Developing, supporting, informing  

Central themes

• Developing Foundation degrees in Travel, Tourism, Retail and Hospitality (TTRH)
• Supporting FD learners
• Informing curriculum teams on the design of FD programmes, and learners on progression opportunities to such programmes

Summary of the day

Twenty-two educators and industry practitioners attended the TTRH curriculum strand conference.

Informal feedback during and directly following the conference was very positive with many participants commenting on the effectiveness of the interactive style of delivery and the use of a key experiential learning activity.  This particular session ‘Virtually an on-line experience’ explored the virtual learning and communications needs of FD learners and the means by which IT can be more effectively integrated into FD learning programmes.

The final session on the development of appropriate skills for access to FD awards in TTRH explored and subsequently drew together the three main themes of the day via workshops on specific, interpersonal, transferable and technical skills in the four key vocational disciplines of travel, tourism, retail and hospitality.

The comments, observations and findings from the day’s activities were captured by Julie Evans, the SLN/TTR administrator and Julie will be writing these up fully for analysis by the TTRH team in due course. However it is already clear that the conference’s primary objective has been achieved in that feedback and suggestions received from delegates will play a significant part in the planning and implementation of SLN/TTRH’s second year development programme.

Preliminary analysis

Critical considerations affecting curriculum development emphasis and the roll-out of year 2’s programme should include the following points.

• Literacy and general employability skills are regarded as critical by most stakeholder groups, but the employment sector has no plans to expand its own support or provision in these areas (in fact recent CBI research tabled at the conference points to the opposite). What are the implications for Access/ FD content and design and what do these findings imply about education providers’ responsibilities?
• Interpersonal, transferable and technical skills are all regarded as ‘important’, but the first of these three areas are most critical for the service sector and needs considerable emphasis.

Links to the materials from the event are at the bottom of the screen.