My name is Matt Taylor and I am the Head of Quality Assurance for Aspire Education Academy. I have worked at Aspire for 11 years now where I have witnessed year-on-year progression as part of the Senior Management Team which has enabled Aspire to become a leading nationwide training provider for adult education. My role as the Head of Quality is to ensure the best possible learning experience for all of our learners. My Quality Assurance Team are always on hand to provide support and 'drive up quality' across all provision. A key part of the Quality role is speaking to learners and listening to their course experiences including how this is helping their employability and education prospects. We aim to provide fun, interactive courses that are inclusive to all, whereby learners achieve their goals and aspirations in which they progress into positive destinations.

My name is Mark Blackburn and I am the Operations Manager for Aspire Education Academy. I have worked for Aspire for 7 years now and have seen many changes within the business as we grew and developed as a training provider. My role as the Operations Manager is to ensure the smooth running of our Education Support Programmes and to ensure that tutors perform to the standards we have as a business. I will support the Quality Department in identifying areas for development and arranging training sessions, to ensure that our bespoke courses are of the highest quality for our learners. We want our courses to be fun and engaging and the tutors who I manage always share examples of excellence and ideas to standardised fun activities for all our learners. The tutors go above and beyond and care for the outcomes of their learners, doing their upmost to support the individual needs of the learners.

My names is Sarah Lewis-Holder and I am the HR Manager at Aspire. I am an ambitious and creative HR practitioner who supports all the key decision-making business responsibilities alongside our Senior Management Team. I am responsible for the HR Strategy of our business and assess the ongoing impact and risk to ensure that the right process and procedure is followed. I love working with people and feel this is the most rewarding part of my role. I can see the best in people and support individuals in problem solving their own difficulties into manageable, workable solutions. Within the HR department, we deal with recruitment, through to interview and selection and support the retention of all staff throughout their Aspire journeys. We also deal with learning and development, disciplinary and grievance as well as talent management and succession planning.

I have been working at Aspire for over 12 years as part of our Senior Leadership Team. During my time here I have overseen and supported the delivery of various funding streams including Apprenticeships, 24+ Loans and Adult Education. My current role includes managing our direct contracts with Liverpool City Region and the ESFA, and numerous subcontracts across the country. In addition, I oversee our procurement strategy and work with other senior leaders/directors to implement performance and growth plans throughout the academic year, whilst supporting our MIS and Quality teams to ensure we deliver compliant and high-quality training.

Our MIS Team will ensure your application to enrol on to the Aspire Education programme is accurate and meets the eligibility requirements for funding. MIS will check that your Post Code is in a funded area, and we will request documents from you to ensure we have the correct evidence stored on file, for example, proof of identification, residency status, share codes for education, proof of benefits and/or pay slips if you are in employment. MIS will check your prior learning and send you the BKSB English and Maths initial assessments for you to complete. Once you have completed your Initial Assessments, you have completed the enrolment process, and you will be assigned to your learning programme. MIS will send you a confirmation email to invite you to the awareness session. Following your attendance to the awareness session, MIS will email you login details for Microsoft Teams and OneFile. The email will confirm the qualification package and you tutor contact details. After you have completed your learning journey, MIS will process your completions and claim your certificates with the Awarding Body. This process can take up to 12 weeks before you receive them in the post.

I’m Emma and I’m the Marketing and Engagement Lead here at Aspire! In my role, I’m responsible for managing all things marketing from the website to our social media platforms (give them a follow if you haven’t already!), and everything in between. The other half of my position is to lead our Learner Engagement Team as we follow and offer support to our learners from enrolment all the way through to employment or progression onto another programme. As part of the course, we organise Employment Sessions, Professional Guest Visits, and lots more. Every day is a new adventure at Aspire which is why I’m so proud to be part of this company and I’m excited for our continued development as a nationwide training provider.

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