What Skills for Life Provision for Learners with Learning Difficulties and/or Disabilities Should Include

Provision in literacy, numeracy and ESOL for learners with learning difficulties and/or disabilities should be underpinned by:

• the national standards for literacy, numeracy and ESOL
• the core curricula for literacy, numeracy and ESOL, with a curriculum framework for learners with learning difficulties and/or disabilities
• a common screening tool
• a common approach to initial assessment
• diagnostic assessment
• appropriate learning materials.

What an Adult Learner Can Expect

An adult learner with learning difficulties and/or disabilities who is receiving tuition in literacy, numeracy and ESOL should expect:

• good advice on how to improve their skills
• a report resulting from their diagnostic assessment
• an individual learning plan
• a programme of learning relating to the national standards and matching their aims and aspirations
• full involvement in planning and reviewing their learning
• feedback and support on their progress
• flexible forms of learning which suit their needs and preferences
• a range of opportunities to acquire non-externally accredited achievements as a springboard to nationally recognised qualifications
• expert and impartial advice on progression routes to other education, training or employment opportunities.

What a Learning Organisation for Learners with Learning Difficulties and/or Disabilities Should Provide

All providers of literacy, numeracy and ESOL for learners with learning difficulties and/or disabilities must:

• prepare and undertake an annual self-assessment that informs their plans to address weaknesses and secure continuous improvement
• monitor, recognise and record all learner progress through non-externally accredited achievement as well as through national qualifications
• raise the level of competence of all teachers of literacy, numeracy and ESOL by offering opportunities for continuing professional development and access to programmes of training that lead to nationally recognised qualifications.

The Skills for Life Strategy Unit is committed to ensuring that all learners seeking to improve their skills have access to high-quality materials and support in literacy, numeracy and ESOL irrespective of past experience, skills level or learning context.

HELP FOR PROVIDERS PREPARING FOR SELF-ASSESSMENT AND INSPECTION

How to Prepare for Self-assessment and Inspection

Self-assessment is a vital component in ensuring and developing the quality of provision. It is, however, too often regarded as a bureaucratic requirement which is given little real importance by course teams. To ensure that self-assessment has a value, managers should:

• develop an ethos of positive self- and peer-evaluation in which staff feel safe in discussing weaknesses and planning for improvements
• encourage staff to view self-assessment as an annual opportunity to display and improve their professional skills and to ensure that what they are doing is of best value to the learners
• encourage honesty – this should not be an exercise in self-delusion!
• use this Guide to support the process, to develop benchmarks and to ensure that self-assessments follow the guidance of the Common Inspection Framework
• set aside sufficient time for the process to be carried out effectively
• ensure that the whole team can participate
• ensure that the judgements made are evaluative and based on sound evidence
• differentiate judgements into key strengths, areas for improvement, and improvements since the most recent self-assessment
• evaluate the quality of teaching and learning
• evaluate the learners’ achievements
• grade the self-assessment report using the descriptors from the Common Inspection Framework’s key questions and by subject sector category
• demonstrate evidence of promoting the concept of the safe learner and show that suitable and sufficient learner health and safety arrangements are in place
• demonstrate evidence of meeting key legislative responsibilities including the Race Relations (Amendment) Act and the Disability Discrimination and SENDA Act
• ensure that the self-assessment contains a clear action plan for the team as well as requests for any action by senior managers which may have been identified
• ensure that the action plan is kept live and that progress against it is monitored and successes are celebrated
• ensure that the self-assessment report includes an evaluation of the extent to which actions identified in the previous report have secured improvement. This will contribute to an overall judgement about the extent to which your organisation has the capacity to improve
• identify trends in performance over time and identify how your organisation has responded to them.

How to Monitor and Record Progress

Learners with learning difficulties and/or disabilities can make significant progress. However, it is possible that much of this may not be accredited. Effective providers recognise the need to be able to demonstrate clearly distance travelled, through robust assessment and careful tracking of progress over time. The use of the staged process of recognising and recording progress and achievement (RARPA) provides a useful framework for this.

Good providers first identify the aim of the programme of learning, which should specify precisely what it would be useful for the individual learner to learn. They then carry out a detailed baseline assessment of the level of skills and competences with which the learner starts his or her course. The outcomes of stage 1 and stage 2 are then used to identify appropriately challenging learning objectives. The resulting individual learning plan (ILP) is the key to monitoring and recording all learners’ progress. This should be tailored to the time available for learning. For example, a learner attending for 2 hours a week for 30 weeks will, if they attend every session, have at most 60 hours of learning. Do the targets set out in their ILP look achievable for this learner in 60 hours? The ILP, with SMART targets and setting out precisely what the learner is to learn, then becomes the instrument against which his or her progress can be measured.

In good provision, teachers use a range of approaches to formative assessment to track the progress of learners with learning difficulties and/or disabilities. This may include written reports, witness statements, video, artwork and photographs. Feedback to learners is a key element, and effective tutors ensure that the praise they use clearly identifies what has been done well and why, to support the learner’s understanding of the progress they are making.

As part of the development of ILPs to measure learning, definitions need to be agreed as to what constitutes achievement. For example, the achievement of 75 per cent or 80 per cent of an individual’s targets could be agreed as success. This can then, after internal verification, be entered into an electronic system. The achievement of national tests or externally accredited awards, where these are appropriate for the learner, can then be recorded in addition to their success against the targets in their ILPs.

In summative reports, it is important that staff refer to the baseline and capture all the progress the learner has made during the course. The importance of ILPs for learners taking national tests or externally accredited awards rests on the fact that ILPs measure progress made or ‘distance travelled’ as well as endpoints reached. Don’t forget to keep evidence of, and celebrate, other achievements, such as gains in confidence, willingness to undertake new responsibilities, or any other evidence of progress which is alongside or a result of gains in speaking, listening, reading, writing or speaking and understanding English.

How to Help Ensure Effective Staff Development

The following lists some pointers towards ensuring that staff development is effective, appropriate and fair.

• Recruit staff who are already competent in the areas in which they will teach, or recruit staff with a range of skills and qualities which you know are valuable and train them to become competent in the areas you want them to teach.
• Ensure that all staff have opportunities for continuous review, updating and development of their skills.
• Wherever possible, ensure that staff have opportunities to undertake a parallel activity to vocational updating, where they can spend some time observing people with learning difficulties and/or disabilities in real employment situations or in other services, so that staff have a clear, up-to-date picture of the world they are preparing learners for, and of the skills they will need.
• Ensure that staff attend as many development activities as is reasonable and that they do attend mandatory training.
• Encourage peer observation and the discussion of possible improvements.
• Video-record staff teaching and use this with them to help them analyse the strengths and weaknesses of their own practice and plan for improvements.
• Use focus groups, run by a member of staff unconnected with the area, to get the views of learners and use them to plan for improvements.
• Encourage staff to visit other similar providers and to discuss ideas with them.
• Use consultants, inspections and any other external judges of, or contributors to, the provision as catalysts for change and development.