History/service development

... promoting basic skills since 1982 ...

The BEGIN not-for-profit partnership began in 1982 when we worked across the whole of Nottinghamshire to advise people about Literacy, Numeracy or English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) and help organisations on a range of issues, from Basic Skills funding to teacher training requirements.

Much has changed... from the size of the team to how the service is managed. We have managed funding to develop new classes; "Embedded" courses; dyslexia teacher training, assessment and support; residential courses; learner travel support ... to name a few. We improved our database systems and now our systems are replicated across the UK. We extended our Signposting advice to a variety of services, eg, Benefits advice, Careers/Job search, Informal Conversation Groups. The numbers of people using our service has grown from about 800 to 4,000 annually.

Currently, we only work across Nottingham City, Broxtowe, Gedling and Broxtowe Boroughs and the central ESOL Placement Service is the biggest part of our work. We also continue to help people attend Literacy and Numeracy courses too.

We would like to thank all the organisations and funding bodies that have supported BEGIN over the years:

• Basic Skills Agency

• Boots plc, Charitable Trust

• City College Nottingham

• Communities and Local Government, Migration Impact Funding

• Dixons plc

• East Midlands Councils

• Employment Services

• European Integration Fund (via UK Border Agencies)

• European Social Fund (ESF)

• Learning and Skills Council, research, incentive scheme and capacity building grants

• Learning and Skills Council, European Social Fund (ESF) Co-financing

• Manpower Services

• Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government

• New College Nottingham (ncn)

• Nextstep Information Advice and Guidance (IAG) Service

• Northern Foods plc

• Nottingham Task Force

• Nottingham City Council (Adult and Community Learning, Workforce Development, Recurring Grant, Single Regeneration Budget)

• Nottingham Training and Enterprise Council

• Nottinghamshire County Council

• Nottinghamshire Pathfinder IAG Service

• One Nottingham/Neighbourhood Renewal funding

• South Nottingham College

• West Notts College ...