ESOL: Beyond the classroom, East Lothian Works

Involvement of New Scots in project

As our projects were essentially a continuation of our AMIF-funded work, we knew that the demand existed amongst the New Scots of East Lothian. Through our ‘mainstream’ and refugee provision we canvassed our learners to learn the best days and times to offer the cafes.

Once they were up and running we encouraged participants to contribute to the general running of the cafes, either by helping us to set up or tidy away or by assisting us to serve coffee and biscuits.

Challenges encountered

Sustainability was an issue that we had considered but that proved to be beyond our control, certainly in Musselburgh where there was a weekly charge for the venue. Due mostly to a lack of capacity amongst the staff team, we were unable to encourage volunteers from the local community to take part in the cafes.

In retrospect, this would have changed the dynamic of the cafes and might not have had the impact we originally anticipated. A late visit from a local Councillor raised the idea of encouraging local people to ‘drop in’ but the funding period was almost at an end by this point. A further difficulty with limited capacity amongst the ESOL team was providing cover during the summer for holidays.

Again, the good will of the team was such that even tutors who didn’t choose to be part of the project offered up their time to cover when necessary. In this way, we only had to cancel 1 café across the whole funding period. Also, there was a lack of opportunities to come together to take the operation of the cafes in new directions (- a lack of available time, not funding, I should add).

A final challenge worth noting is from an organisational point of view. Since the pandemic we have not been office-based. This means I work from home for much of my working week so ensuring funds were available for the supply of coffee, tea and biscuits involved some careful planning. We operated a kitty system, which 1 tutor at each café managed and which was replenished on a needs-led basis.

Tutors sent me photos of receipts, which sufficed until I was able to meet them to collect the originals. I must state that the goodwill of all the tutor and volunteers involved meant this was never an issue and that there was always a warm welcome (on more than one level) available.

The positive aspects of taking on a new approach (innovative)/How the project has expanded on existing examples of good practice (good practice)

At East Lothian Works we work closely with our colleagues in Connected Communities (Community Learning and Development) so we would also benefit from their contacts and input. One aspect of particular interest is their operation of a ‘buddy’ system of community engagement. We have had many offers of assistance from our Ukrainian learners and envisage members from that community buddying others with less English and/or fewer employability skills.

This would include our current and former Syrian learners who had very limited opportunities for formal education in their home country and who report as feeling “lonely”, “bored” or “isolated”. Not only would this be a rewarding experience but also an addition to a curriculum vitae and, potentially, a reference from East Lothian Works.

Our Ukrainian learners have come from a wide-range of employability backgrounds, including (child) psychologists, classroom teachers, learning assistants and community workers and so have many transferrable skills.

The setting up of such a ‘buddy’ system, with the aforementioned colleague support, would be part of the remit of our Employability Intervention Officer (Ukraine and ESOL), line managed and supported by one of our Employability Development Officers (ESOL). In this way we would harness the good will of our learners, who are keen to make positive contributions to their new communities.