Session 5 – 12th April – 11.30 – 12.30

Title of Presentation:       Learning is for everyone: Listening to the

                                           Learners Voice

Presenters:                        Dave Waddington & Angela Stanfield

Organisation:   The Rise Learning Network

Summary:

How do we know we are delivering appropriate provision for capacity building in our local communities: in effect what strategies are in place to listen to the learners/citizens voice and respond to it? Partnerships such as RISE are crucial to a flexible, innovative and responsive provision for lifelong learning.

RISE was formed after the Corus Steel Company closures, when the Welsh Assembly funded a Community Learning Network. The network aims to regenerate the area through the development of the potential within local people through learning opportunities, which reflect their needs. With 200 centres across the five counties of Blaenau Gwent, Caerphilly, Newport, Torphean and Monmouthshire, the network will be one of the largest learning initiatives in Wales.

Amongst other things one of the key strategic aims of RISE is to involve the learner in planning.

"The central idea is that unless learners themselves (the 'consumers' of learning) feel able to articulate their needs and concerns to the providers of learning, through both participatory and representative structures then the foundations of the network will be weak. This is the key to the development of the network in the long run."

 (Listening to the Learners Voice, 2002)

In listening to the learner’s voice the provision that is offered can be inspirational and act as an agent of change within the educational climate that we operate.

Rise has enabled a new approach to involving the learner, through the creation of an Enabling Framework that provides a mechanism for the learners voice to be heard at a strategic level. The Enabling Framework involves, via learner committees and the RISE Partnership Board, an opportunity for individual learners and local learning communities to get involved in the decision making and working structures of the network/partnership. 

The learners and the learning advocates are prime examples of the citizens that we have reached or that we are trying to reach. This intelligence needs to be used effectively in supporting future strategy for enhancing engagement within lifelong learning and capacity building within our communities.