Adult community learning services run by the Isle of Wight Council have been rated as good by Ofsted following a recent inspection.
The service has made huge progress in improving the quality of its learning sessions since its previous Ofsted inspection in 2012 which judged it as ‘requiring improvement’.
The report, published yesterday (Monday) praises council staff for being supportive of their learners, helping them to gain useful skills and qualifications, and grow in self-confidence.
The Adult Community Learning Service supports opportunities for learning across a range of subjects for adults aged 19 and over, in community settings across the Isle of Wight. The services provided range from helping people to improve their existing skills or learn new ones; courses and workshops for personal enjoyment or creativity; or family learning activities to support their children’s education.
Ofsted described the service as having very effective, well planned and well implemented strategies helping to improve achievement levels in mathematics and English.
Ofsted noted in its report:
- Tutors are good and supportive with high expectations of their learners.
- Learners gain useful skills, improve their self-confidence and gain their qualifications.
- Learning sessions for parents are consistently good and enable them to have confidence in English and mathematics.
- The service has developed a highly effective programme of community learning projects that are purposeful and productive for older learners, learners with learning difficulties and those recovering from drug misuse.
- Very effective, well planned and implemented strategies to improve adults’ historically low English and mathematics achievement on the Island are in place.
- The efforts to improve the quality of learning sessions have been successful.
The report also praised collaborative partnerships with schools and voluntary sector providers, which are purposeful and productive.
The council has taken on board all of the comments made by Ofsted in order to continue driving forward improvements in this service area. It plans to recruit to existing vacancies within the team in order to increase management capacity, an area highlighted for improvement in the report.
Councillor Richard Priest, Executive member for children’s services, said:
“Congratulations to the Adult Community Learning Team on their good Ofsted result. These programmes make a real difference to the Island by offering a diverse range of courses provided in partnership with schools, communities and a wide range of organisations.”
More information about adult learning opportunities can be found at: www.iwcommunitylearning.ac.uk.
The Ofsted report can be found at: https://www.ofsted.gov.uk/inspection-reports/find-inspection-report/provider/ELS/52544.
