#APConnect Constellations – Professional Learning in Covid Times

Fire up the Quattro!

I’ve been watching re-runs of Ashes to Ashes recently and feeling I’ve been whipped through some sort of time-travel wormhole myself – FE is everywhere in the public domain, suddenly worthy of notice in a way I haven’t witnessed in a couple of decades.  Covid is disconcerting in many ways, not least the pace of change, and the way that issue after issue is pushed to the fore.

We know – at the grassroots of FE – how essential and life-affirming a service we provide and at the grassroots are thousands of educators forming communities of support and ingenuity, not least of them #APConnect which has grown from a project to a movement in recent years, amazing practitioners leading change in their organisations and across the sector. It was no coincidence that #APConnect graduates led the charge online from the early days of lockdown, and have continued tirelessly through exhaustion to do the day job from their homes and now from their colleges and workplaces in a new term which would have looked like science fiction at the start of the year. FE has never stopped providing a service in recent months.

Jump In

These are the conditions in which we have recruited 100 Advanced Practitioners to year three of #APConnect’s communities of practice, including nearly 60 people who are brand new to us. They will be supported by a small team of graduates and by the other half of the intake – experienced #APConnectors who are proving themselves as the engine room of change. Our ETF-funded #APConnect project provides a structure for communities to flourish – the ideas, vision and inspiration comes from them.

Recruitment wasn’t easy. Naturally Covid affected ETF too and projects were delayed. Instead of kicking off at the slightly more relaxed end of the academic year, we were pushing our recruitment messages out at a time when educators where overwhelmed by new September challenges. How do we welcome students to strange new physical spaces? How do we build in good values online? How do we deal with illnesses, testing, quarantine, local lockdowns, poorly families? It could have felt like something else APs had to do…but we had the courage of our convictions, as did our graduate ambassadors. Community helps. It diffuses the weight. Togetherness has a power all of its own.

After an early rush – mainly from our graduate Constellations C, who know the power of AP unity – applications quietened as they began to percolate through organisations. Endless screen time has shifted the dominance of email and urgents took precedence – naturally – but we persisted, focusing our messaging on community and ‘the power of us’, as David Price explores in his latest book. Interestingly, the sad loss of Price’s friend – friend to us all – Sir Ken Robinson in the midst of it all led to a surge in applications; once again he lifted our heads and helped us see a better future. In the end, we overshot our application target.

There are still issues. #APConnect is now wholly online and we have deliberately minimised fixed contact time – Constellation B is asked to meet face-to-face for two short days in October and January, Constellations C for one. Yet we are still hearing that in some places there will be no remission; that educators are expected to do their professional learning in their ‘own time’ or at half-term – which begs the wellbeing question, when is the time to rest and recoup? And it may only be three short years since I worked in a college, but are teachers expected to organise their own (unpaid) cover now?

After two years of building thriving AP networks, we get to hear soundings from the ‘chalkface’. In some organisations it seems that APs are driving change despite cultures that stay firmly wedded to the challenges of here and now: being compelled to find non-existing physical evidence from awarding bodies (“Where is your signature on this form?”), for example, ramps up the stress levels and impacts on morale. It’s important to be pragmatic, of course, but fear seems to be driving decisions and managerial micro-aggressions in some organisations. If we’ve learned one thing in two and a half years of #APConnect it’s that APs can be trusted to do their work, to do it well, to support one another and to innovate.

This is a minority of cases. There are some brilliantly far-seeing organisations out there and it’s notable that where there’s a history of AP engagement, there is ingenuity, innovation and values-led leadership, particularly around digital but also around what’s most important of all – people. And APs do plenty in their own time – witness the surge in grassroots organisation around #FEResearch, for example, the #BrewEDFE film festival, #JoyFE💛 Thursday’s long running 9pm #ukfechat is more popular than ever, with guest hosts each week (and a growing tradition of #APConnect hosting). More of this, please.

We are in the business of innovation ourselves – without throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Last year we noticed how often we addressed a sea of white faces; this year we’ve partnered not only with the BAME Ed Network but with disability campaigner Dr Mole Chapman to offer a mentoring programme to educators who are hitting the ‘glass ceiling’ – for reasons of diversity? We can’t be sure, but we notice that the demographic profile of FE educators is going in the wrong direction whilst at the same time the number of students with protected identity characteristics is rocketing. And it’s not just about the nine protected characteristics of the Equality Act 2010. Covid has laid bare the challenges faced by working-class people at a time where we are facing an inevitable economic crash. FE, as my friend Rania Hafez so powerfully says, is a working-class service. We are needed more than ever.

We didn’t get everywhere. Independent Training Providers have in many cases furloughed staff – and worse; we got a frightening number of email bounce-backs from #APConnect ITP graduates. Precarious contracts still abound and we hope that training providers can survive these challenging times. We have no offender learning APs this year for the first time, a particular sadness as we have worked with gifted educators each year up to now. Adult and community learning – my heartplace – keeps a good showing due entirely I’m sure to our strong personal and graduate networks. Adult learning for once isn’t forgotten in the government’s latest announcements and we’ll be bringing APs together across the Constellations to amplify ACL’s voice (watch out for the hashtag #AdultConversations). We are delighted too, to welcome new land-based providers to our #APConnect community. We can always do more, and we’d like to work with LANDEX this year.

The Engine (Room) of Change

On application, we ask APs to tell us what their quality improvement project is going to be and two things stand out. Staff and student wellbeing makes a strong showing and many APs use the language of practitioner research – their ‘projects’ are ‘inquiries’ which is an absolute testament to the grassroots work of the #FEResearch community, from whom we take much inspiration. The way we are viewing the Constellations this year is that Bs are focusing on inquiries within the organisation, Cs are amplifying their organisational work on a national stage and C+s are the national change agents – amplifying the culture change potential of advanced practice itself. The establishment of regional #APNetworks is just one way in which we’ll be doing this and they are genuinely AP led, recruited and organised. Maths, English and digital are in there as fundamentals, bringing confidence and change to organisations. New approaches to equality and pedagogy have a strong presence, in the aftershock of recent news. APs are looking at different ways of supporting colleagues to take heart from their own values, shifting the way we see ‘scrutiny’ forever through peer approaches to quality improvement. This year, for the first time, we are bringing together people across the Constellations who have common interests.

Time will tell how far the government’s recent commitment to FE impacts work at the grassroots but the recognition that FE has a fundamental role to play in rebuilding the fabric of our society post-Covid is a fine start. APs demonstrate every single day that teaching the whole individual – and taking care of each other – is at the core of not only economic, but social rebuilding too.

Watch this space. One of our outputs is to produce 50 ‘reflective accounts’ of advanced practice and these will be beautifully multimedia. And watch advanced practice roar.

Lou Mycroft, #APConnect Communities of Practice Lead