Innovation in provision recognised in honour of Fred Moore

“

A national organisation for adult learning has awarded five institutions with the prestigious Fred Moore award, to recognise their sensitivity and innovation in reaching out to the nation’s older learners.

The National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE) together with the Department for Education and Skills (DfES), have honoured five bodies with the award, named after the “Oldest Learner in England in 2000”, Fred Moore, at the age of 104.

Those that triumphed were the Beth Johnson Foundation who rolled out the Active Age Project in North Staffordshire, which has used volunteers to train nearly 150 local older people in health and exercise programmes.

Choices, at Poynton Community Centre in Cheshire, retrain older people to enable them to continue working. The courses have been running for 18 months and to date have trained 400 local residents on 45 courses covering I.T., the arts, languages, and recreational courses.

Chris Claxton, from Choices, said: “The staff, the committee and myself are absolutely delighted with being given a Fred Moore Award. We think it is great to be recognised for all the work we”ve put in over the past few years. It’s a real community here, 90 per cent of the tutors are local people. It’s truly wonderful how it has worked and this is only the start.”

Essex Adult Community Learning Service have provided ICT, healthy living and pottery courses for older learners in sheltered housing and day centres who wouldn”t be able to access mainstream learning.

Nightingale, a charity providing residential, nursing and sheltered housing to older members of the Jewish community. Their programme includes creative art in pottery, textiles and fine art and I.T.

Digital Unite, run by Genesis Community in East London, has delivered courses on computer skills to over 120 people in sheltered housing.

George Baddeley, Community Development Manager, at Genesis Community, said: “The Digital Unite programme has been a fantastic success and has helped to transform the quality of life for many of our residents. It has proved that you are never too old to learn new things and our residents are now experiencing new challenges that they never dreamed of.”

Rehanon Mackenzie.

Next week: Boris Johnson MP and Stephen Williams MP talk exclusively to FE News

“