Global branded food company

Manage the quality audit systems, including CLAS (ver.3), GMP, QS, G & HP and quality assurance based around product sampling and development of audit systems in line with external organisation and legislative standards from major brand names

With 25 years in work based learning curriculum and programme development, I am currently available for curriculum development and quality assurance. My experience include 14-19, adult skills, employability, traineeships, apprenticeship and sector specific learning programmes.

I was employed as National Curriculum and Development Manager at Kaplan Skills and Employability. I was responsible for development and creation of a quality curriculum design that is responsive to employer and learner needs, covering many sector services including traineeships, employability, functional skills and non- accredited bespoke programmes. I actively input into strategic planning and quality development, especially around English, maths and digital skills. I succesfully contributed to bids and tenders and internal quality assurance processes and head the curriculum excellence group. Experienced in OTLA and Ofsted standards.

I joined First4skills in July 2013 to develop the current learning programmes alongside an established team. First4skills delivers to over 13,000 young people every year, and my remit was to develop the employability and traineeship models for implementation, on a national basis. I was responsible for researching, designing and implementing a grade 1 outstanding programme to enable young people to progress successfully. Alongside this, I was responsible for the quality curriculum of all programmes including; Apprenticeships and Functional Skills. I was also an interim Quality Assurance Manager, managing a team of learning coaches, on a ad-hoc basis and contributed to bid writing and tendering opportunities on a commercial basis.

I was employed as MI and Administration Manager for a large local work based learning provider. I was responsible for the line management of a team of 10 administrative staff members, across three sites. I managed the provision of management information, administrative support and the submission of claims for the delivery of a variety of LA, SFA, ESF, EFA and commercial training programmes. I also designed and implemented internal quality processes to support the administrative function of all staff and the update and marketing of the internal intranet and external website, along with development of the IT strategy for the organisation, which included re-designing the current website and introducing a moodle learning platform.

I was employed by Rathbone as the Development Director for Foundation Learning since October 2007, and was a member of the North West divisional management team for 4 years before this. The main tasks I carried out in this position were; to develop and support the learning and curriculum development of Rathbone centres across England, Scotland and Wales. In this senior role I successfully bid for, and implemented Foundation Learning across England, many of our learning programmes and have worked with key stakeholders to develop the learning and support opportunities further such as, Apprenticeships, Key Skills and Skills for Life and Functional Skills development. I have also written and developed learning and support programmes aimed at supporting young people’s specific social needs which are delivered across the UK, one of which has now been accredited as a verified qualification in Scotland. I was responsible for the production of quality and statistical reports for a variety of funding bodies and stakeholders, the development of new learning materials and deployment of relevant resources, including staffing. I was also responsible for maintaining the quality assurance of the training programmes in over 70 centres for both, the learners and staff and have worked within an internal quality system, including ISO9002 and MATRIX. I have input into company and national policy at various levels and have excellent knowledge as the lead quality auditor of systems within centres in preparation for OFSTED, DWP, LA and YPLA / SFA quality inspection, OTL and have also been involved in developing our pre-16 schools vocational programme, RARPA and MATRIX implementation plans geared around the safeguarding of our young people and staff. I also worked toward full QTLS status.

I joined Rathbone C.I. as a trainee in 1993, where I covered my Administration Level 2 NVQ, whilst gaining experience of clerical duties in the administration department. This gave me the added skills of learning the administrative procedures and government requirements from a trainee side and also from the administration side. I returned to Rathbone C.I. in 1996 to train toward the Assessor and Verifier Award, where I assessed Administration Level 1 and 2 on a voluntary basis for six months to gain the experience to go along with the award and was offered a position with Rathbone in 1997 as training advisor for their newly designed ‘preparatory’ programmes. I then progressed to Senior Training Advisor, managing the day to operations of the Central Manchester training centre which included managing a staff team, budgeting, finance, operating quality programmes funded by LEA, JCP and ESF and developing relationships to maximise funding opportunities. I also developed new key skills programmes for the North West whilst in this role, improving output of Key Skills achievement from 16% to 97% in 12 months.

I was a volunteer and trainee assessor at Rathbone during the time above, whilst I was also attending college to update my professional skills.