Family education gets top marks

The community education service in Knowsley is beating national targets to give older students the chance to learn more.

Almost all family and community education courses were found to be good or outstanding in an annual assessment.

Most students were satisfied with the service and felt they had achieved what they wanted to achieve.

All of the tutors said they were happy to be working for the service.

Family and community education offers part time courses for over 16s in everything from computing to card making, foreign languages to flower arranging.

These can be for formally accredited qualifications as well as informal, learning for fun.

Knowsley Council has to assess the service it provides and show the results to the Learning and Skills Council and the Government inspection body Ofsted.

The latest assessment highlights areas where staff have worked hard to improve the service and make it the best it can be for local people.

“Our overall success rates are above national minimum levels of performance,” said Knowsley’s cabinet member for Children and Family Services, Cllr Graham Wright.

“These figures relate to the standard of teaching, whether students feel they get what they expected out of the courses, how safe they feel and how the service is managed.

“Staff in all areas have worked hard to achieve these results which have been steadily improving since we first carried out a self assessment seven years ago.”

The assessment of the service is made in a variety of ways, using the results of students and how many stay on the courses they begin, observations of teaching, surveys of staff and students and inspection findings.