Our Friends in Forth Valley: The partnership and what it means for SERC

Since SERC established a partnership and signed a memorandum of understanding with Forth Valley College (FVC) in 2017, the Colleges have collaborated on many successful projects.  FVC is made up of more than 14,500 students and 600 staff and offers more than 750 courses at its campuses in Alloa, Falkirk and Stirling in Scotland.

The aim in creating the partnership was to improve effectiveness of education and training provision at both Colleges, through sharing best practice, pooling expertise and creating challenges where students from the two establishments could collaborate or compete.

SERC and FVC share a vision for developing digital learning and Project-Based Learning (PBL) and are also both committed to investing in their people. So, collaboration on curriculum development and on staff professional development are core characteristics of the partnership.

Right from the start of the collaboration, groups of teaching staff in the two colleges worked together to design learning activities (ensuring that they met learning outcomes for awarding bodies in both countries), and actively engaged students in planning, researching and problem solving with their peers.

An early success for the partnership was a PBL Conference which was presented simultaneously via live streaming at SERC’s Bangor, Downpatrick and Lisburn campuses and FVC’s Stirling Campus in 2018, with delegates from both colleges also visiting each other’s premises for the event.   

The relationship quickly grew and was recognised with the Innovation prize at the Scottish College Development Network (CDN) Awards in 2018. The judges were  particularly impressed with the use of digital communication between the teams a tool to enable and promote collaboration on problem-solving.

This aspect stood the colleges and their relationship in good stead when the Covid –19 pandemic struck; the institutions were well-prepared for online learning and working and continued to co-operate to create an online conference for teachers in August 2020 and for corporate staff in January 2021.  Almost 1000 staff attended the two events in total.

And as we emerge from the challenges of the pandemic, the two colleges continue to build on this success and to deliver measurable results for both students and staff.

For example, FVC is one of the four international partners involved in an Innovative Digital Education & Skills (IDEAS) project which SERC leads on. SERC secured Erasmus funding to the tune of €276k to support the activity.

In terms of professional development, a number of staff from FVC have participated in SERC’s ‘Bridging the Gap’ Middle Management Programme. 

This will dovetail nicely with a Senior Management Leadership Programme. Individual corporate staff teams at SERC and FVC have also been establishing contact, taking the opportunity to forge relationships, explore best practice and discuss proposals for shared training sessions which would offer economic savings and learning opportunities for both colleges. 

Having seen activity continue successfully through the pandemic, it will be interesting to watch partnership evolve as the landscape changes.