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

In Nottinghamshire, offenders’ attendance at assessment and provision is supported in a range of ways. Before an assessment appointment, offenders are sent a letter, checked for readability level, layout and font style and size. Two days before the assessment appointment, offenders are sent a coloured reminder card. The service also phones them 24 hours before their appointment.

Once provision has been agreed, offenders are asked how they will remember to attend the next week, and whether they need a reminder. Diaries, costing £1.00 each, are used both as a teaching tool and as a mechanism to support offenders’ attendance. Learners sign a learning agreement committing them to weekly attendance at literacy and numeracy classes.

 

Judi Apiafi, Education Manager at Nottinghamshire Probation Area, commented, ‘We give every client a diary and train them to use the diaries so they can log the day and the date for coming, and when it’s Easter, and summer holidays, and when it’s Christmas. We also give them a Nottinghamshire Probation Area Filofax. It is so important for them to organise their lives.

The Filofax tells them how to get to the Nottinghamshire Probation Service. It describes the support services they can use here.’

When one learner in his fifties started provision, he had no formal qualifications. It was through initial and diagnostic assessment that he realised he had more skills than he had previously thought. He particularly wanted to learn about metrication. Since starting classes, he has achieved Levels 1 and 2 in literacy and Level 1 in numeracy. At the time of writing he was working towards Level 2 in numeracy. He now feels that he has, for the first time in his life, got to grips with metrication!

Beth Fox, Education, Training and Employment (ETE) Manager at Dorset Probation Area, highlighted the importance of embedding literacy, numeracy and ESOL into employment-related activities.

‘Literacy [provision…] makes sense because [offenders] need to email, give messages and people can’t cope without being able to read and write. They can’t go onto a building site because they can’t read the safety notices. They can’t work in the holiday industry here in Dorset if they can’t handle money, be able to talk to customers and handle food. We are connected with Jobcentre Plus. We get the offenders from there and we get them ready for work. The skills include literacy, numeracy and language and ICT. We also include confidence-building, self-esteem, life skills, knowing how to talk to people, not to stand too close to people, not to be confrontational, and understanding that people will come to them and ask them things.’

In Dorset’s Learning Café, Nicola serves a customer watched by chef Tom.

In Dorset, literacy and numeracy are embedded in the work of the Learning Café, which is open five days a week, all day.

The café is on NPS premises, but is run under the name of Cygnet Training. This is so it does not carry the stigma potentially associated with offending.

Numeracy is embedded in, for instance, weighing and measuring items for cooking, and calculating cash flows.

Literacy is embedded in, for example, writing letters and memos and designing flyers about the café.

Offenders also practise their speaking and listening skills by serving the customers, who are probation staff and offenders on community supervision.

Offenders on community punishment orders go in groups to the Tank Museum, where they work on literacy and numeracy embedded in engineering. An engineer and a college tutor teach the programme together. Beth Fox judges that the programme is successful because offenders attend regularly, and ask to go on the course.

Some provision in Dorset Probation Area is delivered through video conferencing. This enables learners in rural areas, who may not have transport or childcare, to access literacy, numeracy and ESOL provision. The tutor is based in Poole, and the offenders are located in, for instance, pubs, village halls and corner shops. Up to six offenders can participate at a given time. Offenders can all see the tutor but not each other. Each offender is helped by a volunteer. The tutor can print out their work centrally.

Access to learning in rural areas has been addressed in Cambridgeshire through the Nacro Navigator bus. The bus contains six networked computers and a number of laptops, which provide access to computer-based training packages and the Internet. The bus is also an online testing centre.

In West Yorkshire, there has been a learndirect pilot in a probation hostel. Assessment and tuition have been delivered in the hostel by Action for Employment. Between February and the end of May 2004, over 30 offenders have engaged with the pilot, and a number have passed the national test. The pilot has been tailored to the needs of offenders on community supervision. While offenders are encouraged to access the Internet and take responsibility for their own learning, they only have access at certain times under close supervision. There is an emphasis on progression routes for offenders, after they have taken the national test. The pilot is so successful that plans are being developed to roll it out to all hostels in West Yorkshire. Achievement

New Directions, the local programme for the national charity The Rainer Trust, is one of South Yorkshire Probation Area’s providers. New Directions has a contract with learndirect, and has developed three learning suites equipped with state-of-the-art computers and software. There is online testing accredited through City and Guilds. The Employment Marketing Services Manager for South Yorkshire calculates that approximately 75 per cent of offenders who start programmes achieve qualifications.

For more information about learndirect, see the website at: www.learndirect.co.uk/home

Creating a safe learning environment, which does not remind offenders of school, is important. Owain Jenkins, literacy and numeracy teacher in Nottinghamshire Probation Area, says, ‘I bring them in and say, “This is your PALS teaching room.” I want them to feel comfortable here, to be able to learn and not feel it is a classroom, which reminds them of failure.’

The examples below illustrate how partnership contributes to monitoring and recognising offenders’ attendance at and progress in literacy, numeracy and ESOL.

Attendance

Providers working with offenders on community supervision in Dorset attend monthly probation team meetings, and feed back on offenders’ progress in literacy, numeracy and ESOL. Where provision is on probation premises, the providers ring through to the ETE staff to confirm offenders’ attendance (or non-attendance) at literacy and numeracy provision. The ETE staff record offenders’ attendance electronically. Where attendance is compulsory, probation staff follow up non-attendance.

In Essex, once an offender has agreed to undertake literacy, numeracy or ESOL skills provision, attendance at assessment and teaching sessions is compulsory. The provider monitors offenders’ attendance. Non-attendance is followed up by the probation area on the same day.

Recording and data transfer systems

In Lincolnshire, providers working with offenders on community supervision regularly send the probation area a spreadsheet containing, for instance, assessment data, key information from ILPs and information on attendance and qualifications gained. Relevant senior managers use the data to develop action plans to improve performance.

In West Yorkshire, there are systems to transfer information between prison, probation and DISC, a provider. Fax and telephone are used because of issues in transferring formation electronically between prison and the probation area. Where feasible, DISC staff visit the prison before an offender is released to conduct a pre-release assessment and start the process of transition to the community.

Reducing duplication

In Wakefield, DISC, Jobcentre Plus and the NPS have a system of certificates for literacy, numeracy and ESOL assessments and qualifications. These can be issued by any of the three parties involved. This aims to reduce duplication and facilitate progression.

In Nottinghamshire, a college provider comes to meet individual offenders whilst they are attending provision on NPS premises, because offenders can find colleges daunting. The provider accompanies the learner on a college visit and supports the learner in making appropriate arrangements to start college-based learning. One provider sends a minibus twice a week to collect offenders for taster sessions in college, before beginning a more sustained college-based learning programme. Volunteers are also used to support offenders’ transition from provision based on NPS premises to college provision.