Setting

Sharon Mullen Family Learning Service Manager Sandfield Centre Sandfield Road Nottingham NG 7 1QH

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and communities

Thank you for your hospitality and co-operation during my visit on the 2 nd of February 2009. 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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and communities

The visit provided much useful evidence, which will contribute to our national evaluation and reporting for the family learning survey. I was especially pleased to see the numeracy provision in Glenbrook Park Primary School. The tutor and support staff used a range of creative ways to enable children to learn and reinforce basic number concepts. Parents and carers effectively supported children using applied strategies, based on the modelling demonstrated by staff, which they could also use a home. Children additionally developed fine motor skills through the range of craft activities.

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and communities

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 visits to family learning activities. A range of documents, images and data were reviewed.

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and communities

Overall, the family learning provision I sampled during my one-day visit at Nottingham City Council is good. I agreed to provide a summary of the good practice 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 seen and to identify some areas for development, and I outline the main findings as bulleted points below.

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The main strengths are:

 Many examples of good progression, particularly into further learning opportunities, made by parents  Significantly increased numbers and good achievement on accredited courses and in Skills for Life qualifications, over 85% overall  Very effective and well supported teaching  Responsive and effectively targeted provision to meet local and city wide priorities  Good curriculum management that promotes effective quality monitoring of commissioned provision  Good strategic developments that link family learning into the council’s targeted children’s services and the extended schools agenda

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Areas for further development

 The continued improvement of your identified development areas: the use of data to monitor the progression of adults and children, and the provision of information advice and guidance  The extension of family learning provision beyond key stage 2  The continued work to engage a higher proportion of men

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Areas for further development

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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Areas for further development

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

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