As a practitioner, I always enjoyed opportunities to work with employers and employees to develop workplace English, maths and ESOL learning opportunities – even if, as I’ve blogged elsewhere, it sometimes meant missing all the action at the cricket. Getting out of the classroom and into the workplace – in my case, into care homes, vast distribution centres, warehouses and even a sausage factory – provided an ideal opportunity to link English and maths learning to the tasks employees carry out on a day to day basis.

This can be quite a challenge to providers and practitioners. Practitioners need to able to contextualise English and maths skills to job roles. And providers need sufficient flexibility of funding, delivery and accreditation to be able to offer provision in ways that meet employers’ expectations and employees’ needs.  

In the past, it was possible to offer short, non-accredited courses which could be tailored to meet specific workplace needs. I remember in one case, an employer explained that there was frustration in the canteen, due to communication difficulties between canteen staff and warehouse workers, some of whom did not have English as their first language. So we developed a short language course which helped the workers with English language needs ask for the food and drinks they wanted. The employer was delighted with the results, reporting improved relations between staff, and the employees enjoyed greater confidence to speak in English at work, and not just in the canteen.  

Some of these flexibilities in funding and delivery options have been lost in recent years, but it seems that now there are improving prospects for English and maths provision in and for the workplace. One such opportunity is the Functional Skills reform programme being implemented by the Education and Training Foundation, Phase 1 of which involved an employer-focused consultation and to which Learning and Work Institute contributed a learner consultation. One of the key findings is that learners were able to link the skills they learned through working towards Functional Skills qualifications to their job roles, as well as being able to use them in everyday life.  

Other opportunities include greater flexibilities in the use of the Adult Education Budget, which could potentially be used to create – or re-create – innovative delivery models for the workplace and the traineeships programme, which our work has demonstrated can be contextualised to job roles whilst developing crucial English and maths skills.

At L&W, we’re also looking to develop our Citizens’ Curriculum model for the workplace – we’re working with employees and employers to co-design a programme which include health, financial, digital and civic capabilities, underpinned by English and maths skills. We’ll be sharing our progress on this over the coming months. We’re also working with our European partners on the STRAIGHTEN Basic Skills project, which has identified a range of ‘success indicators’, enabling effective delivery of work-related basic skills. And if you missed it, check out this year’s winners – including the Learning for Work and Employer of the Year awards – at the Festival of Learning.

We’ll be talking about English and maths in the workplace – and other English and maths developments – at our annual English, maths and ESOL conference with UCL Institute of Education, RaPAL, UCU and NATECLA in November. Why not come along and join us?