It is vital that further education and training programmes are available to everybody, including people who have literacy and numeracy difficulties. To achieve this, it is necessary for literacy development to be integrated into other courses. This helps to ensure that people wishing to undertake education and training programmes are not excluded because of the literacy and numeracy demands of the course.

‘Integrating literacy’ means designing and delivering courses in ways that remove unnecessary literacy barriers and that develop the key course-related language, literacy and numeracy. It requires education and training providers to take a whole-organisation approach to literacy. This involves a working partnership between subject specialists and literacy specialists. All staff in the organisation use inclusive, literacy-friendly methods and materials in their own subject or in their area of responsibility.

A whole-organisation approach to literacy requires a commitment, policy and strategy, led ‘from the top’, and developed in consultation with learners, teachers and all staff.

NALA provide introductory workshops on integrating literacy and numeracy support and development into FET courses. The particular focus of the workshop is agreed with the organisation requesting the training. Typically, the workshops aim to facilitate participants to:

• develop a shared understanding of ‘integrating literacy’ in further education and training;
• identify core elements of a whole-college or whole-centreapproach to literacy and numeracy;
• share experience and good practice in supporting learners with the literacy and numeracy demands of their course;
• consider guidelines for integrating literacy and numeracy with subject teaching and learning;
• identify possible elements of a ‘one small change’ plan for integrating literacy.

NALA has produced guidelines and support materials tailored to particular education, training and development programmes, developed in partnership with the relevant organisation.