#MyAyrshire
Shelagh McLachlan, Head of Marketing and Front of House at Ayrshire College, spoke to Joyce Stirton, Employability and Engagement Team Leader at the HIVE, about her team, in the first of our new blog series #MyAyrshire
5 things you love about the HIVE
My team: they are the most supportive, encouraging, inspirational people I know! Right now they are working hard developing new ideas for our 2020/21 session. They are looking at what works / what didn’t work, and changing and adapting their teaching materials. Thinking out of the box for our students and delivering the most creative and thoughtful learning activities is what they do best.
My students: I just love them! All 450 of them (estimated per academic year). I love helping them to believe in themselves. They often tell us, ‘I couldn’t have done this without you’, but really they had to want to do it in the first place. Yes, their behaviour can be challenging, but I’m a big believer in finding the reason behind the behaviour, and drilling down to find out “the why”. Lots of 1-1 conversations are needed to calm the person, ease their anxiety, build confidence and re-engage them in an educational setting. Many come to us with real issues, including social, emotional and behavioural concerns or have chaotic lifestyles. We show them how to deal with relationships and how this can affect where they are now.
The challenge: our students are some of the most vulnerable students in the College. The HIVE is designed for those who require extra support to develop essential skills. They come from a wide variety of backgrounds including care experienced, exceptional entry, ACES, and range in ages 15 – 24 years (25 for Princes Trust Team programme). They all have problems which they don’t realise they can overcome, and we help them do that by developing their confidence so that they can make positive changes to their lives.
The closeness of our team: we work together in an innovative and engaging way to nurture our students and provide a safe and relaxing environment. However it can be very challenging and we are always there for each other to offer support and encouragement. At this time we are facing an uncertain future, but my team are so flexible and adaptable, they will be able to deal with it once we get clarity; they are very passionate about what they do and they want to do it.
Making a difference: when we see our young people achieving, becoming more confident and independent and making informed choices for themselves, that for me is what the HIVE is all about. Many of them move into positive destinations i.e. other college courses, training, apprenticeships and employment. The good thing about most of the students that move is the fact that they always come back to us to let us know what and how they are doing.
What motivates you to run such a successful department?
All of the above! I like to get to know my students as much as possible, and this is hard as they are spread out across all three campuses. I tend to get to know the ones who have the most challenging behaviour. However, if one of my team tells me about how well one of our students has done, I make a point of going to see that student to tell them how proud I am of their achievement, that they are really starting to show what they are made of, and are moving forward in the right manner.
I also try to remain grounded and cover classes when I can in order to support the team and students. I have a really positive outlook in life and will do anything to help anyone, as will my team.
How do you inspire your team to achieve their goals?
I am really passionate about what I do and this has rubbed off on my team. They have extremely challenging days and they know they can come to me and discuss it. I try to give them positive feedback such as ‘I don’t know what I would have done today without you handling this situation.’ It is important to keep up the positivity in the team and try to change perspectives if any negativity creeps in. They know I am there to support and encourage them as much as I can.
What is your proudest achievement with the HIVE?
Our close knit team and their ability to be positive, flexible and adaptable. They are multi-talented and together we use these strengths to deliver incredible programmes for our students.
The multiple successes we have had with students. We make learning fun! Our courses are 18 weeks in length, but in some cases it can take six weeks or more just to engage them and help them to see the purpose of what we do. We do this through teambuilding and light-heartedness whilst introducing college rules and regulations. Our students come out of the HIVE with more confidence and lots of essential skills but no real qualifications. However, we have recently introduced Princes Trust Achieve units and Heartstart and Defibrillator training so they can be proud not just of the skills they have learned, but the certificates they have achieved. I love our celebrations which take place at the end of each programme and the students do a presentation of their journey, which is inspiring and tear jerking at the same time.
I’m also pleased that we are now offering 6 hours delivery on all Level 4 courses across the College. Our engagement officers teach health and wellbeing skills for life, learning and work. It’s about developing the students meta skills, project work along with essential life skills, confidence and resilience. The support, discussions, activities and a focus on how to be mentally, socially and physically healthy seems to be helping with retention on these courses. Students on these courses have a variety of personal issues and our engagement officers have got the experience and the skills to help them deal with these. It’s amazing for these students to find out what they do know, and what they are capable of, and this realisation can be life changing.
Finally we have had good success delivering courses in schools directly to groups of pupils who are often likely to progress to the HIVE once they leave school. They take part in a few different courses such as Engagement, PT Achieve and ASDAN programmes which all include team and confidence building.
How are your current students doing during this Covid-19 crisis?
If our students are not in College, they disengage. We have set up group chats on Facebook and Whatsapp to keep the contact going. But of course some don’t have access to phones, laptops or the internet. Most of our work is practical, because the students need that face to face interaction. We’ve sent work books, but it’s frustrating for us because some of them don’t feel capable of working independently. We do have inclusive learning assistants who work in our team and are very supportive people, so we can support them from a distance if they are willing to engage.
At the moment my priority is to support any student who comes to me with any questions or worries.
For our current applicants, I phone every single one of them and interview them on the phone. This process usually starts with a text or an email or I call their next of kin and eventually we get a chat on the phone.
How is your team doing at this time?
We also have group chats and weekly team meetings just to check everyone is doing ok. We are very good at keeping up everyone’s spirits!
Our priority is developing our courses and getting everything ready for 2020/21 - we’re big into sharing – everything goes on the shared drive and we all support each other to try to do new things. Change is a good thing! Once you accept change is going to happen, then the ability to change is easier. We’re all looking forward to the new term and a new way of working together. Bring it on!
For more information on HIVE courses, click on the link