WATCH Member Jayne Scott had plenty of reason to celebrate at this year’s Adult Learners Week Awards. She won the “Senior Learning Award” at the Adult Learners Awards held at The Grand Pier in Weston-Super-Mare!
A combination of life events had left Jayne very isolated and suffering from a range of difficulties managing everyday tasks. Learning has given her not only new skills, but renewed confidence and a new lease of life. She is now looking forward to becoming a qualified IT Tutor.
When Jane was referred to the WATCH Project, she found the first day quite stressful due to her anxiety, but over time she began to relax and participate in some of the learning programmes that were on offer here. For one project she wrote and performed her own poem and as a result, she was invited onto local radio to read her poem to a wider audience.
Steph Steadman, a Widening Participation Officer from Somerset Skills & Learning, put Jayne forward for the award. Steph told us “When I first met Jayne she was quite withdrawn and anxious. She had only recently started going to the WATCH Project. Over time she started to participate in some of the learning activities being offered by Somerset Skills & Learning, but it was perhaps the Word Play project that began the real turning point for her. The group were encouraged to write poetry, drawing on their personal experiences; this resulted in Jayne and her peers performing their poetry to family, friends and supporters at the Tacchi Morris theatre last year. It was an amazing evening, the poems were very touching, Jayne’s poem also had an element of humour and when the audience responded it was clear to see the pride and sense of achievement she had from the evening and the project as a whole. As a direct result of this Jayne was invited onto local radio to read her poem and to also raise awareness of mental health issues.”
Shortly after this, Jayne enrolled onto an IT course being offered by SS&L at the Youth Club It was at this course that Jayne saw how much some of her peers were struggling with the topic. She decided to take action and asked the tutor if she could provide other members with support. As the course progressed, she became the tutor’s assistant, assisting the other learners with their work. Over this time her confidence soared. She realised she was good at helping others and that she enjoyed doing it. Jayne felt inspired to find a way of continuing to offer IT to the group at the Project when the course finished. Through a successful funding bid our project purchased several laptops and Jayne went on to offer one to one IT support, to her peers.
“Watching Jayne grow in confidence and self-esteem has been really rewarding; it re-enforces what we already know that learning can change people’s lives for the better. It was the icing on the cake to be with Jayne at the Adult Learners Awards evening. She was positively glowing and so thrilled to have been nominated let alone actually winning an award. I wouldn’t have missed being there with her for the world!”
[Adapted from text by Ade Bowen, Marketing Manager at Somerset Skills & Learning.]
