At the start of the planning meeting for this year, the organisation had decided to make changes. Instead of assigning tutors a class for the whole year, the unit manager had decided to recognise areas of expertise and assign tutor’s areas of curriculum rather than one singular class. In theory, this seemed like an excellent plan… In practice, it has not quite worked.

Motivation is what teachers, tutors or educators think of as the distinguishing feature of adult learners from school pupils. Based on their more mature behaviour due to age and past experiences, what we tend to assume is that adult learners come into the classroom with ‘bags of motivation’ and are ready to absorb what we teach.

The purpose of this research was to establish the benefits of changing the student induction process to increase retention on childcare courses during the first four weeks of the course.

For the organisation I work for, learners with challenging behaviour are more and more frequently being enrolled at the college, each learner is individually funded by the Local Education Authority with support ranging from £22,000 to £110,000 per year. Therefore, identifying a workable and manageable behaviour strategy and policy that can be used consistently in the classroom and across the college is ever more important to get right in order to meet such targets.