Leeds unions celebrate over 400 learners in 2017
Unions at Leeds City Council celebrated over 400 learners making use of the Joint Trade Union Committee (JTUC) Learning Room in 2017, and are looking forward to supporting even more learners in 2018.
The JTUC focuses mainly on helping English, maths and ICT learners and is supported by Unite the Union and the GMB project team. They came together late last year to celebrate the Leeds City Council staff class of 2017 and highlight the accessible learning opportunities offered by Joint Trade Unions and unionlearn to members.
The Learning Room, which was set up this year by the JTUC and the Learning Coordinators have worked hard to remove obstacles that may prevent staff from accessing the learning opportunities on offer.
And it has paid off!
Since the Learning Room was open in April 2017 over 400 staff members have expressed an interest and taken up learning opportunities through the Learning Agreement offer. Most of them have engaged and are now progressing onto other courses and qualifications.
Donna Padget is Joint Co-ordinator JTUC for Learning at Leeds City Council and said:
The Learning Room offers a spectrum of learning opportunities.
There are people taking Functional Skills courses to improve their English and maths and computer skills, while others have enrolled on distance learning courses in team leading, mental health awareness, health and well-being and a vast range of other courses offered through the Skills Network Partnership with Unite the Union.”
Fellow Joint Learning Co-ordinator Julie Butterfield added:
The Learning Room is open to everyone- union and non-union, full-time and part-time.
Though the centre focuses on English, maths and ICT the Learning Room also runs a range of taster workshops and sessions on various aspects of wellbeing from stress awareness, dyslexia, cancer in the workplace and skills awareness. These have proved very popular since it opened.”
The Learning Room also is used by the Learning Coordinators as the base from which to run national initiatives such as literacy scheme Reading Ahead.
