Sure Start - adult learning crucial Friday, November 26, 2010 - 16:36

NIACE believes that parents and carers are a child's first and most important teachers, and that the best way to help children with their learning is to help adults improve their confidence and skills through learning.

The latest report from the National Evaluation of Sure Start, published on Thursday, highlights the important role that Sure Start children's centres play in enhancing a family's ability to provide a stimulating home learning environment for their children.

A positive home learning environment means that children are much more likely to do well at school and to enjoy learning. NIACE's work with children's centres has shown how partnerships between the centres and other services including family and adult learning, result in programmes that help to change the culture of learning in families. This has a long-term effect on the aspiration and attainment of both adults and children, and creates learning families.

NIACE's Director of Operations, Carol Taylor says:    

"Sure Starts lie at the very heart of our communities and enable providers of education, health, and other services to take a community-focused approach to engaging and working with adults. Helping your children is often just the first step on the road to discovering the ‘bug for learning' - moving from reading to your baby, to reading for yourself; from making up bottle feeds to numeracy."

"Despite the current financial pressures, the removal of the ring-fence on funding and the emphasis on payment by results, NIACE hopes that local authorities will continue to invest in a Sure Start approach that recognises the impact of adults' learning on children's outcomes, even though the direct benefits for children may only be measurable over time."

NIACE also hopes that Sure Start centres across the country will help more adults to develop their skills and grow in confidence. William Ride, an Adult Learners' Week 2010 Award Winner, became a single father of his two sons following his wife's death from leukaemia. He approached his Sure Start centre for help. Six years later he is planning a career for himself working with children with an ambition to set up dads' groups in his local area.

NIACE is developing the concept of the learning family, through the Centre for the Learning Family initiative.