly staff-led in selecting and purchasing all the required equipment. A successful bid to JISC TechDis for funding meant that the College was able to purchase a printer and four computers.
A decision was taken to locate the enterprise within a working factory near the College rather than being classroom based, in order to provide a realistic work placement for students. As the enterprise was being located off-campus a new connection to the College's IT facilities on the JANET system was installed by the IT Manager, Paul Drage, to ensure that the technical set-up was available for the enterprise to proceed.
An important early meeting was with Trading Standards to ensure that:
The name Aladkins Cave was developed by the students as a play on words of the Ladkins factory where the enterprise is based. Aladkins Cave opens four days a week and has approximately 12-16 students involved, who come into the enterprise for either half a day or a whole day each week alongside their studies.
The centre is run by two members of staff that are qualified NPTC assessors on a job share with the enterprise being overseen by the Pre-vocational Manager.
The enterprise offers two main options in selling items:
Image: List of Aladkins Cave items for sale - the students sell a variety of items through eBay
Different positions such as receptionist, eBay assistant and cleaner are available that require different skills and levels of ability.
In the buying and selling of items the students build-up their work experience and learn valuable skills covering:
Students are set tasks appropriate for their ability. For example, a student with lower literacy levels could be given a photographing and postage task, which involves skills such as setting up an item to photograph, operating a digital camera, downloading this to the computer and then parcelling and weighing the item.
A student with higher levels of literacy could be asked to list the item by typing in details into the eBay interface. Through practise students will then learn to do these tasks more independently and have less support.
The vocational enterprise provides students with skills that will help them in their future lives, build up their confidence and self-esteem, and provide them with a valuable experience of work.
Members of staff have continually created new resources in response to students' needs to enable the completion of tasks more independently, such as photographic sequencing instructions, simple prompt cards, and simplified forms.
Each student is different and resources are often created to assist a specific student to complete the set task with increased independence.
Students new to a position regardless of their year of study are assessed against a baseline of objectives. The baselines are different depending on the position, for example the receptionist baseline assesses office skills, whilst the eBay assistant baseline assesses skills such as a student's ability to use a camera.
Students attending any vocational session also have their present work skills and understanding informally assessed as well as attaining their interests and strengths.
Students can gain an NPTC Entry Level 2 and/or 3 qualification in Skills for Working Life (retail and office) whilst working at Aladkins Cave. Assessments are unobtrusive and a lot of evidence is collected through assessing competency, evidenced through photographs and videos.
Image: eBay selling instructions for students - Homefield College have produced guides for students to use.
The students have successfully sold a number of items from a laptop to an antique set of scales and at the time of writing have a 100% positive feedback rating from their customers.
Image: Feedback summary for Aladkins Cave - feedback from buyers gives them a 100% rating
At Aladkins Cave the staff have worked hard to ensure that students understand that it is a work placement and not a regular session.
The location has been important in helping students to identify that they are at work, with it being away from the main college campus and in an actual work setting. Guidance on their behaviour is delivered slightly differently, the student is asked to remember that they are at work (instead of college) and helped to identify what is the appropriate behaviour when at work. They are also learning about what their rights are as an employee and to what to do if they feel they have been unfairly treated by their employee.
Other enterprises run by the College, for example, the sweet shop/internet café, are also using the eBay project by buying and selling items through them.
As the enterprise continues students are becoming increasingly involved, such as, suggesting what the profit should be spent on, they are asked to evaluate how the enterprise operates and on the resources introduced, they also help shape any new policies that are introduced.
Feedback from one of the students:
“Aladkins is a lot quieter than the College, and I feel more professional.”
The students are now progressing through their qualifications at a faster pace than before the online enterprise was set-up.
According to Victoria Myko, Pre-vocational Manager at Homefield College:
“The project has allowed the students to develop their work skills alongside their IT skills. Students are developing transferable work skills, such as acting on their initiative, communicating with a colleague, remembering to make and bring their own lunch. There are so many skills that people learn from a work experience which are very difficult to replicate and deliver in a classroom. Students working at Aladkins Cave have also been much more engaged in using IT and motivated to learn, compared to classroom sessions, as they can see ‘real' results from using their IT skills.”
“The main thing I'd wished I knew about before we started the project was the time and effort involved in setting up the payment method. We got some excellent advice from MissionFish in sorting out some problems with Paypal, and the creation of a new separate bank account for this enterprise rather than using the normal College account has helped too. Other than that things have gone smoothly.”
The College is currently exploring the possibility of introducing an appropriate IT qualification. To help with this, Homefield College is working with the JISC Regional Support Centre for the East Midlands.
Martin Cooke, Advisor at the JISC RSC commented on the eBay project:
“It was a good example of technology providing for independence and employment skills. They also have the advantage of having the IT Manager on site and I think this has contributed to the smooth operation of the scheme.”
Future plans for Aladkins Cave include increasing turnover by advertising the service to the wider public, as presently staff and a few customers in the local factories support the enterprise.
Watch a short video, featuring student Adam Burd on his experience of working in Aladkins Cave.
Press the play button twice to watch the video
Alternatively, download the video.
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Disclaimer: The Regional Support Centres (RSC) and the Learning and Skills Improvement Service (LSIS) support the development of educational e-learning. We may refer to specific products, processes or services. Such references are examples and are not endorsements or recommendations and should not be used for product endorsement purposes.
You can find this page and download any referenced resources from the Excellence Gateway at http://excellence.org.uk/197341.
