Inspection of the learning community
Inspection of the learning community surrounding Bathgate Academy
West Lothian Council
11 November 2008
Contents
1.
About the report
2.
The learning community
3.
Particular strengths of the learning community
4.
Examples of good practice
5.
How well do participants learn and achieve?
6.
How well does CLD help the community to develop?
7.
How effective are providers in partnership working?
8.
What happens next?
1. About the report
This report tells you about community learning and development (CLD) activities
in the communities surrounding Bathgate Academy. It complements a separate
report on the school. We explain how well people involved in community learning
activities do in a wide range of experiences, and the quality of learning activities
on offer to them. We describe how communities can influence decision making
and how they can respond positively to their own issues. We also talk about how
organisations work together and how they improve lives in local communities.
Finally, our report looks at the vision for the area, and how well all organisations
and the community are working together to achieve it.
2. The learning community
The learning community surrounding Bathgate Academy includes the towns of
Bathgate and Blackburn and the villages of Seafield and Torphichen. The area is
considered to be one of the more disadvantaged in Scotland. The number of
workless people was around the Scottish average but higher than that for the rest
of West Lothian.
3. Particular strengths of the learning community
•
High level of engagement by young people in a range of youth work provision.
•
Consistently empowering approaches to work with young people by different
providers.
•
Well focused work to address youth issues such as alcohol, sexual health and
anti-social behaviour.
•
Learners reported important impacts on their lives.
•
Learning provision was impacting well on more disadvantaged young people
and adults.
•
The high level of volunteering and wide range of voluntary community activity.
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4. Examples of good practice
•
Youth literacies for employability.
•
West Lothian approaches to youth empowerment.
By visiting www.hmie.gov.uk you can find out more about these examples of good
practice.
5. How well do participants learn and achieve?
West Lothian Council has strong approaches to service improvement and this
applies also to the Community Learning and Development Service (CLDS). The
Council gathered useful information about outcomes through its regeneration
outcome agreement. Some of these outcomes were achieved by the CLDS and
their partners. The service also has good arrangements to monitor the number of
people participating in activities and these figures are well reported. However,
they are less effective in knowing about the wider outcomes of much of their work.
They need to work more closely with their partners to track the progress and
achievements of participants over time.
Young people
Young people in the area enjoy a wide range of youth work activity. A highly
innovative inter-agency project, Chill Out Zone (COZ), provides valued support
and advice for young people with various risk behaviours such as alcohol, drugs
and sexual health. Collaboration between health, social work and youth work staff
results in services that make a real difference to these more vulnerable young
people. The West Lothian Youth Action Project uses streetwork, peer education
and participation approaches to improve young people’s health and safety in the
community. Recent joint work between mental health workers and the police has
resulted in youth workers contacting young people arrested for alcohol-related
incidents at weekends. These young people are offered additional, informal
support to deal with the causes of their offending behaviour. Local authority youth
work staff deliver effective services that develop the social and life skills of
participants. All youth work staff in the area share a consistent commitment to
supporting young people to have a voice in local and national decision-making.
Adults
All adult learners who participated in the inspection reported that their experiences
helped them to be more confident and effective as employees, parents and as
members of their community. Many also reported positive benefits to their health
and that they felt more included and respected by others. Learners are supported
well to recognise and celebrate their achievements. Many of the learning
opportunities offered are accredited and nearly all learners have some form of
individual learning plan. The range of opportunities available across CLD partners
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is very wide. The broader benefits reported by participants are not fully captured
in monitoring and evaluation information. As a result, it is not clear how
programmes that deliver these broader benefits might attract future funding and
support. Partners have the potential to build on their already good local
networking to continue and develop opportunities that make positive and
important differences to people’s lives.
6. How well does CLD help the community to develop?
Local volunteers on community centre management committees and community
councils are confident, influential and engaged in a broad range of activity focused
on improving the quality of life in their neighbourhoods. Volunteers of all age
groups are committed and dedicated, including young people seeking the
completion of youth drop-in centres at Blackburn and Seafield. The Council has
developed effective ways of securing community access to facilities, including an
accreditation scheme for local community sports clubs designed to improve how
well they are run, and increase levels of participation in sports. The voluntary
sector has recently developed a manifesto to improve its partnership work with the
Council. This manifesto is well-focused on supporting improvements in local
services. However, there is a need to ensure that there is better communication
locally, and a review of service level agreements. The Council could extend and
improve the impact of the voluntary organisations training calendar by working
better with Voluntary Action West Lothian and the Volunteer Centre. The Council
and its partners have recently revised their approach to locality planning.
Community representatives and staff at neighbourhood level are not yet
sufficiently clear on how local community organisations will play a direct role in
setting priorities.
7. How effective are providers in partnership working?
Statutory and voluntary CLD providers work well together to deliver and improve
services. Young people’s needs are met well through joint work between health,
social work and youth work staff. The voluntary sector had agreed a manifesto
with the local authority which is very well focused on securing improvements in
services. Adult learning providers need to share information more so that adults
can progress more easily to other forms of learning. The CLD Service in the
authority provide useful information to inform the Council’s reports to residents
about service performance. There is scope for Bathgate Academy and CLD
providers to work more closely together, so that CLD expertise contributes more
to young people’s learning in school.
8. What happens next?
CLD providers have a very good understanding of their strengths and areas for
improvement and communities are achieving very well. As a result we have
ended the inspection process at this stage.
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We have agreed the following areas for improvement with the education authority
and its partners.
•
Strengthen links with Bathgate Academy to make best use of youth work skills
to support and develop young people.
•
Improve evaluation to capture and build upon the wider benefits to learners.
•
Build on effective local networking to help learners’ move onto new learning
opportunities.
•
Improve consistency of approaches to community engagement in community
planning.
•
Strengthen communication, support and training for local management
committees and community groups.
•
Extend accreditation, certification and tracking of progression with training
calendar participants.
Quality indicators help CLD providers and inspectors to judge what is good and
what needs to be improved in the work of the school. You can find these quality
indicators in the HMIE publication “How good is our community learning and
development? 2”
The report uses the following word scale to make clear judgements made by
inspectors.
Excellent
Very good
Good
Satisfactory
Weak
Unsatisfactory
Outstanding, sector leading
Major strengths
Important strengths with some areas for improvement
Strengths just outweigh weaknesses
Important weaknesses
Major weaknesses
HMIE checks five important quality indicators to keep track of how well all Scottish
CLD provision is doing. Here are the results for the learning community
surrounding Bathgate Academy.
Improvements in performance
Impact on young people
Impact on adults
Impact of capacity building on communities
Improving services
HM Inspector Managing Inspector: Jim Rooney
11 November 2008
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good
excellent
very good
good
good
How can you contact us?
HMIE has responsibilities to evaluate the quality of pre-school education, all
schools, teacher education, community learning and development, colleges and
local authorities. We also publish reports of interest to the public and
professionals about services for children and evaluate child protection services.
From this extensive evidence we are able to give the professional advice needed
to support the development of educational policy.
For more information about the work of HMIE, including examples of good
practice and links to Journey to Excellence, please visit our website at
www.hmie.gov.uk
To find out more about inspections go to www.hmie.gov.uk. Please contact the
Business Management and Communications Team if you require any of our
information available in translated or other appropriate versions.
If you wish to comment about any of our inspections, contact us at
HMIEenquiries@hmie.gsi.gov.uk or alternatively you should write to Business
Management and Communications Team, HM Inspectorate of Education,
Denholm House, Almondvale Business Park, Almondvale Way, Livingston
EH54 6GA.
Our complaints procedure is available from Rona Littleproud, HM Inspectorate of
Education, Denholm House, Almondvale Business Park, Almondvale Way,
Livingston EH54 6GA or phone 01506 600258 or from our website at
www.hmie.gov.uk.
If you are not satisfied with the action we have taken at the end of our complaints
procedure, you can raise a complaint with the Scottish Public Services
Ombudsman (SPSO). The SPSO is fully independent and has powers to
investigate complaints about Government departments and agencies. You should
write to the SPSO, Freepost EH641, Edinburgh EH3 0BR. You can also
telephone 0800 377 7330, fax 0800 377 7331 or email ask@spso.org.uk. More
information about the Ombudsman’s office can be obtained from the website
www.spso.org.uk.
Want to join us?
In addition to HMI, inspection teams often include people who are not HMI but are
involved directly in education. They are called Associate Assessors and most
work in community learning and development. Most inspection teams also
include a member of the public called a Lay Member. More information about
how you can become an Associate Assessor or Lay Member is available at
www.hmie.gov.uk .
Crown Copyright 2008
HM Inspectorate of Education
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