Setting

Maggie Smith Sunderland City Council Stannington Centre Stannington Grove Sunderland SR2 9JT

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and communities

Thank you for your hospitality and co-operation during my visit on the 28 th January 2009. I am particularly grateful to you, all your staff and learners 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. I was particularly pleased to meet learners and head teacher at Hetton Lyons Primary School, and to hear how their learning had helped them to become more self aware, promote positive family relationships and how their children’s confidence, and enjoyment of learning, had improved.

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The evidence used to inform the judgements made on this one-day visit included: interviews with staff, learners and observations of family learning sessions. A range of documentation and reports was reviewed.

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The family learning provision I sampled during my one-day visit at Sunderland 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.

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The main strengths are: June Cramman 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 MOBILE: 0780 1768257 EMAIL: june.cramman@ofsted.gov.uk  Very good development of learner skills, confidence and parenting attitudes  Good range of activities in teaching and learning to engage both parents and children  Good range of provision to meet community needs  Well-managed partnerships

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Areas for further development  Insufficient monitoring of learner progress  Insufficient strategies to reach under-represented groups

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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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