Our newsletter updates you about the changes proposed to Adult and Community Learning at Greenwich Community College. View this email in your browser ACL Update - 5 May 2015 Keeping you up to date with developments Thank you for sending in more questions which we respond to below - don't forget, you can view the entire list of updates on our website here Q. Will the Italian 2 class will run after May 2015? A. We hope to run the Italian 2 course again next year. Q. Please can you explain what the college's plans are regarding the photography department? A. There are two processes underway at the same time at the College. One is a change in the terms and conditions of teachers on a permanent teaching contract. We have asked teachers to sign a new contract. In addition we are consulting on a reorganisation of the ACL provision in the College. We will need to complete the consultation process and determine the outcome of this before we know whether posts will exist or not. In the meantime the curriculum plan for next year will be developed. It is possible that some courses move from being taught by a permanent member of staff to a part time member of staff. Photography classes have on average 8 students to a class with some classes as low as just 4 students which is not an efficient use of staff resources. Q. When will the Staff Consultation on the ACL restructure end? The consultation will be complete on Wednesday 27 May 2015. Q. Will all teaching be carried out by agency staff? A No. We are committed to directly employing staff wherever possible, we want to ensure that we have a bank of regular staff to engage and build up a rapport with our students. Employing staff through agencies is generally a last resort, and can be expensive. Therefore, from a cost and quality perspective we plan to avoid staffing through agencies wherever possible. Q. You say that you are in a 'consultation process', but in fact no permanent ACL staff have been offered new contracts, so are effectively redundant. Please comment on this? A. The consultation is on the proposed new structure for the delivery of the ACL provision. There is a possibility that some or all of the permanent teaching staff posts will be redundant at the end of the consultation process. We are asking for feedback on the proposed new structure taking into account the fact that the ACL delivery is making a financial loss and the utilisation of the permanent teaching staff is too low to be efficient. We are open to suggestions. The new teaching contract comes into effect in September. Any permanent teaching posts in the ACL structure (if there are any) will be appointed to using the new contract. However in the first instance the process is to start the consultation on the new structure and then discuss the new contract. Q. The sum you need to raise for a new 'craft construction centre' is the same amount as this proposed 'restructuring' will save the college. Is developing one area of the college at the expense of existing staff and courses fair? A. The fact is the College is making a significant loss on its ongoing operations both ACL and FE. With old contractual terms for teachers, poor utilisation of teaching staff, inefficient class group sizes. All of these issues have to be sorted out otherwise the College could become bankrupt. The sum of money that the College is making in contribution to the new construction skills centre is a capital figure i.e. it comes from cash reserves we have in the bank. Those cash reserves are being depleted at the present time due to the inefficient operation of the College and annual losses the College currently makes. The investment in the construction skills centre is a completely separate issue and is a relatively small sum compared to the investment in the centre being made by partners and represents very good use of funds as it will fund provision in an area with significant demand – groups sizes and the utilisation of staff will be efficient. So there is no link between the two figures. Do you have a question? We welcome your questions. If you have one just email it to [email protected] and we will aim to have the answers published in these regular updates. Do you know somebody who wants to join the mailing list? Here's our sign up form - click here Copyright © 2015 Greenwich Community College, All rights reserved. You're receiving this email because we think you would like to hear about updates on the changes at GCC - if you do not want to receive them you can unsubscribe below. Our mailing address is: Greenwich Community College 95 Plumstead Road London Greenwich, Gre SE18 7DQ United Kingdom Add us to your address book unsubscribe from this list update subscription preferences
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