Below you will find examples of some of the recent projects Campus Training has undertaken.

The teaching assistant’s role is an extremely important one within all schools today and one which the government is increasingly putting more emphasis on. However, due to a serious lack of resources Schools were finding it difficult to ensure their Teaching Assistants were being sufficiently trained to meet the ever changing need of the role.

With all schools needing to train TA’s Campus Training , along with the local LEA’s and schools devised a plan that would help make this easier to achieve. Campus Training embarked on training 26 trainees from within local schools towards gaining their A1 Assessor Award. As part of this training each A1 assessor had 2 teaching assistants from within their schools working towards the Teaching Assistants NVQ 3. Supported with Funding from the LSC and the LEA’s the schools contribution was made affordable and also gave them a long term ability to deliver these qualification in-house, without having to afford external training costs.

Although the candidates found it difficult at first to adapt to an assessing role the project is now well into its second year with most of the trainees having achieved or very close to achieving their A1 award and more than half the TA’s gaining the full NVQ level III, which is a major achievement within 18 months for new assessors.

The majority of schools are now beginning to train additional TA’s at a seriously reduced cost. Campus Training provides all the schools with the ability to run as their own centre without having the administrative burden that usually entails. Campus manage, administer and support the delivery of this project through a network of Internal Verifiers and support assessors – providing schools with the necessary expertise to deliver high quality NVQ’s internally. Eventually the schools will develop Networks so those not involved in the pilot, or too small for the project, can tap into the resources of other schools local to themselves to enable NVQ’s to be delivered to their TA’s at a significantly reduced cost.

A very large employer based in Tunbridge Wells was unfortunately advised by the parent company the operation was being terminated.

Campus Training was asked to assist in providing the employees that were to be made redundant with a qualification that would enhance their job prospects. Many of these employees had only ever worked with this organisation and, although very skilled, had little or no qualifications. The key issue was time – the company was due to close the operation within 5 months, which left very little time to work with the individuals.

Campus immediately embarked on interviewing all staff and securing some funding for the company to make it viable. In total 20 employees embarked on an NVQ in one of the following disciplines:

• Distribution and warehousing
• Team Leading
• Customer Service

Although all of the individuals had to put in many hours of their personal time, along with some excellent support from the employer well over half of the original 20 succeeded in gaining the full NVQ award and those that didn’t, where appropriate, were able to gain unit accreditation for the work they had completed.

An extremely large food production company, employing over 800 staff decided it would reward its staff working on the production lines by offering them the opportunity to achieve an NVQ level II in Food and Drink Manufacturing.

Due to a lack of skilled labour within this sector Campus was able to secure some funding to support the employer deliver this huge training programme.

Almost 150 candidates applied for the training, many of which had no previous qualifications and were from a wide range of ethnic backgrounds but all were willing to grasp the opportunity with relish. The project took 18 months to complete with three assessors working on a 24 hour site with employees from all shifts.

Over 75% completed the full NVQ II and the company’s staff turnover reduced dramatically thereafter.