At the heart of our adult literacy and numeracy strategy is the aim to raise the standard of provision, to engage and motivate potential learners, and to ensure that all those involved in literacy and numeracy skills teaching are working towards a common goal.

Skills for Life (DfES, 2001)

CURRENT ISSUES IN SKILLS FOR LIFE PROVISION IN FE COLLEGES

Staff in colleges know that language and number skills underpin all other areas of achievement and are crucial to raising standards. Improved and expanded literacy, numeracy and ESOL provision is vital to address the tasks set for colleges by Success for All. The Skills for Life strategy is also important to wider government goals for social inclusion, raised achievement and improved economic competitiveness. Foundation skills for sustainable employment are at the heart of the skills strategy. Improved core or generic skills are at the heart of 14-19 reform. We know that the literacy and numeracy skills gap is wider in the UK than in other developed countries. Those with low levels of language and number skills are at much higher risk of unemployment. Difficulties with literacy, numeracy and ESOL are also a barrier to active community participation and are clearly linked to other kinds of disadvantage.

Recognising these links, the Government continues to make a significant investment in Skills for Life. Promotional campaigns have raised demand. The new learning and teaching infrastructure has raised the capacity of further education (FE) colleges to meet this demand. Colleges have shown that they can raise standards and increase learner achievement, but there is still a long way to go. This Guide is designed to support colleges to meet the challenges set out in the 2003 White Paper 21st century skills: Realising our potential and 14-19 reform through improved Skills for Life practice. Skills for Life practitioners in FE have shown that they can deliver challenging national targets. In the midst of ongoing growth and change, this Guide aims to help practitioners further reflect on and improve what they do.

The Skills for Life strategy is relevant to all post-16 learners working to improve their literacy, numeracy and ESOL skills. This includes:

• learners at all levels and ages up to and including Level 2
• all those studying key skills in communication and application of number, whether on discrete courses or as part of a vocational programme
• those preparing for GCSE mathematics or English
• those receiving additional learning support for literacy, numeracy or ESOL
• learners with learning difficulties and/or disabilities
• all those working on language and number up to Level 2, whether through embedded or discrete provision and as full- or part-time learners
• workplace literacy, numeracy and language learners and all those developing their language and number skills through workforce development or work-based learning
• literacy, numeracy, ESOL and key skills learners in a range of community settings, including e-learning opportunities.

THE SCOPE OF THIS GUIDE

This Guide is designed to help providers achieve excellence in their literacy, numeracy and ESOL provision for learners in FE colleges. By taking each of the five questions of the Common Inspection Framework for Inspecting Education and Training 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, numeracy and ESOL provision, in particular by drawing on real examples. The examples are designed to give staff in colleges practical help and ideas for improving their literacy, numeracy and ESOL 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 from inspectors 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 FE COLLEGE CONTEXT?

Success in literacy, numeracy and ESOL provision in FE colleges is based on:

• a strategic commitment to seek out and meet all local learning needs and to provide flexible opportunities for language and number development
• college-wide recognition that Skills for Life are the foundation of learner success, and a shared responsibility for effective provision
• a coherent structure that pulls together all the different elements of Skills for Life within a common framework of standards and core processes
• a senior management post to lead and coordinate the offer and to guard and raise shared standards
• attention to individual learning need informed by diagnostic assessment, clear target-setting and regular reviews of progress
• a conviction that language and number skills must be embedded in engaging, often vocational, contexts and that staff and strategies must be developed to resource this
• creative approaches to growing new teaching teams and to improving the effectiveness of all those delivering and supporting Skills for Life
• a focus on learner outcomes, effective monitoring of progress and clear systems for measuring the ‘distance travelled’
• quality measures that ensure that all learners are well-served, problems are quickly addressed and all teams are supported to improve.

There are many instances of good and effective practice in FE colleges, but there is still work to do. Many colleges still need to:

• reach out to new groups of learners and build the partnerships that will trigger their learning
• train, qualify and support all those contributing to the Skills for Life offer and make sure that good practice is shared and built upon
• support and train teachers in vocational and other curriculum areas to recognise Skills for Life needs and work with specialists to provide embedded opportunities for skills development
• ensure that all learners have flexible opportunities to achieve Skills for Life or key skills qualifications
• provide and prepare for secure and relevant progression opportunities for all learners yet to achieve at Level 2

Although there have been clear improvements in FE-based Skills for Life provision – good or outstanding inspection grades went up by 14 per cent in 2003/04 – much is still to be done. The proportion of unsatisfactory area 14 grades is almost twice that across all areas of learning and the proportion of good or better teaching grades is lower. Ofsted inspectors found that targets were not sufficiently clear or specific and were often not understood by learners. They found continuing weaknesses in the monitoring of progress. The coordination of practice across the Skills for Life offer is reported as often being weak.

Much of this echoes the joint Ofsted and ALI survey of Skills for Life (Literacy, Numeracy and English for Speakers of Other Languages: A survey of current practice in post-16 and adult provision), published in 2003. This found that initial and diagnostic assessment outcomes were not well used. This contributed to poor individual learning plans (ILPs), unclear targets and ineffective progress reviews. Management responsibility was often not clear, quality assurance systems were inadequate and there was no clear focus on learner outcomes.

We have every opportunity to improve. The FE sector now has several outstanding colleges which show how we can successfully manage and deliver Skills for Life. Some of their experience is captured in the ‘What is success?’ and ‘How is success recognised?’ sections of this Guide. These colleges work in different contexts, serving different communities and they work in different ways. But there are some shared messages, both clear and convincing, from which we can all learn.

Literacy, numeracy and ESOL provision in the FE college context offers a crucial second chance – and not just for adults. Aliye Husseyin and Sinem Hakki have only just left school but their college course is already reshaping their futures.

I really didn’t enjoy school – I didn’t find it very interesting or anything. College is much more fun because I understand the subjects more clearly. English and Maths make more sense and I understand it more. I just did a punctuation exercise and everything was right – that didn’t happen in school. It’s quite serious at college – I’m on a tracking sheet so I have to come on time. I’m doing ok and I want to do travel and tourism next.

I just never did the work in school. I didn’t really go to Maths – I just did not go. I enrolled in college at the last minute. Since I’ve come here I’ve been attending – I’ve had enough of all that bunking. I was a failure at school and I don’t want to be a failure again. Here I do the work, I know I’ve done it. I feel relieved that I can do something.

These are learners who need and deserve the best that we can provide.