Best practice, developed by Forth Valley College’s Core Skills lecturer Eleanor Seel, has been praised by the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA).
The Communication Units - Speaking and Listening, have received an ‘Exemplification’ for material which includes video footage and commentaries and has now been published on a password-protected area of the Understanding Standards SQA website, as well as being mentioned on the Authority’s Centre News online newsletter.
As part of the Core Skills course the students cover Communication, ICT and Problem Solving and in order to complete the units the class were given a brief to host an art exhibition. One student, Billy Davers who works at Stirling Castle managed to secure the venue for the exhibition. The students all agreed on a ‘Fantasy’ theme and also created a piece of art linked to Stirling Castle.
The exhibition was held on the Dias at the Chapel Royal in the Castle. Access to the Dias is up a few steps, which would have restricted visitors in wheelchairs. The students overcame this issue. On the day of the exhibition another student, Jake, filmed the artwork with the help of Rob McDermott. Rob also helped two more students, Olivia and Hannah, edit and upload the footage to YouTube so that others who couldn’t make it on the day or were unable to get onto the Dias - could view the exhibition.
Eleanor, said:
“The SQA had asked teachers and lecturers for examples of best practice and we submitted this project for consideration. The 16 students on the NC Art and Design who were involved were all great and I had help from Creative Industries lecturer Gail English and Quality Manager Rob McDermott.
“I helped the students facilitate their ideas and they ended up loving he whole process and solving problems and coming up with ideas to make things work. I was totally delighted with the effort they put in and this resulted on a very successful exhibition at Stirling Castle.
“I feel that this way of doing things really made the students realise the value of Core Skills. It took the theory based subjects and made them actualise and contextualise them to help them create a full event from start to finish and produce the work for it. Making it real breathed life in to the subject as well and they definitely set the bar very high.”
FVC’s Core Skills Curriculum Manager, Stephen Grainger, said:
“This is a fantastic piece of work - it is creative, collaborative and is set to benefit anyone delivering SQA Core Skills units in Colleges and beyond. It's great that the FVC Core & Essential Skills Team have once again been given recognition for their sector-leading practise. I am very proud of Eleanor's latest achievement."