In this webinar, Mike Sims, Chief Product Officer at Aptem and Ryan Palmer, Director of Quality & Impact at YMCA look at sub-programmes and how they can simplify the management and delivery of your programmes.

The following is a transcript of the questions asked during the webinar, along with the experts' answers. For any further information, do contact your IC or support.

Does the ILR update with the claims for the FS if the sub-programme is added? Or does this have to be done manually?

Yes. If the sub-programmes have ILR aims configured against them (eg for Functional Skills) and/or have qualifications assigned, they will automatically update the learner's ILR and will also automatically be added into Awarding Body Registration and Certification with a status of 'Not Registered', so that you can track the qualification as well.

When a sub-programme was added to a user in the presentation, there was a pencil symbol to edit the programme. I don't have this option to edit a programme and add a sub-programme. Why and what can I do to change that?

In order to add or edit a learner's programme you will need the 'Edit Programmes' role to be included in your roles (in your user profile). Systems adminstrators with the ability to assign roles to admins will be able to give this access if it's appropriate to do so.

In our L2/L3 Diploma in Care, there are up to 30 optional units that the learners will need to choose approx 7 to 8 of to complete to achieve the diploma. How can we use sub-programmes to facilitate the delivery?

If you have common combinations of optional units you could gather those together to create a number of sub-programmes combinations available to choose, with core units being attached to the main delivery programme. This would cover the majority of common pathways and reduce the administrative effort required .

Can I ask what would be the benchmark that Aptem would work on to determine if a learner should be allocated to a level 1 or 2 functional skill?

We have integration with BKSB and Skills forward to enable the learner to undertake an initial skills assessment. The system will then take account of any applicable Maths, English and ICT qualifications entered through the PLR according to the ESFA rules to ascertain what level the learner is at on the basis of what qualifications have been achieved. We would then expect the provider to review this information and select appropriate FS programmes for the learner.

When you add a sub-programme to a learner, can you synchronise that sub-programme to other learners in the usual way you can with components?

Where you make changes to a component for a learner, you can synchronise sub-programme component changes to other learners as you can with main programme components. You cannot use the synchronise function to enrol other learners onto the sub-programme as a programme/qualification. You would need to add the sub-programme to the learners you wanted to enrol on that sub-programme to do this.

Can you add the sub-programme to the user generic reports?

The ability to filter on sub-programmes and also select them in UGR reports and OData feed will be available in a future release.