In The Loop – 7 Feb 2014
Adult and Community Learning ‘in the loop’
Issue 7 February 2014
Hello everyone and welcome to ‘in the loop’
This is a weekly bulletin to let you know about all the changes and actions that are being taken to save and strengthen our treasured Adult Learning Service.
Our mission:
We can say ‘hand on heart’ we believe adult learning in Bristol can continue to improve and grow and we are working really hard to make sure that happens!
Things we’ve done this week:
Next week I am meeting with the councils research team to look at community profiles to ensure any advertising and marketing we plan for 2014/15 is really targeted in the right places. This will help us spend our marketing budget really wisely. One thing we are looking at is some google advertising, which would improve the profile of our website and get us higher up the listing. We’re gonna hold off on that for a little bit longer while we build phase 2 of the website and the new online enrolment pages, just to make sure the investment really pays off when the website is chocked full of new and exciting courses.
Last week was our first Learner Forum meeting at St Paul’s Learning and Family Centre with Jane and Cllr Barbara Janke. Those present had lots of ideas how adult and community learning can flourish, for example: providing more taster sessions so that new learners can meet tutors and find about courses; using existing community newsletters to promote courses in the local area; building links with housing and health to target and communicate with learners. Jane is hoping to meet more learners through her regular ‘Meet the Manager’ session which is taking place at the St Pauls Learning and Family Centre on 26th February at 12 midday.
The West of England Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) – a key partnership of businesses and local authorities—held a major Skills conference this week. Jane went along to find out about LEP plans and to promote the role of the local authority Skills service in raising aspirations and skill levels. The main focus of this partnership is to use adult learning and skills activities to support more people into work— if you’ve had employment success as a result of your adult or community learning experience, we’d love to hear more and share your story with others!
And finally … Jane and Lisa, one of our fantastic learners, were on BBC Radio Bristol discussing how learning can help people get back into employment.
The clip is being added to the www.bristolcourses.com if you want to ‘listen again’
If you would like to receive ’in the loop’ by email please send your email address to jenny.wilkes@bristol.gov.uk
