7 Community learning initiatives
I think the engagement of parents into the
learning of their children and the engagement of their own learning
can have knock-on effects into their aspirations for themselves
and for their children. [Andrew
Sharp, Headteacher, Robin Hood primary school][102]
69. The Education Act of 1944 raised the school leaving
age to 15, and in 1972, it was raised from 15 to 16. In September
2013, the education leaving age was raised to 17, and from September
2015 it will rise to 18, which includes provision for 16-year-olds
to go to college or to become an apprentice, as alternatives to
attending school. However, even though the education leaving age
has increased over the past 70 years, there is still a high proportion
of adults who find English and maths difficult. Many older adults
find the idea of returning to classroom-based learning daunting,
and instead find less formal approaches more appealing. As NIACE
wrote, "Adults returning to learning and with poor experiences
of school often find community-based provision less intimidating
when taking their first steps. In addition there is room in literacy
and numeracy provision for trained volunteers to assist learning".[103]
70. We received evidence from many organisations
that work with adults, improving their reading, writing and or
maths within the community: Read and Grow[104];
Got to Read[105]; Ruskin
Readers Adult Literacy Club[106];
Forest Read Easy Deal[107],
and Reading Force[108]
to name but a few. Judith Norrington, from City and Guilds, spoke
of adults learning through other activities, such as gardening
or sports:
We have got a research report called Roots
to Work looking at people working in the community in small
green spaces, growing plants, and building their whole range of
skills, including literacy and numeracy. We have got examples
of people doing work through sport. There is a college that has
used snooker as a way of helping adults and young people to learn.
There are lots of examples, but the important point you have raised
is how universal they are and also how much opportunity there
is for that innovation to be able to work creatively.[109]
71. One such example of community learning is the
Out There project, delivered through St Vincent College and funded
by Hampshire Learning:
The Out There project provides short, first-step
courses, covering a wider range of subjects to adult learners
to support their lifelong learning journey. Some learners are
able to go straight into English and maths courses to develop
these skills, but for many, the barriers and lack of confidence
that have grown over many years mean that they often need to start
with a hobby/leisure interest course before progressing onto further
learning.[110]
When giving evidence, the principal of St Vincent
College, Di Lloyd, described a typical course, which involves
buying and selling on eBay:
In buying and selling on eBay, first they have
to be able to use the computer—I suppose that is the starting
point—but there is numeracy involved there in the bidding
process on eBay and so forth. It is not too difficult to bring
in some very basic numeracy and literacy. That might be the point
where some real difficulties are diagnosed as well.[111]
72. Di Lloyd went on to say the Out There project
was subject to the short-term nature of BIS funding, which leads
to uncertainty over the courses and for the staff:
Our Out There project is subject to bid funding.
We had funding for the first three years of that project, but
then, although the project was clearly successful, we had to re-bid
for funding. We are employing people on fixed-term contracts because
we are not sure whether the funding is going to come through for
the following year. It is very difficult to make sure that we
get the right people—the good, well-qualified staff who
are able to teach on the courses that we are offering, particularly
on the literacy and numeracy qualifications—and are able
to offer to our community a continuity of those courses going
forward.[112]
This point was supported by Jez Langhorn, Senior
Vice President, Chief People Officer at McDonald's:
For McDonald's, we are very pleased with the
support that we are getting. Our education programmes go back
over five years. I would just echo the point about continuity.
We have an annual agreement with the Skills Funding Agency, who
have been very supportive, as has BIS, but that is only an annual
contract now, so McDonald's takes on a proportion of risk with
the teams that we dedicate to this and the contracts we have with
suppliers etc. That has not been a problem so far, but it is something
that we perhaps consider is a long-term outlook on that support
going further.[113]
When asked about the insecure nature of adult courses,
and short-term contracts for staff, Matthew Hancock MP responded:
Within the adult skills budget, we tend to base
next year's allocation to an individual provider on what they
have delivered this year, and then […] if they under-deliver
we recoup the money and if somebody over-delivers then they ask
for a growth case, and if the growth case provides good value
for money then we fund it. […] I would not want to give very
long contracts, because where there is under-delivery or poor-quality
delivery I want to be able to tackle that. If Ofsted come in to
any provider and say, "You are inadequate", then we
want to come in and be pretty tough on them. It is true that we
hold providers to account for what they spend, and it is right
that we do that, because it is public money.[114]
73. The Skills Funding Agency's bidding process
means that demonstrably successful providers of courses have to
go through the process of rebidding, which leads to insecurity
of both the learners and staff providing those courses. BIS needs
to re-examine this arrangement, to ensure that there is continuity
for both providers with a proven record of success, and recipients
of the adult learning courses. Schools do not have this insecurity;
neither should providers of adult courses.
Family-learning initiatives
74. Family-learning initiatives are an important
subsection of community-learning initiatives, and they focus on
any learning activity that involved both children and adult family
members, where learning outcomes are intended for both and result
in a culture of learning in the family.[115]
The BBC's written evidence highlighted the fact that there is
a direct correlation between low grades achieved by pupils and
low family income and parental educational levels:
Over 100,000 16-year olds failed to achieve above
an F grade in GCSE maths last year. There is a strong correlation
between low maths and literacy skills and low family income, low
parental educational achievement, poor mental and physical health
and poor overall educational attainment.[116]
75. Booktrust runs reading and writing projects,
literary prizes and reading campaigns. Through its children's
reading programmes it helps to "engage adults in informal
learning with their children in the home, which builds parental
confidence and interest in learning for themselves".[117]
Booktrust highlighted the positive benefits of family-learning
initiatives:
Recent research that we have conducted indicates
how attitudes to reading are passed on through the generations.
The research found that adults with more positive attitudes to
reading grew up in homes where they were encouraged to read by
their parents. In turn, those adults who were encouraged to read
as children go on to be more likely to read with their own children.
[…] Booktrust believes that there should be increased investment
in family learning and the development of a family learning plan
to address intergenerational cycles of illiteracy. Developing
whole family approaches to tackling literacy could give children
the best start in life and support informal adult learning.[118]
76. As a result of our inquiry being publicised on
Martin Lewis's Money Saving Expert website, we received evidence
from an organisation called Everyday Maths, which runs workshops
to empower parents into understanding their own use of maths in
their life in order to help their children with their maths, and
whose research is supported by a grant from the Nuffield Foundation:
Our workshops empower parents to draw on their
uses of mathematics in everyday life. For example, parents use
mathematical thinking when travelling, walking in the park, planning
activities, shopping, cooking, or watching a football match, but
are not always aware of these as examples of mathematical thinking,
or as opportunities to share mathematics with their children.
Once parents find the maths in their everyday lives they are then
invited to explore how the mathematics can be shared creatively
with their children.[119]
77. David Hughes, from NIACE, explained that family
learning schemes have proved to be successful in raising adults'
and children's skills, but that support for such schemes is patchy:
It is very unsupported, really; it is very ad
hoc. Family learning practitioners—teachers—are not
well supported. Their continuous professional development is not
well supported. It is not funded in every area. Lots of schools
do get involved in it. Lots of local authorities do it, but perhaps
not in partnership with schools. It is very patchy. We are doing
a lot of work on trying to make it more comprehensive and available
everywhere. Where schools do get involved and where they bring
the parents in support and engage the parents, the results are
staggering. That gets the whole-school improvement. It is fantastic
stuff.[120]
78. The positive aspects of family learning schemes
was illustrated by the audio-visual evidence submitted by the
Robin Hood School, in Nottingham. Joyce Keller described the variety
of adult courses on offer, including English and numeracy skills—helping
parents to help their children with their work, but also to develop
their own skills—family science, a fashion course, CV writing,
help with dealing with debt, and "tiny tots" (a parent/pupil
shared cooking course). She said the courses were available and
free to all parents, with a crèche on offer, to ensure
that "every parent is free to learn".[121]
Andrew Sharp explained the positive effects of the scheme for
both parents and children:
There is increased parental participation and
engagement with the school, so things like parents' evenings and
open evenings are better attended. There is an open-door policy,
where parents don't feel afraid to come in and ask questions of
their child's learning. In terms of other impacts, attendance
has improved by 3% and we're now above 95% when we were around
92%, so that's always good. Our number of persistent absentees—that's
children who are coming to school less than 85% of the time—are
far less now. Also our attainment of pupils right across the school,
including our outcomes for Key Stage 2, have gone above national
average and we are now rated as a good school, whereas when I
started we were satisfactory, in danger of going into being inadequate.[122]
79. When asked about what BIS could do, in partnership
with the Department for Education, to support more family learning,
the Minister replied that funding was "at reasonably early
stages" and they were looking at the results. He went on
to say that "on the basis of what works, we will move money
towards what works".[123]
After being asked for further clarification, he said: "the
thing that we need to study is how effective it is. I have not
got a specific timescale to hand". However, the Government's
own written evidence stated that "Community Learning provides
flexible, non-formal and usually unaccredited but structured courses,
based on national objectives". Of the 4,000 learners who
had taken part in community learning, 71% felt their quality of
life had improved, 82% felt more confident in their abilities,
51% felt they had a better understanding of what they wanted to
do in life, and 68% felt they had more opportunities.[124]
80. Family learning provision must be at the heart
of schools and community centres, so that learning is rooted within
communities, especially those that are disadvantaged. However,
the evidence we received, including that from the Government,
showed that despite overwhelming support for family-learning schemes,
they are hampered by a lack of long-term, consistent funding.
We recommend that the Government must commit to the long-term
funding of family-learning schemes, and must set out in its response
how this funding will be provided.
102 Robin Hood (ALE 90) extract Back
103
NIACE (ALE 33) para 27 Back
104
Linda Curtis, from the Read & Grow initiative, gave
oral evidence on 11 February 2014 Back
105
Got to read (ALE 15)
Back
106
Ruskin Adult Literacy Club (ALE 66) Back
107
Forest Read Easy Deal (ALE 63) Back
108
Reading Force (ALE 86) Back
109
Q10 Back
110
St Vincent College (ALE 032) page 2 Back
111
Q74 Back
112
Q64 Back
113
Q64 Back
114
Q225 Back
115
NIACE, Family Learning Works, October 2013 Back
116
BBC written evidence (ALE 43) para 14 Back
117
Booktrust (ALE 26) para 3 Back
118
Booktrust (ALE 26) para 3 and para 6 Back
119
Dr Tim Jay, Dr Jo Rose, Dr Ben Simmons, Graduate School of Education,
University of Bristol (ALE 65) extract Back
120
Q10 Back
121
Robin Hood (ALE 90) extract Back
122
Robin Hood (ALE 90) extract Back
123
Q229 Back
124
Department for Business Innovation and Skills (ALE 36) para 4.6 Back
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