Newark

Widening access to education

A wide-ranging household survey in Newark provided the starting point for a project to widen access to education and training in the town.

North Nottinghamshire TEC then applied for funding from the TEC Discretionary Fund for a Learning Town project, featuring a strong IT element. A town profile and baseline survey of learning activity have since been carried out and a three-themed approach to improving levels of learning is now being developed.

• Theme 1 - Learning Organisations - involves the development of a learning network to exchange best practice. A baseline survey of business competitiveness has been carried out,
• Theme 2 - Enterprise and Entrepreneurship for young people in full-time education/ training. A local engineering company has created an interactive science resource for use by Newark schools.
• Theme 3 - Local Learning Communities - involves a learning programme to be delivered at local primary schools by the FE college.

All 3 themes are driven by the pursuit of the "Connected Learning Community" concept in which a networked learning resource is being created.

The partners

Partners in the Newark Learning Town initiative are:

• North Nottinghamshire TEC
• Newark and Sherwood College
• The District Council
• County Council
• Schools
• Careers Service.

Some work has been carried out in one community and five local employers have signed partnership agreements with the FE college.

Proposed outcomes

These are the proposed outcomes for each of the three themes.

Learning Organisations:

• increased partnerships between employers and learning providers
• increased number of businesses involved
• number of personal learning plans
• number of individuals involved
• number of training/ learning hours
• range of training programmes.

The baseline against which these outputs will be judged is five current partnerships among 1,138 businesses. Forty one of these have more than 50 employees.

Entrepreneurship:

• changed attitudes -assessed by questionnaires/ evaluations
• improved work-readiness skills - subjective assessments/ observations
• enhanced National Record of Achievement recordings
• curriculum materials.

Learning Communities - main features will include:

• parental involvement in schools
• adult education provision
• range of learning providers engaged with local communities
• homework clubs
• increased school/ home interface
• increased use of IT.