Setting

Anne-Marie Spencer Skills for Families Consultant Wakefield MDC Manygates Education centre HQ Manygates Lane Sandal Wakefield WF2 7DQ 4 December 2008

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Thank you for your hospitality and co-operation during my visit on the 3rd December 2008. I am particularly grateful to you and all your staff for the hard work involved in preparing for the visit and for giving up a great deal of time during the visit to meet with me. Please pass on my thanks to all those concerned.

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The visit provided much useful evidence, which will contribute to our national evaluation and reporting for the family learning survey. It was particularly interesting to see the joint family literacy session at Three Lane Ends Primary School, where parents were working very effectively to support their children’s learning. I was also interested in the work you have carried out to evaluate the impact of family learning on the progress and attainment of participating children.

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The evidence used to inform the judgements made on this one-day visit included: interviews with staff, partners and learners; scrutiny of the examples of good practice provided including a visit to family learning activities. A range of documents and data was reviewed.

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Overall, the family learning provision I sampled during my one-day visit at Wakefield MDC is good. I agreed to provide a summary of the good practice seen and to identify some areas for development, and I outline the main findings as bulleted points below. Susan Bain HMI Ofsted North Region 3 rd Floor, Royal Exchange Buildings St Ann’s Square Manchester M2 7LA T 08456 40 40 40 enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk www.ofsted.gov.uk TELEPHONE: 0114 288 0985 MOBILE: 0776 483 8721 EMAIL: susan.bain@ofsted.gov.uk The main strengths are:  Many examples of positive outcomes for parents/ carers and children evidenced, for example, in good qualification success rates of 86%, progression into other learning and work, improved confidence and the good progress in children’s learning.  Good teaching strategies that equip parents and carers understand how and what children learn, and gives them effective skills to use at home  Good partnership working that directly supports work with learners and

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promotes improved coherence, at strategic level, in planning and intervention  Particularly strong focus on monitoring, evaluation and continuous improvement, that provides much evidence about the impact of family learning

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Areas for further development  Improvements to the low recruitment of men  The extension of provision beyond the primary stage of learning

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I hope these observations are useful as you continue to develop your Family Learning provision. If there are any points or aspects of the visit you wish to discuss, please contact me. As we will be evaluating the survey, you may be contacted in the future to find out your views. I hope you will contribute to this evaluation.

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As I explained in my previous letter, a copy of this letter will be published on the Ofsted Website.

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