The sector must ensure that adult learners have greater access to excellent provision for basic skills, training for work and learning for personal development.
Family literacy and numeracy is one example that has shown real potential in helping improve parents’ and children’s learning. I want to see more support for family learning as part of the overall approach to increasing participation, and to strengthen the capacity of communities to help themselves.
The expectation is that family learning should include opportunities for intergenerational learning and that wherever possible this leads adults and children to pursue further learning, either for its own sake or for qualifications, or for the enhancement of personal, social or work skills.
CURRENT ISSUES IN PROVISION FOR FAMILY LEARNING
Family learning has its roots in pioneering work in the voluntary sector and partly in lessons learned from the American Family Literacy Programme. The essential premise is that the most effective learning takes place in, and is strongly influenced by, the home and family, in the many forms that these can take in modern society. Parental involvement in their children’s learning can significantly contribute to raising the child’s achievement and is a potent force for engaging parents and carers in learning themselves. For these reasons, family learning is a key element of the Skills for Life strategy.
The Government defines family literacy, language and numeracy programmes as those that involve parents in supporting their children’s learning in the gateway skills of language, reading, writing and maths while extending parents’ own literacy, language and numeracy skills.
The programme has three core aims; to:
- raise the literacy, language and numeracy skills of parents and carers
- improve parents’ ability to help their children
- improve children’s acquisition of literacy, language and numeracy
FUNDING
The two strands of family learning that are supported by Learning and Skills Council (LSC) funding streams are:
- family literacy, language and numeracy. At £23.1 million, this is the largest part of the national budget for family learning. The LSC offers specific guidance on the type of provision that this funding can support
- wider family learning. With a national budget of £12 million, this provision is more flexible and the funding supports a range of intergenerational learning.
There is a natural continuum between the two strands, with learners progressing from wider family learning to specific family literacy, language and numeracy programmes and many learners progressing from family literacy, language and numeracy programmes to wider family learning. For the purpose of this Guide, the emphasis will be on family literacy, language and numeracy, while recognising the important contribution of wider family learning.
The Grant letter of December 2003 indicates that family learning is a dedicated national priority for adult and community learning, with funding coming directly to 150 local education authorities (LEAs). Each of the 150 LEAs currently delivers family learning.
Family learning is not exclusively delivered through adult and community learning provision. The LEA may work in partnership with museums, libraries, sports centres and early years services to offer the provision. It may contract with colleges, voluntary organisations or schools to deliver on its behalf. Colleges may choose to use their own mainstream funding to support family learning. Other agencies may provide family learning through regeneration budget or early years funding sources.
STANDARDS IN FAMILY LEARNING
Family Learning: A survey of current practice (Ofsted, 2000) described some good practice but family learning generally was found to be poorly resourced and coordinated, highly dependent on short-term funding and having a narrow curriculum. The increased financial support and priority given to family learning has enabled some well-established providers to expand and consolidate their provision. Other providers are new to the field and are seeking examples of good practice and support. There is as yet no coherent training strategy, nor a specific nationally recognised qualification in family learning, although national occupational standards are being developed in family learning and working with parents. Family literacy, language and numeracy modules have been produced and trialled with the intention that these will be available as part of Skills for Life teacher training packages.
The ALI’s evidence base for family learning shows that the range and quality is less variable than in other areas of learning, with some good and exciting provision. However, 10 per cent remains unsatisfactory. Because family learning is attracting first-time or returning learners who may not have had good experiences of learning, the provision needs to be of the highest quality. Data collection is improving, but data analysis and the application of results remain weak in many LEAs. The best providers evaluate the information they collect to create a culture of continuous improvement. There is some good teaching, but often there is a lack of focus on the needs of adult learners. There is insufficient use of individual learning plans on longer programmes and some poor recording of progression.
The shift in family learning from being found in isolated projects to a nation-wide funding strategy poses a challenge to providers. They need to develop appropriate organisational structures and quality assurance frameworks for family learning. Initiatives are sometimes fragmented and not well connected with key local authority-wide strategies. There is also room to develop new approaches and to extend teachers’ expertise.
Providers also need to capture and provide evidence of learning outcomes, and in particular to collect evidence of the wider impact of programmes, particularly on the families involved. Measuring achievement is a complex process at the best of times, but for family learning it needs to reflect the softer outcomes and secondary evidence of intergenerational impact as well as the achievement of qualifications. Progression routes within and onto other programmes should be supported by effective advice and guidance and the tracking of learners needs to be more than anecdotal.
INITIATIVES IN FAMILY LEARNING
Skills for Families was a joint initiative by the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) and the LSC, which aimed to extend and embed family literacy, language and numeracy. It was undertaken by a consortium led by the Basic Skills Agency working with 19 local authority and local Learning and Skills Council partnerships between 2003 and 2005. Family literacy, language and numeracy provision is most effective when there are strong partnerships and where it is mainstreamed within wider local authority strategic planning and implementation. Skills for Families partnerships provided examples where local partnerships demonstrated good cohesion in planning and management. The evaluation of good practice from these areas was disseminated during the project. Some of the developments within the pilots have influenced changes in the LSC’s guidance for family literacy, language and numeracy in both 2004-05 and 2005-06.
A national infrastructure to support practitioners is being strengthened with family learning networks developed jointly by the Campaign for Learning, the National Institute of Adult and Continuing Education (NIACE) and ContinYou (formerly CEDC).
In the context of Skills for Life, family literacy, language and numeracy programmes remain one of the most effective ways of recruiting highly motivated new learners and securing progress. For the Early Years, Primary, Secondary and Social Inclusion strategies, this provision offers a focused means of involving families and raising standards of literacy, language and numeracy. The initial focus for many practitioners, particularly those working in schools, is raising the achievement of pupils. Some do not recognise the contribution that they are already making to adult learning. Although there are dual objectives of improving the literacy, language and numeracy skills of both children and parents, the quality standards and inspection of family learning relates to adults.
Many providers are new to family learning and assuring quality. This Guide is intended to help them and others take a realistic view of the strengths and weaknesses of their family learning provision with a view to improving practice, securing continuous improvement and embedding high standards in their provision.
THE SCOPE OF THIS GUIDE
This Guide is designed to help providers achieve excellence in their literacy, language and numeracy provision for learners in family learning. By taking each of the five questions in the Common Inspection Framework in turn, it is designed to help providers interpret the requirements of the Common Inspection Framework and the adult basic skills curricula for provision in communication, reading, writing and numeracy.
The Guide also sets out the characteristics of best practice in literacy, language and numeracy provision for family learning, in particular by drawing on real examples. The examples are designed to give staff practical help and ideas for improving their literacy, language and numeracy provision.
We wanted this series of guides to offer practical help to providers and practitioners – a ‘How to’ guide that would really focus on what works. For that reason, as well as providing sample materials that can be adapted for different learning environments, the guides illustrate what success might look like. For example, how do we know when a learner has made an important new step in their learning? What might be the outcomes of a successful initial assessment? The short descriptions of the progress made by real learners in real situations help to answer such questions.
Finally, the guides all highlight comments on this area of work in inspection reports and other documents. These extracts are included to help readers gain an insight into how Ofsted and the ALI evaluate and report on this context for learning.
WHAT IS SUCCESS IN THE FAMILY LEARNING CONTEXT?
Success in family learning is children and adults working and learning together and discovering that it can be fun. The photographs and personal stories in this Guide demonstrate the pleasure that learning together brings as well as the individual triumphs and achievements.
Headteachers observe how children’s attainment is raised when parents become involved in their child’s learning. There are other spin-offs, such as improved behaviour of children and the positive effects on family relationships.
The prime motivator for a parent to attend a family literacy, numeracy or language course may be to enable them to help their child, but it presents the opportunity for them to also address their own skills needs. The examples in this Guide are testimony to how adults are achieving their goals. There are parents who gain an understanding of how literacy and numeracy is taught in school or gain the confidence or language skills to talk to their child’s teacher. Others learn ICT skills where their children’s knowledge and skill is greater than their own – as you’ll see happened for Debbie and Gurmajo later in this Guide. Some gain national qualifications and obtain employment or, like Mary, use their skills in a current job. For others, it means the achievement of a long-held ambition – for instance, Catherine became a Special Constable after completing family literacy and numeracy programmes. For many, it is the simple enjoyment of learning with their children.
Family learning reaches new learners who would not be engaged in any other way and whose ambitions are varied. There are many examples of good practice that have been identified in inspection reports available including this one:
The LEA provides a wide range of well-designed family learning programmes which effectively take into account parents' and carers' learning needs, expectations and aspirations. These programmes provide learners with interesting and stimulating opportunities for personal development, and for working alongside their children. A significant proportion of learners achieve their personal learning goals, gain a national qualification and progress to other learning opportunities.
More examples are available through the ALI Good Practice Database.
We hope this Guide will enable you to help them achieve their goals.
