ESOL tutor training

There will be an opportunity to attend  ESOL Tutor Training on

Wednesday 28th October 2015 from 9.30am to 4pm
Wednesday 4th November 2015 from 10am to 4pm.

If you are interested please contact the Learning Shop for more details on 01292263304


We can only accommodate 12 tutors in the Adult Learning Room in the John Pollock Centre Ayr so early booking will guarantee you a place.  Please confirm your attendance by 14th October. A light lunch will be provided each training day and if you have any dietary requirements please let us know.

 

Volunteer Tutor Awards

Congratulations to the seventeen volunteers who recently passed Adult Learning’s Volunteer Tutor Training course. They were a really great group who contributed so much during their course.

On Tuesday 11^th August, they met at The Learning Shop to receive their certificates from Councillor Margaret Toner, the Lifelong Learning portfolio holder for South Ayrshire Council.

We look forward to working with them all in the months ahead!

Eric & Julia

Resources for ESOL tutors

A new list of useful websites for ESOL tutors has been added to our Resources section of the Blog - click the resources tab at the top of the page, then click the link to tutor paperwork and you'll find the document in the list.

Gail

New members of staff

Ellen and Lesley

We are delighted to welcome two new staff members to our team!

Ellen Thomson will work in The Learning Shop as our Receptionist and Clerical Assistant in the afternoons, while Lesley Shepherd is our new Literacy Development Worker for Maybole and Ayr.

We look forward to working with them and hope they are both happy in their new jobs!

Gail

ESOL Celebration Evening

On 18^th June 2015 we celebrated the achievements of our ESOL learners at the John Pollock Centre Ayr.   This is the third year we have organised the ESOL celebration evening and this year proved to be another successful event.  The evening allowed all our ESOL learners and their families to come together and enjoy an international buffet and a chance to sample some of the international cuisine prepared by our learners

Family members watched proudly as around twenty learners came forward to receive an accolade from Ayrshire College Curriculum Manager Arlene Trapp.  The learners throughout the year were offered the possibility to achieve an SQA accredited award whilst attending their community classes.  This was all possible by means of the ESOL partnership agreement with Ayrshire College.  The teaching and learning which takes place within our community ESOL classes allows for learners to achieve an Access 2 or Access3 level accreditation.  This opportunity can also serve as a pathway to college ESOL provision.

We also took the opportunity to thank Eileen Opiolka for her dedicated hard work as a volunteer and ESOL tutor.  Eileen after many years of teaching ESOL has decided to retire and we presented her with a token of our appreciation for being such a valuable member of the team.

On the whole the evening demonstrated how successful our ESOL learners are and how grateful they are to the Learning Shop tutors for all the support and encouragement they receive throughout the year.

Ann

We're winners!

A joint venture between The Learning Shop and Turning Point Scotland has been recognised at the Adult Learning Impact Awards 2015.

Turning Point Scotland opened a gift shop, Rosie's Retro, in the Kyle Centre just before Christmas to provide work experience and retail training to some of their service users. These are adults with learning difficulties and The Learning Shop team were asked to provide literacy and numeracy support to enable these learners to make the most of their training.



Gail provided weekly workshops to this group of learners, developing the communication and numeracy skills needed for retail work. All members of the group are now happy, confident workers within Rosie's Retro.

We were invited to the Scottish Parliament building in Edinburgh for the awards ceremony where we were presented with the Innovation Award. Everyone involved with the group is delighted with their achievement!

Gail

Staff update

As some of you may know, Zoe Kennedy, Literacy Development Worker, has moved on to pastures new! We wish her luck in her future ventures!

The rest of the literacy team are working hard to keep The Learning Shop running smoothly while we are short staffed. In the meantime, blog updates may not be quite so regular!

Please get in touch by phone on 01292 263304 if we can help you with anything or you can e-mail Eric at eric.lindsay@south-ayrshire.gov.uk or Julia at julia.wooley@south-ayrshire.gov.uk.

We hope to be able to welcome a new Admin Assistant and a new Literacy Development Worker soon!

Gail