Welcome To

Durham County Council, Adult Learning Service 

Hello and welcome to Durham County Councils Adult Learning Service. Within this area you will be able to find out about the  Adult Learning Service and how we promote learning within the community. You can also find out about the programme of courses and events within your area.

Have Your Say

If you have studied with us before and wish to share your learning experience, either good or bad. Please click on the forum below titled 'My Experience' and share it with others.

If you would like to make a suggestion on the courses you would like to have in your area or to take part in please click on the forum below titled 'Courses'

If you would like to make suggestions on how we can improve any part of our service to you please share your comments in the forum titled ' Make it Better'

All of your comments will be viewed and I will respond to you if you give me contact details, or you can e mail me direct on bob.harris@durham.gov.uk

Welcome to Durham Adult Learning Service. We are pleased that you have considered  joining one of our courses and hope that you will enjoy your learning experience with us. The purpose of the Learner Welcome Pack is to advise you of the standards you can expect from us and make you aware of your rights and responsibilities. We hope that you will find the information useful.

Have fun, enjoy and succeed.

Bob Harris

Curriculum Manager

What's on in your Community.

As a service we cover the whole of County Durham in a variety of venues including schools, village halls and community centres. We offer a broad range of courses in a variety of subjects and can either be quick taster type courses or longer courses upto a full year.

Most of our courses are delivered as short 10 week courses and are suitable for the absolute beginner to the more experienced learner. We also offer courses for those that may need help with everyday skills such as reading, writing and maths and also help those with dyslexia etc.

If you would like to talk to someone about what you would like to learn or would like support in your learning please feel free to contact a member of our staff.

We also offer a wide range of Family Learning courses, where you can join in and learn with a younger member of the family. Our popular Big Cook, Little Cook is certainly one not to miss as well as many of the other activities we have to offer. Please click on the link below to visit our Family Learning website.

Below you will find all the course details and contact numbers for your area please browse and see if there is a course near you that you would like to take up.

PLEASE NOTE THAT THESE COURSE BROCHURES ARE AVAILABLE IN OTHER LANGUAGES AND ON AUDIO TAPE BY REQUEST.

Durham Adult Learning Service's Vision and Mission Statement

Durham Adult Learning Service seeks to develop a range of community based learning activities of the highest quality for people in County Durham. The provision, will be locally accessible and responsive to changing priorities, will emphasise diversity, and will be underpinned by appropriate adult information and advice relating to progression opportunities.

Vision:

To significantly enrich the lives of young people, adults and their families in County Durham

Mission :

To enable and support individuals, groups and communities to access lifelong learning, so that people will feel valued, reach their full potential and become active citizens.

Aims:

To raise the basic skills of the population in County Durham;

To contribute to the social and personal development and learning of young people and adults, to enable them to reach their full potential

Events Programme

We like to celebrate our learners success and from time to time we hold a series of Showcase events that displays the work of our learners.

We also hold learning events to attract new learners and to enable you to talk to other learners, staff and tutors or for you just to come along and find out whats going on in your community. 

Watch this area for a list of events that will be running throughout the year.

Would you like to help to shape the future of learning within County Durham? 

Our learners are important to us and we want to ensure that we continue to offer a quality learning experience to all our learners. Through course evaluations completed at the end of each course we are able to make a judgement on the quality provided. However we believe that the Learners Voice should be part of how we work and should not be lost. That is why you will find all our staff approachable and keen to listen and during the year we will be holding  regular Focus group sessions to enable learners to express their feelings and contibute to our continuing success.

If you would like to become involved in one of out focus group sessions please contact Bob Harris on bob.harris@durham.gov.uk or contact one of our staff for details.

Have a go..... you know you want to!!

Learning can be fun, but it can be daunting especially when you you have not been in  learning for a while.

Here you can find out about your learning style and how you prefer to learn, you can also try some of our trial courses to see how easy it is to come along meet new people , make friends and learn something together.

These courses are currently under construction,  but you can visit the visitor zone on this moodle site and try a selection of courses.

Please come back and try our courses soon

What Next?

You can enrol on any of our courses by telephoning your local contact to express an interest in a course or by attending any of the enrolment day events that go on throughout the county at the start of term.

Have Fun

Bob Harris

Adult Learning Curriculum Manager

Adult Learning Service, Durham County Council