ITTU - Level 2 Award in 'Skills for Teaching Independent Travel'
In addition to working with trainees to support their independence skills, the ITTU deliver an accredited Level 2 qualification to other professionals across the country.
The ITTU’s ‘train the trainer’ course has been nationally recognised with the Open Awards badge of excellence, and has equipped a variety of organisations and their staff with the ability to begin delivering their own bespoke training packages in support of travel and independence training.
The ITTU delivers this directly to groups of individuals, and the specific details can be discussed by contacting the ITTU at travel_training@sandwell.gov.uk.
Course information
The course takes place over two days at a nominated venue to be confirmed by the ITTU and organisation/s making the booking.
Once the booking is confirmed, the ITTU will send out preliminary materials, including the required learner registration forms and an initial questionnaire to ascertain both the suitability of the course to the roles of the individual learners and the level of experience each learner possesses at that point in relation to travel training / teaching independent travel.
The information in the learner registration form will be used to register the learner with the awarding body, Open Awards, in anticipation of the award of the accredited qualification.
The questionnaire will be used to highlight any specific skills/knowledge gaps in relation to travel training and allow the ITTU to see if we need to spend more time on some areas than others during course delivery.
Once the ITTU have received the learner registration forms, a course information email will be sent to each learner who is registered for the qualification.
Where the ITTU don’t have specific contact details for each individual, this message will be sent to the line manager / course liaison to disseminate in good time prior to the commencement of the course.
This course information email will contain mostly the same information as you will find throughout this document, as well as detailing the dates of the course, location of (and map to) the venue, and any specific instructions relating to things such as access arrangements, parking, or relevant local amenities.
Over the two-day course, there will be a considerable amount of discussion and recording of responses (writing) in a workbook that will be collected by the course tutor at the end of the second day.
There will also be a practical activity where the learner group will go out into the local area and spend time assessing an ad-hoc travel training route under the instruction of an experienced ITTU travel trainer.
Following the two days’ learning, learners will have six weeks to compile a portfolio of evidence - with all templates provided - demonstrating delivery of a travel training programme undertaken either with a trainee or hypothetically.
For four of these weeks, learners will have unlimited access to support from the ITTU course tutor via email, MS Teams or telephone – and for the last two weeks, leaners will complete any outstanding work under self-directed study. In this time, learners will not be able to access any further support as per the Open Awards specifications, so the ITTU urges all learners to work towards finishing the portfolios as quickly as possible following the course.
The course is delivered as three units and is designed to cover most eventualities you could experience when delivering a travel training progamme, as well as a variety of strategies to overcome such issues, information regarding the design of training courses and assessment paperwork, as well as ways of positively engaging with potentially uncooperative trainees, parents/carers and learning establishments.
The units are assessed individually so failure of one unit will not necessarily result in overall failure of the qualification.
In this instance, you will receive a certificate for part-credit of the award, but not the whole accredited certification. Non-submission of work will result in failure of the selected units and plagiarism will result in instant disqualification across all units and forfeiture of rights to resubmission.
The ITTU aim to deliver to groups of around ten learners per course – any more (or significantly fewer) attendees impacts the group dynamic and stifles the discussion of key points, as well as impacting the support available from the course tutor/s to individual learners.
The ITTU welcomes groups of learners from one institution, as well as being able to amalgamate groups from a variety of organisations if only one or two places are required.
Where this is the case, there may be a waiting list for such a course as we will not be able to deliver this until approximately 10 individuals have confirmed their interest.
The cost is presently £475 per person, and this includes everything from learner registration to the provision of accredited certification at the end of the course, as well as all materials and refreshments on the day.
If your organisation is outside of Sandwell, any costs incurred through the hiring of a suitable venue would be met by your organisation (within Sandwell this can be negotiated).
To make an enquiry or booking, please email travel_training@sandwell.gov.uk to discuss your requirements.