Yorkshire and Humber Learning Community has been developed as an online learning tool to support the Yorkshire and Humber workforce. The Active Partnerships involved, North Yorkshire Sport, Active Humber and Yorkshire Sport Foundation wanted to make training and development more accessible, less time consuming and able to reach every postcode.
They have showcased their modules over the first week in April and have more in development to be added through 2020. The project has received Sport England Innovation funding and is led by North Yorkshire Sport.
Comments from clubs were all too familiar and included ones such as “we need more easily accessible training to fit around work for volunteers”. Areas of Yorkshire & Humber are some of the most rural creating issues with people travelling for training and the Active Partnerships reported more face to face courses were being cancelled.
Driven using insight and trends, the site currently hosts a range of modules including five for clubs and organisers and six aimed at schools and PE leads. The ethos behind it is about informal, bitesize training that is accessible for all the workforce whether at a club, school or community group. They are tutor led, so you will meet and be guided through the learning, resources and case studies in a friendly way by an experienced person or specialist and last between 20minutes and 1hour. Designed not to replace any face to face training but as an option for those not able to attend these, where there isn’t a training option available or as a hook as each module guides the learner to other courses or information.
Jane Ratcliffe, Development Manager for Northe Yorkshire Sport said "I wanted something engaging and fresh. Something that can be watched un-begrudgingly and in under one hour. That inspired people to make a couple of changes to their sessions or organisations. That used experts in their field and examples from closer to home so that our contexts and workforce can hear from someone like them. But it needs to be interactive and reflective, so the tutor will be asking questions and setting tasks. Use of a discussion board and hints to watch the content with someone else or at a club training session. And then those key resources and links that can be kept for when someone needs a refresher".
A learner who took the Increasing your Membership through Facebook told us that “after taking this module, I’m going to think about my target audiences’ motivations more when I advertise”.
David Watson, Chief Executive at North Yorkshire Sport said “this project is a great example of innovation and collaboration. Three Active Partnerships coming together as well as other agencies to produce what our clubs, organisations and schools are asking for is really exciting for us to be driving”.
The latest module to launch is Engaging Women and Girls in Sport and Physical Activity. Hosted by Kate Roberts from StreetGames, the module guides the learner through the current statistics and state of play, the barriers and motivations, designing a session, communication and retention using research from their own organisation, This Girl Can and Women in Sport.
To visit the site: www.yhlearning.co.uk or for more information contact jane@northyorkshiresport.co.uk.
Blog by project lead here: https://www.northyorkshiresport.co.uk/news/2020/04/why-yorkshire-and-humber-learning-community
