Transcript Document

Nurturing the Learning Family
Community Learning Champions for Families
Alison Warren
National Family Learning Network Manager
Campaign for Learning
[email protected]
07798901913
Nurturing the Learning Family
Aim of day
To explore the role of Community Learning Champions
and their impact on engaging disengaged families in
learning
Nurturing the Learning Family
Welcome and Introductions
Ice Breaker – Common as Muck
On your tables introduce yourselves and then identify six things
that you have in common that are not obvious. Make a record of
them.
Nurturing the Learning Family
Background to the Community Learning Champions
Project
The Family Community Learning Champions Project –
Nurturing the Learning Family - aims to increase the capacity
of those with a role in promoting the healthy family to
champion learning in the community.
Nurturing the Learning Family
Background to the Community Learning Champions Project
It is a national project being delivered and developed
through a local pilot.
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Background to the Community Learning Champions Project
The project aims to particularly support excluded and
vulnerable parents in a family where there is a child
less than 5 years of age to engage with learning.
Nurturing the Learning Family
Background to the Community Learning Champions Project
The project proposal acknowledges the significant relationship
that already exists between those with a role in promoting
health and vulnerable families and wishes to build on this to
enable them to signpost families to appropriate informal
learning opportunities in the community.
Nurturing the Learning Family
What is expected of you as a CLC?
• Attendance at induction training i.e. today
• Contribution to national dissemination by agreeing to be
contacted in 3 months time to review work that has been
undertaken,impact and successes making a contribution to
project evaluation
• Monthly CLC Newsletter for the North East projects
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What is expected of you as a CLC and what are
the rewards?
• Completion of CLC paperwork giving the opportunity to
become part of the national Community Learning Champions
project. This will give recognition of the training and role you
are able to undertake and you can include this on any
personal statements or CV’s.
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What is expected of you as a CLC?
Optional
Register on to the National Family Learning Network website and
contribute to the CLC forum and take advantage of the resources,
materials and updates that will support your work with families – this is
free and very quick to do
www.familylearningnetwork.com
Nurturing the Learning Family
Activity
What skills, knowledge and experience do you think
you need to be an effective CLC on the Learning
Families Community Learning Champions Project –
Nurturing the Learning Family?
Nurturing the Learning Family
Community Learning Champions need to:
• Have an interest and enthusiasm for learning and a
keenness to encourage others into learning – and be able to
explain the benefits
• Be good at encouraging others
• Have either a good up to date knowledge of local learning
opportunities or know where to find the information
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Community Learning Champions need to:
• Have good networks
• Have an understanding of the barriers that people face when they are
considering taking up something new.
• Understand informal education and what is on offer
 Be aware of the literacy levels of people they are working with and how
this impacts on publicity materials distributed.
Nurturing the Learning Family
Background to the Project
The role of Community Learning Champions in
encouraging adults to take up learning was recognised
by the government in their March 2009 White Paper
The Learning Revolution
Nurturing the Learning Family
Background to the Project
Community Learning Champions (CLCs) are people who are
active in their community promoting the value of learning to
others – friends, relatives, neighbours, workmates or people
they meet at the school gates, at the local shops, or in groups
or clubs
Nurturing the Learning Family
Background to the Project
The Learning Revolution said, “Informal learning can at its
best transform people’s lives. Whether it’s personal fulfilment,
keeping active and independent into old age, gaining
increased confidence or opening a door to further
opportunities, informal learning contributes hugely to the
health and well being of individuals and wider society’’
Nurturing the Learning Family
Activity
Think of at least six things that you would want to
know about your potential learner before suggesting a
learning opportunity to them
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Background to the Project
As a result of the White Paper, £20 million was
provided for the purpose of funding new opportunities
for informal learning through the Transformation Fund.
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Background to the Project
The Transformation Fund encourages new partnerships to
informal learning activities that:
• Encourage more and different people into informal learning
• Open up access to learning in new places
• Help people to set up self-organised groups
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Background to the Project
• Widen the choice of learning opportunities for adults
• Improve connections and progression between different
kinds of learning; and
• Make better use of broadcasting and technology to stimulate
and support learning.
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What is informal learning?
Informal adult learning is learning for its own sake
rather that to get a qualification. The term covers a
huge number of activities.
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Activity
Who are the providers of informal learning in the
locations in which you work?
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Activity – Exploring Informal Learning
What types of informal learning are available in the
locations in which you work?
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Activity
What are the benefits of involvement in informal
learning?
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What are the benefits of informal learning?
For every 100,000 women enrolled in adult learning in the
UK an estimated 116-134 cancers can be prevented
because of greater take-up of cervical smear tests
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What are the benefits of informal learning?
Children of better-educated mothers are less likely to
be born prematurely or to have a low birth weight
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What are the benefits of informal learning?
More than one year of education has been shown to
increase life expectancy in the United States by as
much as 1.7 years
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What are the benefits of informal learning?
People with better qualifications are more likely to
have healthy lifestyles, be fitter and slimmer and
such health advantages can be transferred at the
earliest age.
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What are the benefits of informal learning?
On average, the children of parents with no
qualifications are already up to a year behind the
sons and daughters of graduates by the age of three
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What are the benefits of informal learning?
If 10% of women in the UK who obtained no qualifications
were to gain a Level 1 qualification (equivalent to five GCSE
grades D-G) the resulting reduction in the incidence of
depression could save up to £34million per year.
Nurturing the Learning Family
Exploring soft outcomes
It is important to recognise and give credit for the soft
outcomes that are achieved through participation in informal
learning. These are often overlooked as they seem like small
steps – but for individuals their achievement and recognition
can provide substantial motivation. Giving recognition for small
things like a learner taking their coat off, drinking a coffee with
others, making a contribution to a group session can have
significant impact.
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Activity
Why do adults choose not to access informal learning?
What are the barriers to accessing learning and how
can they be overcome?
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Things that might prevent parents from learning included:
• practical issues such as time and lack of physical and financial
support for childcare
• personal issues such as low confidence and lack of will-power.
Also, previous negative experience of learning
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Barriers
•course-related issues such as poor accessibility and poor
availability. Perception of teachers attitude.
• issues related to other people such as negative attitudes and
a lack of emotional support
• younger children not settling with strangers when there is
childcare or creche provision to support the programme
Nurturing the Learning Family
When asked how others might be encouraged to attend,
parents emphasised the need to provide clear and simple
information about what to expect, that the benefits to the
children should be emphasised, that open days should be
promoted and that talking to parents who had already been on
the course would help.
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Activity
Think of at least ten things that you would want to
know about a potential learning opportunity before
suggesting it to a learner
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Basic Skills Needs – What do we mean by Basic Skills and
Skills for Life
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Exploring Basic Skills/ Skills for Life
Activity
What does it feel like to struggle with reading?
Mirror Reading Exercise
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Activity – Skills Audit
What skills are involved in travelling to a location?
Think particularly of literacy, language and numeracy
skills.
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How accessible is publicity and other written material?
SMOG Exercise
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Don’t forget dads and other significant males
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Children with highly involved fathers tend to have:
1. Fewer behavioural problems /lower criminality and
substance abuse
2. Higher educational achievement
3. Greater capacity for empathy
4. Non-traditional attitudes to childcare and earning
5. Higher self-esteem and life satisfaction
See Flouri 2005; Pleck & Masciadrelli 2004
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How?
Whole organisation approach
Embedded not a bolt on
Marketing and Personal Approaches
Energy and creativity to engage
Effective partnerships with clear aims and objectives
Nurturing the Learning Family
Summary Activity
Think of a learning experience or opportunity that you
failed to attend or complete.
On what factors did you make your decision?