This paper draws on an empirical study conducted in the UK to explore some of the issues surrounding young people on the lowest level VET programmes and make suggestions about ways in which the learner experience at this level might be enhanced. UK policy perception of young people undertaking low level VET programmes in Further Education (FE) colleges tends to characterise them within a deficit model of social exclusion, disaffectionand disengagement(Colley, 2003:169). Many have special educational needs (Atkins, 2013a). They have been the focus of multiple initiatives in both the context of the New Labour 14-19 agenda, and more recently in the Coalition governments response to the Wolf Review of Vocational Education (2011). These initiatives have largely consisted of the provision of routes through a range of VET opportunities, allegedly to enable young people to engage with the knowledgesociety (Bathmaker, 2005). This paper problematises these notions of opportunity, drawing on the little storiesof four young people to argue that the rhetoric which permeates Government documents fails to consider the significance of young peoples social and educational positioning. Finally, the paper considers the implications of these issues in terms of future practice, policy and research in the UK context.

This paper is written from the perspective of creative practitioners in sound, music and the visual arts teaching in UK higher education. Primarily concerned with the understanding of creativity as a developmental capacity and identifiable and measurable process and outcome, what began initially as a focused discussion about the assessment of creative artefacts developed progressively into a more general analysis of creative value in terms of reception and developmental experience. Recognising the impact of new technologies and the changing conceptions of creative technique and craft, collaboration and origination, and diversification of attendant interpretive meanings inherent with new artistic forms, the study is an attempt to establish a position from which pedagogic practices can be honed and refined to meet the expectations and needs of contemporary practitioners and educational contexts. The objective in any educational experience and any process of artistic creation being to enrich and to effectively inform further development steps, value is therefore a highly diverse and granular commodity, measurable on many different scales, and capable of understanding in many different ways. This is a study of considerations and perspectives and ways of understanding and working with creative value and an attempt to develop a framework through which to base creative decisions as educators and practitioners. Creativity models tend to emphasise utility and originality as the key factors in determining creative value; the wider recognition and impact of the outcomes of creative endeavour preeminent in the interpretation and attribution of quality and significance. Whilst most evident and analytically objectifiable in the study of reception and in the analysis of outcomes, creative practices and processes nevertheless feature more prominently in the interpretation of value in some fields. Whilst the products of the creative practice of artists, musicians and writers retain the centre ground in the discourse of creativity, the authentication of creative endeavour is nevertheless closely connected to the narratives surrounding the inception and development of the work and the security of the connection established between the creative object and the creative originator; the intangible and entirely conceptual matter of attribution and provenance often proving more significant than physical artefact in substantiating at least commercial value in many cases. Investigating the potential for a meaningful definition of ‘authentic creativity’, notions of novelty, ignorance, forgery, fakery, reproduction and patterning, provide a basis for consideration of creativity both as an unstable concept and in parallel as a metaphor for the human condition. Considering the discourse of authenticity and aesthetics, this paper explores different perspectives of creativity as lived experience and positions analysis in the narratives of insight, imagination, and the romanticism of discovery and talent. Introducing an analysis of creativity through a series of conceptual models to illustrate key concepts and ideas, this essay presents a discussion rooted in a context of collapsing distinctions between the natural and the artificial, the authentic and the inauthentic, the original and the copy, and develops a tentative definition of authentic creativity and creative authenticity for wider consideration. That creativity matters in education and society is widely acknowledged and appreciated. This paper argues for a greater focus on the lived experience of creativity and the significance of determining value in terms of human experience over productivity.

In an increasingly turbulent business environment and intensive market competition and globalisation, manufacturing organisations of the 21st century have been forced to continuously seek improvements in their supply chain operations to increase productivity and quality. Therefore, making competition no longer between organisations but rather among its supply chains by seeking to reduce costs and improve quality as an alternative to gain higher market share. This paper investigates different aspects of operations and supply chain improvement of a small and medium manufacturing organisation in UK. The main objective of this paper is to help SMEs to identify deficiencies in their operations and take necessary steps to correct them to enhance performance and productivity in their supply chain operations. For this to happen, the current study has implemented lean approach as a method to improve the organisation’s supply chain, enhancing the quality of processes and products. By conducting interviews and observations together with gathering company internal records, it remarks some potential problems of the manufacturing company. Finally, several recommendations (such as introducing ERP system) are made for future improvements.