Adult Learning in the Community
This page provides a summary of the key messages from our work in the sector during the academic year 2021-22. Click on the arrows for details of what’s going well and what needs to improve, along with links to resources for providers.
What’s going well
- Partnerships generally provide courses that are tailored well to learners with a range of learning needs or who have had interrupted, disrupted or unhappy previous experiences of formal education.
- Tutors provide useful individual learning support to meet their learners’ needs.
- In planning provision, most providers take into account the need to re-engage learners following the pandemic and recognise that learners and those considering enrolling onto classes may have lost confidence during the pandemic.
What needs to improve
- Not all partnerships have well-developed websites and learners say that finding information about courses is not always straightforward.
What’s going well
- The quality of teaching is generally sound.
- Tutors plan and deliver their sessions well and develop strong professional relationships with their learners.
- In general, partnerships offer a range of provision, which aligns appropriately to Welsh Government priorities.
What needs to improve
- Partnerships do not always plan their provision with partners well enough to ensure that learners have clear progression pathways within the provision or on to further or higher-level studies or training.
- Not all partnerships provide sufficient opportunities for Welsh-speaking learners to participate in adult learning in the community through bilingual or Welsh-speaking sessions.
What’s going well
- A few partnerships are making strong progress towards developing larger regional partnerships.
What needs to improve
- Overall, progress towards developing larger regional partnerships is still patchy across Wales, and a few partnerships have made little formal progress towards this.
- Where partnerships are less effective, relationships between partners are not formalised well enough and rely too much on personal contacts.
- Occasionally, joint planning with partners for progression, to reduce duplication or to provide opportunities for bilingual or Welsh medium provision, is not effective enough. View resource.