Learner Story |
"My new skills have helped me perform better at work. I am now more able to take on additional responsibilities. My boss says my written reports are much better." |
Most organisations used their own internal quality assurance and improvement processes, including How Good is our Community Learning and Development? 2 (HGIOCLD? 2) and Literacies in the Community (LIC) to evaluate provision and inform improvement. However, the effectiveness of these processes ranged from poor to good. In almost all areas, lack of formal data on learner progress and different methods applied by different partners to record learner achievement resulted in staff having insufficiently robust information to enable them to analyse and evaluate provision effectively. In most cases, staff did not evaluate learning and teaching sufficiently and did not take enough account of wider issues which impacted on learning.
Some partnerships worked well and effectively together to evaluate the quality of provision available locally. In a few areas, staff from different agencies carried out inter-agency peer evaluation. This had been very effective in helping staff to develop their knowledge and understanding of the different types and levels of provision offered by other partnership organisations. It had also supported inter-agency cooperation and enabled staff to share and adopt effective learning and teaching approaches. A particularly effective approach was the use of Quality Evaluation Strategy Tool (QuEST) which combines indicators from HGIOCLD? 2, LIC and HMIE college sector quality framework. This enabled all providers to carry out one self-evaluation process, instead of different processes for different audiences.
There were insufficient systems and arrangements for partners to evaluate jointly the effectiveness of their provision in relation to preparing learners for transition and progression to further levels of learning.
Although most staff engaged learners well in discussing and planning their learning, most services did not engage learners sufficiently in evaluating provision and planning improvements.
Most providers used their own internal quality assurance processes to evaluate their provision and inform improvements. However, these processes were carried out in isolation and not shared with the other providers. No prison had an individual strategy to direct and assist all partners in improving the literacy skills of offenders. This resulted in providers being unable to ascertain the impact their provision was having across other prisoner activities. The lack of reliable information about the literacy levels of offenders prevented partners from planning provision and services effectively, setting targets for improvements and measuring progress made in meeting these targets. Overall, partners did not involve learners sufficiently in evaluation and planning processes. As a result, there were significant missed opportunities for providers to evaluate the effectiveness of their provision in preparing learners for progression to further levels of learning, transfer to other prisons or release.
All colleges applied their internal quality assurance and improvement processes to evaluate literacy provision and identify areas for improvement. In most cases, these processes were effective. Staff took good account of learner views and made good use of college surveys, focus groups and discussions with learners to inform evaluation processes and plan for improvement. Most staff involved and engaged learners well in evaluation and future planning of provision and services.
The different terminologies used by the three sectors in relation to literacy work often presented college staff with difficulties in responding meaningfully to partnership reporting systems.
There were some good examples of college staff working effectively with their partner agencies, particularly CLD services and CLD/ALNPs to carry out cross-sectoral joint evaluation of locally-based provision. This had established a joined-up approach to planning and delivery of provision and services. However, the colleges and their partners did not work effectively together in reviewing and evaluating progression opportunities and arrangements to support transition.
Self-evaluation activities carried out by college staff led to improvements to programmes and wider facilities and services for learners.