Access Agreements for : Truro & Penwith College ITT provision associated with Cornwall SCITT (School Centred Initial Teacher Training)

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1 Access Agreements for : Truro & Penwith College ITT provision associated with Cornwall SCITT (School Centred Initial Teacher Training) This access agreement is solely for the full-time, one year postgraduate secondary ITE course offered in collaboration with Cornwall SCITT and does not include any other course offered by Truro & Penwith College. A. Current position in relation to access and, where appropriate, retention Truro & Penwith College is a Tertiary College offering a wide range of courses across all levels and all abilities. The purpose of the College is to provide the best possible learning experience, leading to the highest possible level of achievement by our students. Recognised as outstanding by Ofsted in 2006, it has held Beacon status since 2002 and has recently achieved Teaching School status. Rated as one of the best colleges in the country, it has a range of superb new facilities and buildings offering excellent learning resources and a high quality learning experience for students. The College is an active member of the Combined Universities of Cornwall; the Fal in Truro opened in 2006 as a dedicated HE and adult building and Cornwall SCITT trainees were the first to benefit from this purpose- built site. Cornwall SCITT provides a full-time, one year postgraduate teacher training programme for those wishing to teach at secondary level. Successful trainees gain QTS and a PGCE qualification either at level 6 or 60 credits at level 7 (1/3 of a Masters degree.) It is the main secondary ITE provider for the Cornwall region, recruiting many locals who are unable to travel further afield to train. Truro & Penwith College was a founding member of the partnership and has responsibility for the governance, financial management and accreditation of this ITE course. Retention rates are generally around 85%- 90% level, with reasons for withdrawal seldom being linked purely to issues of funding. Employment after the course is consistently around 84%. The latest TA performance profile figures for show our employment rate after 6 months (85%) exceeded the national rate (80%), The number of trainees claiming maximum maintenance grants and supported by us via our previous access agreements has risen each year: % of trainees on maximum maintenance grant % of trainees on % of trainees on Culminating in 9040 of financial bursary support distributed in for those on maximum maintenance grants. For trainees (55%) are eligible for bursary support.

2 During , we also supported 6 trainees in need of Access to Learning Funds and our own financial bursaries to the total of 3044, enabling 5 of the 6 to continue and succeed. In addition, we recruit and successfully retain a number of trainees declaring disability each year (11% of the cohort in ; 6% in & 11% in ) using access funds to support their needs. Cornwall is the second poorest county in the UK, is recognised as an Objective One area and as such is still receiving Convergence funding from the European Social Fund and ERDF, thus we have always encouraged and attracted applicants from a wide variety of academic and socio- economic backgrounds. The main focus for this access agreement is to improve the success, achievement and retention of students following the postgraduate initial teacher training course with Cornwall SCITT. B. Fee limits 9,000 to all trainees allocated to the Cornwall SCITT ITE programme studying for the joint awards of Qualified Teacher Status & PGCE for the duration of their studies in regardless of subject. This is separate to all other Truro & Penwith College courses. We reserve the right to apply annual increases to tuition fees in line with the limit set by government each year. C. Amounts of additional fee income to be spent on access measures Taking into account our average recruitment and retention over previous years we estimate that we would collect 55 final full fee payments at the end of the academic year. Based on this estimate, our total additional income would be 165,000 We intend to recycle 10% of additional fee income: 16,500 D. Financial support for trainees Eligibility criteria : i) All trainees in receipt of a maximum maintenance grant (ie with household income below 25,000) will be offered a cash bursary of 300, subject to satisfactory attendance and progress. ii) Other trainees who can demonstrate financial hardship may apply for a discretionary hardship bursary of up to (subject to satisfactory attendance and progress.)

3 In-kind support such as Laptop & video camera loans; specific ICT dyslexia software; library resource loans are also available. E. Outreach and retention work OUTREACH Outreach activities undertaken by staff at Cornwall SCITT include: presentations at careers events in schools, FE and HE institutions targeted at anyone who may be interested in a future career in teaching. attendance at FE/HE open evening events and Open Saturday events for all members of the general public. Two free taster courses per year giving careers information, application & financial guidance and arranging school experiences. These are tailored for undergraduates and graduates who are considering careers in secondary teacher training across a variety of subjects. We seek to identify areas of under-representation in our student cohort when compared to the HE sector from which we recruit and if identified, we address this by considering whether there may be further effective outreach activities which could be directed at such groups. For example we funded travel and accommodation to attend a Bristol recruitment fair to extend ME recruitment and we have placed adverts in ME press. We have sought and established collaboration with other HEIs to offer enhancement courses for graduates who wish to teach shortage subjects but do not have a direct subject degree match. We commissioned a redesign of our website. We contact local Armed Forces Employment Services to offer advice and support for graduate officers facing redundancy or those wishing to plan ahead. We currently fund these activities within our existing budget and so do not propose to use any additional fee income on outreach activities, preferring instead to target this directly at student support during the training year. RETENTION Examples of intervention and support include: funding for travel for long distances to school placements help with students moving into county to do the course i.e. housing deposits help with students living costs when there have been long delays in assessment by the SLC Supply of laptops, video cameras and dyslexia software. Use of tuition fees to fund PGCE training and qualifications which are optional to QTS but which significantly add to employment prospects.

4 Funding of appropriate health and safety and subject knowledge booster courses arrange 1-1 literacy, numeracy and ICT tutorial support Offer additional staff/mentor support for those trainees considering withdrawal Access to counselling services. Payment for additional referrals to the Occupational Health service. Funded extensions to the course for those requiring extra time. We have established a discretionary fund to alleviate proven hardship of any trainees, including our EU students during the course and to ensure equality of access for all. We keep a contingency fund for this purpose, access to which is means-tested and we assess students on a case-by case basis. F. Targets and milestones Criteria targets milestones Trainees from low income backgrounds Trainees declaring a disability Improved retention (from 87% baseline to 93% target by 2015) with successful completion of course with employment (from 86% baseline to 90%) Full retention / completion and employment to rise from 70% to 90% October; February; May & July. October; February; May & July Ethnicity Improved recruitment from 2% to 6% with retention & employment proportional with course average. September. July Completion / non continuation rates Improve retention overall from 87% baseline to 95% by February, May & July. Due to the small size and varying nature of each cohort, a 3-year review may be more appropriate. G. Institutional monitoring arrangements The Executive Board of Cornwall SCITT monitors the progress of the access agreement six times per year via financial statements and budget review and reports to the full partnership. The finance officer manages annual audits for SCITT following TA requirements and separately as part of Truro & Penwith College governance.

5 An annual monitoring report is submitted to our validating HEI in December of each year. An annual Self Evaluation Document is submitted to the Teaching Agency in December. The monitoring and reporting of our access agreement feeds into all of the above processes as appropriate. H. Provision of information to trainees Link to access agreement on the Cornwall SCITT website. Information on bursary is included in course brochure and also on website. The course administrator is available during applicant interview days to answer any questions regarding finance and support. Learning contract signed by trainee on Term 1 Day 1, includes information on bursary payments and dates and includes information on other funding available. We have a commitment to ensure that we provide timely information to the Graduate Teacher Training Registry and Student Loans Company. This is done through our course administrator. The Cornwall SCITT website, contains a section on finance, including fee and support information and this will be updated regularly. Support information will include institutional support and support available via the Government through the maintenance loan, grant, tuition fee loan and teaching bursaries. This information is explained verbally during the interview process, supported by the written leaflet, to ensure that applicants are fully informed before they make a decision on whether to accept a place with us. Consultation on our fee structure, access & student support arrangements occurs during pre-application and interview discussions. We have a trainee representatives committee who meet regularly with course leaders to review all aspects of the course including finances, as well as regular whole-cohort evaluations which cover pre-course information & support, induction experiences, ongoing course monitoring and end of course evaluations. We also encourage ex-trainees to complete a further reflection on the course after their first year of employment. Any feedback gathered from the various student voice activities is used to inform our future financial planning. The writing of this access agreement has been informed by the Equality Act 2010 and reflects the spirit of our equality & diversity policy which is published in our course handbook and regularly reviewed.

6 OFFA Access Agreement 2013/14 - Annexes B & C Institution name: Truro and Penwith College Institution UKPRN: Table 6 - Milestones and targets Validation checks: 10. A reason for changing any prefilled data must be recorded in column L for both tables 6a and 6b. Validation check passed. Notes: These tables have been pre-populated using the information you provided to us in your access agreement. You will, however, need to consider whether you wish to amend or add targets to reflect: the inclusion of part-time and/or ITT courses within your access agreement any significant changes to the nature and size of your cohort, for example in response to changing student number controls more joint targets around collaborative outreach work targets to improve equality and diversity in your access agreement Table 6a - Statistical milestones and targets relating to your applicants, entrants or student body (e.g. HESA, UCAS or internal targets) Please select milestone/target type from the drop down menu Ethnicity Low-income backgrounds Disabled Completion/Non continuation (other - please give details in the next column) Description (500 characters maximum) Is this a collaborative target? Yearly milestones/targets (numeric where possible, however you may use text) Baseline year Baseline data Improved recruitment from 2% to 6% with retention & employment proportional with course average No % 3% 4% 5% 6% 6% Improved retention from 87% - 93% by 2015 with employment increased from 86% -93% No % 89% 91% 93% 95% 96% Retention, completion & employment to increase from 70% - 90% by 2016 No % 75% 80% 85% 90% 95% remove financial barriers to completion; introduce non cognitive assessments to recruitment process to refine seleciton decisions. No % 90% 92% 95% 97% 100% Commentary on your milestones/targets or textual description where numerical description is not appropriate (500 characters maximium) If you have made any changes to the prefilled data around your milestones/targets, or included additional milestones/targets, please indicate why here.

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8 Table 6b - Other milestones and targets Alongside applicant and entrant targets, we encourage you to provide targets around your outreach work (including collaborative outreach work where appropriate) or other initiatives to illustrate your progress towards increasing access. These should be measurable outcomes based targets and should focus on the number of pupils reached by a particular activity/programme, or number of schools worked with, and what the outcomes were, rather than simply recording the nature/number of activities. Please select milestone/target type from the drop down menu Description (500 characters maximum) Is this a collaborqativ e target? Yearly milestones/targets (numeric where possible, however you may use text) Baseline year Baseline data Commentary on your milestones/targets or textual description where numerical description is not appropriate (500 characters maximium) If you have made any changes to the prefilled data around your milestones/targets, or included additional milestones/targets, please indicate why here.