2B: What is ‘success’ in teaching, training and learning?

Sandy Young is Head of Learning and Skills at HMYOI Wetherby and has successfully introduced a strategy to integrate basic and key skills into a non-traditional vocational area. He comments, ‘The racing project is a partnership with the Northern Racing College. It is a 12-week course where learners work towards Level 1 in Application of Number, Communications and IT. They also complete an NVQ at Level 1 in Horse Care. ‘All the young people are “risk-assessed” and spend a taster day at the college where there is a mutual assessment that includes aptitude for riding. The first two weeks of the project are used to assess individuals for suitability “on the job”.

‘After that, they work towards their practical competencies for their NVQ. There are currently four learners on the project and they are taken to the college every day by bus. In the future we envisage that they will spend five days at the college and return to the institution at weekends.

‘This project has many benefits for learners. They achieve a good level of skills, form relationships, gain confidence and work alongside other full-time students in the college. Learners who are accepted on the course are hard-working and they appreciate what is being done for them. The project has been in place for six months and it is still early days. However, we are preparing for the next stage, which is to progress successful learners onto the NVQ at Level 2.

‘They will be on a work-based placement for up to three months once they have been released from custody and this will form part of their DTO. This will be for young people Released on Temporary Licence (RoTL) into the community and they will be resident at a racing yard, so they will benefit from a “family” environment. Learners are almost certain to get employment in a racing yard or in the industry. Once they are in this environment, there is no peer pressure to re-offend.’

Establishments for juveniles are providing a range of innovative projects designed to stimulate an interest in reading.

HMP and YOI Hindley has a reading club in the Learning Support Unit to support young people whose reading levels were assessed at Entry Level 1 and Entry Level 2. The Reading Club runs every day between 8.30 and 9.15 a.m., and this quiet time at the beginning of the day is found to be ideal for one-to-one work with these young people.

Lisa revelled in the opportunity to read her first books ever, the Mr Men books being her favourites. Lisa was part of the Reading Club for the whole time of her stay at New Hall, some 12 weeks, and at the end of this time was much more confident in her ability to read and had improved her social skills.

Kirstie attended Reading Club for eight weeks, and became engrossed in reading a book by Sandra Gregory, 'Forget You Have a Daughter'. This book has been a revelation to Kirstie and she took to reading in her cell over the weekends. With the agreement of the Education Manager, Kirstie has written a letter to Sandra Gregory telling her how much she enjoyed the book - a reply is awaited.

Library staff at HMYOI Feltham run a book club called ‘A New Chapter’. A group of the same young people reads a chapter of a book or a piece of text each week. They then meet to discuss the reading material. They have discussed novels such as Of Mice and Men, poetry and non-fiction. Discussions focus on how the reading materials relate to the lives of book club members.

 

HMP and YOI Bullwood Hall has developed a flexible system for initial assessment. Within four days of arrival, young women undertake the computer-based PLUS initial assessment tool for literacy and numeracy.

This assessment is provided weekly in the ICT room of the new DTO unit. Learners carry out the assessment as a group, with the young women completing both the literacy and numeracy assessments in a single session. After the young women have received feedback, the results of the assessments are passed to education staff.

The assessments are used to prepare individual education plans, inform the DTO induction and progress reviews and to write teaching plans. Where young people are unable to attend the group session for the educational assessment, the induction teacher takes a laptop to the living units so that all young people are able to undertake the assessment within the target timeframe.