Blackpool Transport ULRs organised their
Learning at Work day (LAW) 2010 event around it’s achievements of
the last twelve months. It was hoped that this in turn would
encourage new learners into the learning centre.
On the day ULRs Joanne Mansbridge and Paul
McGovern organised the event while Unite the Union Learning
Organisers John Lea and Dean Briody attended along with Keith
Pemberton unionlearn Project Worker to give support.
The Learning Centre at the bus depot first
opened on LAW day 2009 and since then Blackpool & Fylde
College have been at the centre, delivering Literacy and Numeracy
courses at Level 1 and Level 2.
During this time Unite the Union has also
delivered various IT courses at the Learning Centre, which has
promoted the learning agenda within the workplace.
This year’s event was put together with two
main themes. The main objective was to encourage as many new
learners as possible to make use of the learning centre.
Although all the employees were targeted, we specially wanted to
attract older employees to come along.
The second aim was to celebrate the learners
from the first year. This was achieved by the college handing out
certificates to those who had now gained
qualifications. This also helped make the ones entering
for the first time realise what was possible and what had already
been achieved by their colleagues.
A good number of new employees came in to the
learning centre during the day, completing both a Learning Needs
Analysis and assessments.
Kevin Beadon, Numeracy tutor from Blackpool
& Fylde College handed out the OCR certificates to various
learners throughout the day.
There were quite a number of new faces showing
interest on the day as well as enquiries for courses that had been
run and also for new courses planned. The ULRs have just
negotiated with the college to start running a Sign Language course
which is to start shortly.
More IT courses are planned with new learners
starting off while learners who had completed previous IT
qualifications were wanting more advanced courses. Unite the
Union are again looking to provide this support.
One of the highlights of the day was bus
driver Derek Holder who had completed Level 1 and Level 2 Numeracy
through the learning centre. He had certainly caught the bug
and now wants to go to Blackpool & Fylde College to do a Level
3 Numeracy course.
Trevor Roberts, MD of Blackpool Transport
attended the day and was really impressed with not both the amount
of people who came in and with what had been achieved during the
first year.
