Learner Story |
"I can now read to my children and help with their homework. I can go to parents’ evenings without worrying about what to say." |
At strategic level, all of the services took good or very good account of national policy drivers, including the Adult Literacy and Numeracy in Scotland 2001 (ALNIS) report, Skills for Scotland: A lifelong skills strategy, More Choices More Chances and Working and Learning Together to Build Stronger Communities 2004 (WALT). Strategic managers were well informed about key directives and national strategies and planned their literacy provision to meet these priorities. However, they did not always convey key strategies effectively to operational managers. In more than a few cases, delivery managers were not sufficiently familiar with key strategies to enable them to take account of national drivers when planning programmes. As a result, overall planning was less effective at operational level.
In each of the geographic areas, CLD/ALNPs had played an important and largely successful role in promoting and engendering a community approach to improving the literacy skills of adults. Community planning processes had extended and built on this. The introduction of the Concordat is encouraging more collaborative working between partner agencies to realise and report on the wider outcomes of literacy support on, for example, individuals’ personal, social and working lives. Single Outcome Agreements (SOAs) are beginning to influence local authorities to capture the contribution of other adult literacy providers in their areas. The majority of local authorities have set targets for the proportion of adult learners undertaking literacy provision. This has encouraged local authority CLD services to take better account of the opportunities offered by other agencies in planning, integrating and delivering services locally. Although there are a few examples of effective practice, most CLD services do not yet have effective processes in place to capture and demonstrate the impact of literacy development on wider community outcomes.
A few authorities were taking good account of local employment and career opportunities when planning provision and programmes. In some areas, service providers had linked provision to the needs of the local job market and planned programmes to encourage and enable learners to gain sufficient confidence and literacy skill levels to undertake Scottish Vocational Qualifications (SVQs). There were good examples of providers engaging with employers and employment services to identify the literacy development needs of employees and planning provision around learners’ work patterns to meet these needs.
All local authority services took good account of individual and community needs in planning provision. Service managers applied proactive and inclusive approaches to reach out to new and hard-to-reach learners, particularly those who had previous negative experiences of learning, and adults and young people at risk of social exclusion. Planning of one-to-one provision9 was strong and generally provided very good initial opportunities for new learners to take their first steps to addressing and improving their literacy skills.
There were good examples of local authority CLD staff working with partner agencies to harness and maximise the contribution of different organisations in the planning of provision and services. One council had established a Strategic Learning Alliance which brought key partners together to discuss and plan locally-based provision across the local authority area. Members of the group drew on locally available skills, expertise and resources to plan learning pathways. However, in a few other areas, local literacy providers were not sufficiently aware of what each other’s organisations offered to support and enhance development of literacy skills. This constrained significantly the ability of partnership members to plan coherent local provision for learners. In more than a few cases, this resulted in duplication or gaps in provision being overlooked. The uncertainty of future funding available to partnerships to continue the delivery and development of literacy provision reduced their confidence and ability to plan ahead.
In the majority of areas, there was insufficient mapping of provision across different agencies and inadequate planning of progression routes from one level and type of programme to another. The resulting disjointed or fragmented provision hindered progression to further learning. This was particularly apparent in learners’ transition from one-to-one learning to learning in groups.
The planning of literacy provision within prisons did not generally take sufficient account of national learning strategies and priorities. In almost all cases, staff involved in the planning and delivery of Learning, Skills and Employability (LSE) provision did not take account of these priorities when planning provision to improve the literacy skills of offenders. This was beginning to be addressed through a national Management of Offenders Strategy which aims to improve the literacy levels of offenders.
None of the prisons had learning strategies to direct and assist their key providers of learning in the planning of literacy provision. These providers included the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), contracted colleges and local authority CLD/ALNPs. As a result, they planned and delivered literacy provision in isolation from each other. This led to missed opportunities for providers to work together systematically to plan and integrate different types of activities to engage offenders in addressing and improving their levels of literacy. However, there were a few very good examples of different providers collaborating informally to link learning experiences and draw learners into developing their literacy skills. Local CLD/ALNP staff were proactive in identifying gaps between prison and college provision for offenders, including those preparing for release, and provided well-judged interventions to bridge access to different types of provision within the prison and in the community.
The SPS had contracts with two colleges to deliver a specific number of hours of learning within each prison. The contracts stipulated a range of performance targets for the colleges to achieve. However, the contracts did not require providers to establish the existing skill levels of the prison population and use this information to plan provision. The SPS had introduced a process to identify the individual literacy levels of new offenders coming into custody. However, in most cases this process was ineffective. In a few prisons, staff used successful approaches to engage recently admitted offenders in assessing their own levels of literacy. These included learning champions and peer mentors working alongside college staff to encourage and support learners in recognising and addressing their individual literacy development needs. Staff were beginning to draw on this process to plan future provision and services.
Despite the lack of strategic direction, staff in all prisons did the best they could to plan useful learning experiences. There were good examples of staff planning innovative and meaningful learning experiences to encourage offenders in discussing and addressing their literacy skills. This was particularly successful where staff planned non traditional, interest-based projects to engage offenders with previous negative experiences of learning. In a few cases CLD/ALNP staff collaborated effectively with prison staff in planning and implementing provision to help offenders develop their literacy skills in prison work sheds.
Almost all colleges took very good account of national learning strategies and priorities when planning their approaches to improve the literacy skills of learners. The Skills for Scotland strategy had helped colleges to highlight and refine the way they related literacy skills to employability and wider learning outcomes. College learning strategies and programme planning processes assisted curriculum planners, support staff and vocational specialists to take account of literacy skills when planning programmes and services. For instance, one college had embedded the essential skills10 identified in Skills for Scotland within its curriculum planning framework.
All colleges took good account of the needs of individuals, their communities and employers. In most areas, colleges worked productively with partner agencies to plan and provide different types of programmes and interventions to improve the literacy skills of adults in their communities. There were many very good examples where colleges identified different types of learner groups and planned provision to meet their specific needs. These included a college identifying a need to provide more focused literacy support for cared-for young people and another identifying a need to improve the literacy skills of 16 to 18 year olds undertaking full-time college programmes. However, colleges working across a number of local authority areas, in some cases three or four, found it difficult to contribute evenly and effectively to the planning of provision across each of the areas.
Colleges used a range of information, including performance indicators and programme evaluations, to inform their planning. Most colleges profiled the literacy skills of learners at the outset and used the findings to place learners on appropriate levels of programmes and arrange additional support for individuals or class groups. These arrangements were effective in helping staff to plan and target provision where it was most needed.
Most colleges took very good account of the wide range of circumstances, needs and aspirations of learners when planning provision to help them improve their literacy skills. In most colleges, staff planned different types of approaches and services around the identified needs of individuals or groups, which resulted in a wide and often well-judged range of practices and approaches. Within mainstream vocational programmes, most colleges planned opportunities for learners to develop their literacy skills in the context of the vocational area to help prepare them for employment. The majority of colleges planned introductory interest-based programmes around overarching topics and themes to help learners develop their literacy skills and prepare them for mainstream vocational programmes or employment. Some colleges planned summer schools and return to learn programmes to help learners assess and improve their literacy skills in preparation for starting vocational programmes.
Most colleges valued and had made good use of CLD/ALNP funding to plan and develop provision around identified needs. However, in some cases local partnership bidding and allocation processes were cumbersome and slow and did not fit well with colleges’ planning cycles. This diminished the colleges’ ability to plan provision effectively. In some areas, restrictions on the number of consecutive annual allocations a partner could receive for a particular initiative prevented colleges from sustaining literacy provision which had been very successful. Colleges considered that the uncertainty of future funding levels available to partners made it difficult for them to plan ahead. This affected developing new provision and continuing existing provision which had been effective in improving the literacy skills of learners in the partnership area.