Learner Story |
"Coming to the class has helped me write properly and I make very few mistakes. People can read the notes that I leave at work." |
There were very effective arrangements across all services to promote and encourage participation.
The Big Plus campaign, funded and managed by Learning Connections, had been very successful in raising public awareness and helping to reduce stigma associated with having literacy needs. Adult Literacy and Numeracy Partnerships had been very effective in promoting opportunities within local areas and building inter-agency cooperation to improve initial access to literacy support.
Most services took very good account of lifestyles and family and work commitments when scheduling programmes. This included providing childcare and timing programmes to meet specific needs. However, in more than a few cases, access to provision was limited by the provider to a few hours or less a week, which resulted in learners taking longer to learn and consolidate their new skills. Overall, services did not make sufficient use of ICT and online learning to enable students to continue learning and receiving support when they were unable to access provision for a variety of reasons. These reasons included work patterns, rurality and personal circumstances. This was particularly evident in rural areas where better use of ICT would have improved access for learners.
Overall, services were very successful in targeting and engaging hard to reach groups, particularly 14 to 25 year olds and older learners, to help them address and overcome literacy issues. Some services had been very proactive in developing relationships with employers to promote and provide work-based literacy for employees. In a few areas staff worked in partnership with JobcentrePlus staff to help job seekers improve their literacy skills to obtain employment. However, this was not yet widespread.
In a few venues, teaching facilities did not provide full access for people with disabilities or restricted mobility and local CLD/ALNPs were not taking sufficient action to improve access. Arrangements to support learners with additional barriers to learning varied across different venues and providers. In a few cases, staff had experience and expertise in this area and applied their knowledge and skills to provide advice and support to both tutors and learners. However, overall arrangements for staff to access specialist support and resources to assist learners requiring additional support were inconsistent across different venues and sites. The majority of services had identified a need to address this and some offered staff access to professional development opportunities supported by Learning Connections and other agencies to improve the skills of their staff and enable them to meet a wider range of learner needs. In areas which did not have such arrangements, learners with additional needs did not always have access to the specialist types of support or resources they required.
There were a few good examples of local authorities making effective use of locally available resources to assist learners with specific learning needs. For instance, in one area a specialist facility provided community access to trained staff and technologies to help learners with dyslexia develop their literacy skills. However, in more than a few areas, partners were not sufficiently aware of the range and types of expertise and resources available locally to support learners with additional needs. This resulted in missed opportunities for partners to share and maximise these resources and thereby provide better services to support learners.
Promotion of literacy provision within the prisons was generally poor. Many offenders had previous negative experiences of learning but in most cases prison literature and arrangements to promote learning, including literacy programmes, were unimaginative and not presented in a style to attract and encourage participation. In general, prison staff did not actively, or effectively enough, promote opportunities for offenders to develop their literacy skills. Two prisons had identified this issue and were in the early stages of delivering training programmes to prison staff on the promotion of learning opportunities. In some prisons, offenders were paid more for undertaking work-based activities than they were for engaging in learning activities. However, there were some very good examples of literacy, prison and college staff applying innovative approaches to promote learning and literacy development more positively. This included devising induction programmes for new offenders to explain the range of provision and styles of learning and teaching approaches, and deploying offenders to act as learning champions or peer tutors.
Access to literacy provision ranged from good to very poor. In some cases, learners had very good and regular access to literacy programmes. However, in too many cases arrangements for moving offenders within the prison environment, prison staff absence, and administering of methadone programmes militated against providing an uninterrupted and reliable service. Waiting lists usually prevented short term prisoners from being able to access provision. There was little or no access for remand prisoners and only limited access for protected prisoners.
In many cases, access to literacy provision was limited to three or four hours a week and arrangements for learners to receive support and practise their skills outside timetabled class times were very poor. As a result, learners took longer to learn and did not have sufficient opportunities to consolidate their learning or develop the confidence to further develop their skills outwith their classes.
The SPS had identified the need for prisons to gain better information about the literacy skills of offenders. The service had devised and implemented an alerting tool to help staff identify the literacy skills of new offenders. However, the timescales and materials prescribed for this process did not allow sufficient account to be taken of the circumstances and previous learning experiences of the offenders. As a result, the process was often ineffective and not conducive to engaging potential learners.
College and CLD/ALNP staff had good access to specialist support services and used them well to support learners. A few college and almost all CLD/ALNP staff had undertaken training to help them support adults with dyslexia. Arrangements for prison staff to assist learners with additional support needs were poor. Prison staff did not know how many offenders had additional barriers to learning and had little or no awareness of how to support those who did. However, in some cases college and ALNP staff were beginning to address this by offering training to prison staff.
Colleges used a range of strategies to promote the different types of literacy provision they offered and, in most cases, these strategies were effective. Overall, colleges tried to promote access to individual and group literacy support as positive and empowering as opposed to a remediation service. In most cases, this had been successful in engaging substantial numbers of learners in accessing support.
Colleges took good account of learner needs and commitments when scheduling discrete programmes and access to individualised support. Most programmes delivered in outreach settings were well planned around transport and childcare issues.
Colleges provided very good access for learners with restricted mobility. All colleges had good arrangements and resources to help learners with disabilities and additional barriers to learning.
In all colleges, investment in specialist training and resources had developed college capacity to respond effectively to making adjustments and arrangements for learners. As a result, learners had very good access to specialised support and equipment. In several colleges, a centralised unit provided very good and flexible access to assistive technologies to support learning.
Most colleges applied a range of user-friendly diagnostic tools very effectively to engage learners in identifying their literacy levels at the start of their programmes. Most learners valued this process and found it helped them to pinpoint their strengths as well as their development needs. In almost all cases, staff used the feedback from these processes effectively to place learners on appropriate levels of programmes and core skill units, and arranged literacy support appropriate to individual or group needs. Very good communication and referral arrangements between subject and literacy support staff ensured that most learners received timely and appropriate support.
Almost all colleges assessed between forty and sixty per cent of learners on full time further-education programmes as having a literacy level, which, without intervention, could impede their ability to attain the full award. The proportion was higher, up to seventy per cent, in some vocational areas, particularly hospitality, social care and construction, and in programmes for learners requiring More Choices, More Chances.11 In these cases, most colleges arranged additional support or integrated support within vocational classes. There were many very good examples of these approaches having a positive impact on helping learners engage more fully in class activities and developing their literacy skills. All colleges identified that learners in some HN level programmes had literacy development needs. This was particularly apparent in HN computing programmes.
The range of provision available enabled learners to access different types of literacy support to meet their specific needs and circumstances. This included access to short, intensive individual and group support, and regular weekly sessions timed around individual needs. Most learners considered they had good access to support which helped them progress faster. However, more than a few colleges were not always able to meet the demand from learners to access individual and small group support. This was usually at specific points of the year when learners on mainstream programmes required additional support to meet course requirements.