Welcome to the latest edition of the LSC South East marketing ezine for providers and partners. Please find included details of campaigns we will be running over the coming months. Train to GainThe funding and training opportunities available through Train to Gain have been expanded as part of the Government's response to the global credit crisis and its intention to help small business thrive during challenging times. This expansion includes additional funding opportunities for first and second Level 2 and Level 3 training as well as a widening of the Leadership and Management offer, ensuring that employees at all levels and businesses of all sectors and sizes have the chance to benefit from training. In addition to the new package of support for small businesses, a new marketing and communications campaign will begin next month. The campaign will underline the benefits of developing new skills and retraining, as well as describing the breadth of the support on offer from Government. The television advertising campaign will run from Monday 10 November (ad will be available on youtube from this date) until Sunday 30 November and radio from Monday 17 November through to 30 November. This will be supported by strong PR highlighting the real stories behind Train to Gain, such as testimonials from businesses which have used the service to carry on with training, and the views of service ambassadors to support these messages. Further details can be found on the powerpoint presentation here For more information on Train to Gain marketing activity scheduled in the South East Region, click here The new Management and Leadership Training programme just launched is a great marketing opportunity;
Any leads or enquiries should go to Skills South East on 0845 751 2288 or info@traintogainse.co.uk ApprenticeshipsAs part of the April launch of the National Apprenticeship Service (including the vacancy matching service) there will be a number of national campaigns in Spring 2009. The main target for campaigns will be employers with an aim to achieve an additional 40,000 apprenticeship places in the next 12 months. The good news is that Sir Alan Sugar has been recruited to promote Real Apprentices. He will feature on a:
More information will follow shortly on the new National Apprenticeship Service and the Vacancy Matching Service
Regionally we will be supplementing some of the above activity with further regional radio & press advertising and also with sectoral direct marketing which we will advise you of shortly. Meantime please see the most up to date South East Apprenticeship Activity schedule here
Marketing & Communications Provider ConferenceThank you to all those that attended this years LSC South East Marketing & Communications Provider Conference at Sandown Park . Feedback from the event was largely positive with a considerable number of delegates marking the event as excellent. In response to the questions that were asked on the day, we are currently awaiting feedback from colleagues and as soon as we have this it will be forwarded on. The new forum will be discussing the conference and ideas for next years event at their next meeting 11th December.
New Provider Marketing and Communication Forum members:Here are your new marketing and communications forum members. These have been nominated by the FE and WBL network leads as their representatives. We are aiming for closer links with the operational networks and a more interactive style of forum. The forum meetings will happen quarterly with the first one on 11 th December. We will issue the terms of reference of the group agreed after the first forum meeting. Please do let your forum representative know if there is anything you want discussed on the agendas:
Colleges WeekColleges Week is a celebration of the role colleges play across the country in unlocking talent in communities and transforming the lives of learners. The first ever Colleges Week runs from 10-16 November and focuses on five themes demonstrating the impact colleges have on developing skills, delivering excellence, building strong communities, helping businesses to succeed and transforming lives.
In addition to the colleges mentioned above, 18 partner colleges will be running significant Skills Challenges during the week and will be supported in media relations activity by Band & Brown Communications. These colleges (listed by LSC, not TV region) are:
VIPs from regional LSCs and partner organisations will be welcome at relevant Ministerial events or Skills Challenges, please contact collegesweek@bbpr.com to confirm your attendance. If you are planning any activities or have any imaginative ideas that you would like to be carried forward as part of Colleges Week and are not listed in the table above please contact adam.sharp@lsc.gov.uk Colleges Week Fast FactsWebsite Facts
Colleges involvement
National media relations
Features TBC:
Regional media relations Central Sussex College is hosting a Business Breakfast for local employers, during Colleges' Week, a national event running from the 10-14 November, designed to celebrate the role colleges play in unlocking talent and transforming the lives of learners. One of the week's themes, colleges help businesses to succeed', will be marked with a breakfast meeting on Wednesday 12 th November, where Central Sussex College will meet with around 30 business representatives in the local area that they help to deliver training to. We will be contacting a wide range of colleges to find out what events they have been involved in to celebrate Colleges' Week. Queens Anniversary PrizesEntry Documents for the seventh round of the Queens Anniversary Prizes for Higher and Further Education have been sent out to universities and colleges in the UK . The Queens Anniversary Prize aims highlight the outstanding contribution that universities and colleges make towards the intellectual, economic and Cultural landscape of the UK . The closing date for entries is 1 April 2009, prize winners will be announced in November. More information on how you can put forward your nomination follow the link here Provider Development ProgrammesWorld Class Skills is a new programme to help colleges and training providers to improve the way they work with employers and employees. The Programme includes workshops and seminars on managing change, sales skills, funding and finance. For more information go to http://wcs.excellence.qia.org.uk RIBA/ LSC Further Education Design Awards 2008The RIBA/LSC Further Education Design Awards 2008 will be launched shortly. The awards aim to celebrate design excellence in recently completed FE buildings. A leaflet will be sent to eligible colleges in the next few weeks. The team organising the awards are keen to contact the architects involved too. If you have contact details for relevant architects please could you forward them to louise.anderson@lsc.gov.uk Skills CampaignThis autumn marks the wrap up of the LSC's Summer of Skills. This activity was designed to help raise awareness about the benefits of learning new skills and addressed the barriers that people identify when considering learning. The campaign rolled out over the summer with widespread print, radio and broadcast coverage featuring LSC spokespeople relevant to each barrier. Key highlights included TV broadcast coverage on BBC Breakfast, BBC News 24 and The Wright Stuff, during which spokesperson James Caan discussed why well-trained employees are so important in the workplace. The LSC is about to embark on the final phase of the Summer of Skills activity, the History of Modern Learning, which takes a look at how learning has changed over the past 40 years and shows people that there really is nothing standing in the way of learning new skills. Skills for LifeThe nights are getting longer and the weather getting colder so the campaign office is beginning to turn their thoughts to Christmas and the many hazards posed to those without basic skills. We are currently designing a handy helpbook which will provide advice on cooking the Christmas turkey, writing Christmas cards and budgeting for gifts - to be handed out by street teams across the country in December. The Get On campaign continues to focus on the achievements of our inspiring case studies, focusing on how good basic skills are essential to advancing up the career ladder and earning more money. Dad of two, Declan Mac Intyre, featured in The Sun jobs pages last month, talking about his new job and new found love of reading. Pat White, who went from not being able to read or write to undertaking a degree, was featured in a double page spread in her local paper, the Sunday Sun. If you know a learner with a life-changing story, please do let us know by calling the campaign office on 020 7544 3130. Finally, we are refreshing some of our great marketing materials and are planning football and darts-themed scratchcards for the New Year. Do not forget that we have family games, postcards, bookmarks, and other marketing materials available to you, and they are all free. Call the campaign office on 020 7544 3130 to order. Adult Learner GrantWe have recently completed some exciting activity focusing on the topic of Brain Training, partnering with neurophysiologist Dr David Lewis of MindLab to create a report looking at the benefits of learning for maintaining a healthy brain. The research highlighted that the human brain is capable of high level learning at whatever age. So far we have generated coverage on Radio 4s Learning Curve programme, in The Sun and also in Mens Health magazine. Alongside this project we are continuing to identify case study placement opportunities such as a feature that appeared in Family Magazine this week showcasing an ALG case study and statistics from the ALG One Year On campaign. Skills AccountsOn 29 September twenty strategic learning providers in the East Midlands and the South East began offering newly enrolled learners the chance to open a Skills Account. Learners will be able to access the complete Skills Account service from its new online portal at www.direct.gov.uk/skillsaccounts which is currently under development and due to go live later in November. Once the website is live learners will be able to access support from nextstep and the Careers Advice Service to help them open and manage their Skills Account. Skills Accounts are in the first wave of the trial process and are designed to provide a gateway through which learners can access personalised careers advice including details of courses in their area, and their eligibility for Government funding to meet the costs of learning. Skills Accounts will give learners more choice and support and a greater sense of ownership over their own future. An e-bulletin is being distributed to key stakeholders and partners on the last Friday of each month in order to keep them up to speed on all of the trials developments. If you would like to receive the e-bulletin, please email sally.askew@lsc.gov.uk National Skills Academy NetworkThe past month has seen real progress for the National Skills Academy Network with the announcement that four new skills academies have successfully reached the business planning phase in their bid to become fully operational skills academies. The new skills academies for Enterprise , Power, IT and Social Care will receive up to £30m in capital and revenue funding to be matched by employers. The four new skills academies will add to the existing network of twelve; ten of which are operational and two in business planning. An estimated 880,000 people will now be supported by the 16 skills academies during their first five years of operation. Total Government investment in the programme will reach an estimated £120m. EMAIn response to recent processing issues on the delivery of EMA, the LSC extended the deadline for applications to the end of October to ensure no eligible learner misses out on their entitlement. The LSC continues to work with the contractor Liberata to resolve these issues, and in recent weeks performance has been high with over 400,000 young people having been sent their Notice of Entitlements to date.
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