The sector must ensure that adult learners have greater access to excellent provision for basic skills, training for work and learning for personal development.
If someone put some work in front of me two years ago it was like looking at something in code. I would misbehave because I felt so stupid. I couldn’t spell my address or my middle name. When I started learning support I had a big mission ahead but I was willing to learn this time. Doing the one-to-one was better as I did not feel stupid. It let me see my progress and it gave me a real buzz.
KEY FACTS
For the purposes of this Guide, young offenders are young people aged between 18 and 21 who are serving a custodial sentence. There is a prison population of approximately 10,824 young offenders, of which approximately 4.7 per cent are female. The total number of young offenders represents 14.5 per cent of the current prison population (data from HM Prison Service Statistics Prison Population 27 February 2004).
Male young offenders who are serving longer custodial sentences are held in separate young offender institutions. Female young offenders (who are less numerous), often serve their custodial sentence alongside other prisoners in the female estate. Some young offender institutions (male and female) also take young people who are under 18, referred to as ‘juveniles’, and some only provide services for juveniles. It should be noted that this Guide does not reflect the specific context and requirements for juveniles in relation to learning and skills.
A separate Guide in this series for the juvenile secure estate for young people aged 15-17 has been developed by the Skills for Life Strategy Unit and the Youth Justice Board. This reflects the standards that are a requirement of provision and initiatives specific to juveniles.
The context in which young offenders are held can vary depending on the security level operating in the establishment. Young offender institutions hold remand, convicted or sentenced offenders in high-security, closed, open or semi-open institutions. Both males and females are educated in these institutions.
The Correctional Services Review , published in January 2004, announced the bringing together of the Prison Service and the Probation Service into a single National Offender Management Service. This new service will improve offender management and enable progress made in prison to be maintained and extended when an offender is released on supervision. Ministers have agreed to make skills assessment a condition of licence for offenders.
CURRENT ISSUES IN PROVISION FOR YOUNG OFFENDERS
Young offenders are one of the hardest groups to reach, and are identified as such in the Skills for Life strategy. They face multiple social disadvantages, which makes it hard for them to break out of the cycle of re-offending. They often have low literacy and numeracy skills and may be excluded from jobs upon release. When screened at reception, many are below Level 1 in reading, writing and numeracy. The common characteristics of young offenders are that they have frequently been excluded from school, have attended special units for learners with educational and behavioural difficulties or have truanted frequently. A high number of young offenders also have dyslexia.
It is a particular priority of the Government to ensure that young offenders are given the opportunity to gain the educational and personal skills that will help them to move away from offending and allow them to lead productive and fulfilling lives. There have been several recent initiatives to improve the quality of teaching and support for literacy, numeracy and language (ESOL) in prisons and young offender institutions. The Skills for Life strategy and inspection have together helped to raise standards and to focus on the delivery of good-quality provision. There have been a number of recent initiatives to improve the quality of provision in prisons and young offender institutions, which have proved to be effective. These include the use of learning support assistants and learning support managers, and provision managed by the heads of learning and skills.
In particular, the Skills for Life strategy has provided teachers in young offender institutions with a tool to structure their learning programmes more effectively. This in turn helps staff to identify and meet individual learning needs. The corresponding investment in resources has raised the profile of literacy, numeracy and language skills across the secure estate. Young offenders now have a greater opportunity to improve their basic skills. They can practise and apply these skills in vocational workshops, a work context or other work areas of the institution ready for resettlement and release. There are many positive examples in the young offender estate where literacy, numeracy and key skills are being integrated into work areas and where specific projects involve external agencies. These provide opportunities for learners to obtain basic and key skills accreditation. When followed by projects to support young offenders in the community following their release, the outcome can be rewarding employment often for the first time for a young person, and perhaps more importantly, a route out of crime.
Even so, there are several common factors that can disrupt education and affect achievement in secure establishments. Teachers face particularly challenging circumstances where the membership of teaching groups constantly changes. Moreover, young offenders often experience multiple problems. They face a range of personal and social issues that can affect their learning experience. This can include withdrawal from drug abuse and separation from families. A high number of young offenders also have young children. Other disruptions can include access to other work activities, attendance at behaviour or substance abuse programmes or movement to other institutions. In some institutions, timetables have not provided enough classes to meet the needs of individual learners, and the waiting lists have also been too long. There has also been a high turnover of staff in education units.
RECENT DEVELOPMENTS
Since 2004, the National Offender Management Service and the Offenders’ Learning and Skills Unit (OLSU) have been developing an integrated learning and skills strategy and continue working with key partners to create coherent arrangements for improving offenders’ learning and skills in custody and on release. This will help more people find work and build a life away from crime.
Between April 2001 and January 2004, prisoners achieved over 107,000 nationally accredited literacy, numeracy and ESOL qualifications from Entry Level to Level 2. Some 100,000 of these achievements count towards the Skills for Life target (this excludes Entry Level 1 and Entry Level 2 achievements).
The Probation Service targets are to reduce the number of people with poor literacy, language and numeracy skills by 6,000 by 2003 and by approximately 12,000 by 2004.
THE SCOPE OF THIS GUIDE
This Guide is designed to help providers achieve excellence in their literacy, numeracy and ESOL provision for learners in young offender institutions. 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, 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 YOUNG OFFENDER INSTITUTION CONTEXT?
Skills for Life can have a positive effect on the lives of young offenders and can help them to reintegrate with the community at the end of their sentences. For many young offenders, being in a young offender institution will be the first time that adults have sat with them and designed a programme that will enable them to learn. Many are pleased with the progress they have made and their positive learning experience. They are keen to continue their education and training upon release. Good learning environments motivate learners and enable them to contribute to a positive approach to learning. Teachers know their learners well and can give many positive examples of improvements in learners’ literacy, numeracy and language skills as well as self-esteem and confidence. Learning has enabled young offenders to communicate better with their children and families and to increase their opportunities of gaining meaningful employment upon release. One female young offender with a range of personal and social problems has really benefited from the improvements to her literacy and numeracy skills. Since her release she has been living with her family and attending a local college to complete an NVQ in Administration at Level 2. Others have similar success stories to tell:
I have my qualifications now in literacy and numeracy because the staff had faith in me and believed I could do it. I am now doing my GCSE in Law.
I came here and didn’t know much about education. Since I started doing courses I have achieved a lot of certificates. I couldn’t spell big words and now I can.
I have learnt how to do maths work better than I’ve done before – I am still learning.
I have been here for five months and I have now passed maths and English – two exams.
I never used to get on with my teachers but I have achieved maths skills and English skills. I have more confidence in myself.
Maths has helped me with weighing things and sorting out spices for recipes in the kitchen. Exams make you more aware – helps you to get your head around things – my mum is proud of me.
I don’t think I am dumb any more.
