Fiona Lewis has been working at HMP Highdown on a partime basis for the last year, the rest of her time is spent working at HMP Send.

Fiona has been teaching for many years and heard about the learning centre via the Prison intranet. Upon reading about the courses the centre had to offer and also seeing how they could be delivered, Fiona decided she would like to access some of the courses which would help improve her working life. 

Her first decision was to complete her Functional Skills Maths and English, although already having these qualifications from some time ago Fiona said:

I wish to take advantage of the benefits on offer through POA Learning in order to keep my qualifications up to date and develop myself as a professional."

Fiona felt quite confident with her knowledge of both Maths and English and asked if POA Learning, funded by the Union Learning Fund (ULF) would be able to facilitate brush up work and practice tests for her to gauge her confidence to sit the National Tests. She completed her Functional Skills Mathematics first, after completing some BKSB workbooks to test Fiona's skills she was then issued with a couple of City & Guilds practice assessments to which Fiona achieved very good scores.

She finally went on to sit her National Test in June 2014 and passed. Following on from this, Fiona then went on to complete her Functional Skills English. Again after some brush up and practice tests, Fiona then sat her English Exams over 3 sessions in September and October 2014.  Her Speaking and Listening part of the exam was particularly interesting as her presentation was about matters of the heart (common problems and how to prevent them) and her unfamiliar topic was about whether or not UK citizens should have a legal right to bear arms and this subject carried on well after the assessor had collected all the evidence they required.

Fiona successfully passed her National Test and POA Learning are very proud of all the hard work she put in, she should also be very proud of herself. Well done Fiona!