How Reaseheath College is driving FE engagement with technology

Katie Jones, Maths Lecturer and CENTURY Lead at Reaseheath College, a landbased college in Cheshire, shares how they’ve integrated CENTURY into their curriculum to support both their GCSE and Functional Skills students, and drive digital skills for all learners.

How does CENTURY align with Reaseheath College’s aims?

We use CENTURY as a core part of our Career Ready Passport which is built round the college’s values of People, Responsibility, Integrity, Digital and Excellence to demonstrate to future employers that our FE students can go above and beyond their core programmes of study.

We track every student’s progress on the platform – regardless of their pathway – by monitoring the number of unique questions they answer correctly. We have found this to be the most appropriate metric to support our students throughout their CENTURY journey.

How did you approach the implementation of CENTURY?

At the beginning of each academic year, I onboard all students onto CENTURY. As part of their induction, they complete the initial assessments and diagnostic tests on the platform. I then allocate the correct courses to the correct student groups, basing this on whether they have achieved a Grade 4 in their English and Maths GCSEs and their chosen curriculum.

All students, whether they are on a GCSE resit course or not, have been set Financial Maths and Landmarks and Legends content. This encourages them to continually boost their numeracy and literacy skills.

Each curriculum course has also designed its own bespoke learning pathway for students to follow. These bespoke pathways include ‘nuggets’ (learning materials and quizzes) from science and geography, focusing on the specific skills needed for their chosen area, such as animal management, agriculture or business.

How does CENTURY fit into teaching at Reaseheath?

All students sitting GCSE or Functional Skills resits have access to CENTURY tasks that I set on a lesson-by-lesson basis for the whole college. They can use these tasks to stretch or support their learning, depending on how they felt within the lesson. Students can also use the platform to prepare ahead of time if they know a subject is coming up that they struggle with, or they can use it afterwards to test their understanding. Curriculum staff can also set their own tasks that align with the modules they are covering within their courses.

Can you share some of the initiatives you’ve set up to drive student engagement?

We actively participate in the Winter and Spring Cups. I award a prize to the top student in each curriculum area, including first, second, and third place across the whole college.

To encourage engagement across the college, I introduced a prize for the highest-engaged curriculum area. This has created a healthy competition among the staff, with course managers trying to beat each other. This excitement from the course managers encourages the students to log on and join in. We also took part in the CENTURY Changemakers competition last year, where some of our students contributed ideas for sustainability apps.

How do you monitor this engagement?

Engagement is monitored through our Business Intelligence (BI) system. CENTURY sends a bespoke report to our registry department every week. They use this to generate a spreadsheet that informs curriculum managers whether their students have achieved their ‘Career Ready Passport Digital Stamp’. Students must answer 250 unique questions correctly for bronze, 300 for silver, and 350 for gold.

Curriculum managers can track their individual students’ progress throughout the year using this data. Additionally, I request CENTURY reports specifically for the Winter Cup standings. This saves me time and allows me to disseminate the results faster and more appropriately to the students who have progressed the furthest.

What impact have you noticed from using CENTURY?

I recently had a student tell me that they felt their latest assessment score improved because they had started using CENTURY to support their learning of ratio.

This year, I’ve noticed a significant increase in engagement from our adult learners, particularly those studying English and Maths Functional Skills. It’s a contrast to last year when we didn’t use the platform and saw engagement levels drop. Many of these learners come from external study groups, such as those studying at a local hospital. The platform has really helped them to refresh their understanding and discover both what they need to improve on and what they are actually good at. It has been interesting to see how proactive our adult learners have been this year.

Do you have any plans going forward with CENTURY?

We plan to continue using the competitions, such as the Winter and Spring Cups. Having CENTURY as part of the Career Ready passport has been extremely beneficial for students across the college because it helps to dispel the assumption that the platform is only for resit students.

Going into the next academic year, we want to focus on making sure CENTURY is not just seen as a tool to help those who haven’t achieved a Grade 4, but that it can actually help all students, regardless of where they are in the college. This shift is partly driven by our students, who have continually fed back in surveys that they wanted more finance-related topics integrated into their studies. The financial maths content, in particular, links directly into business, and those are skills that many of our students will use immediately when they leave college or as part of their work experience.

If you would like to learn more about how CENTURY can support functional skills delivery at your college, book a demo.

If you are already a CENTURY customer and would like to know more about maximising your college’s engagement with the platform, speak to your Account Manager or email support@century.tech.