Adult Literacies Curriculum: Learning, Teaching, Assessment
Written Response from YouthLink Scotland
March 2016
About YouthLink Scotland
YouthLink Scotland is the national agency for youth work. We are a membership organisation, representing over 100 regional and national youth organisations from both the voluntary and statutory sectors. We champion the role and value of youth work and represent the interests and aspirations of our sector.
Scotland’s youth work sector is as rich and diverse as the nation itself. Our sector has a workforce in excess of 80,000 – including over 75,000 adult volunteers. We reach in excess of 380,000 young people in youth work opportunities each week. The youth work sector work has three essential and definitive features:
- Young people choose to participate
- Youth work must build from where young people are
- Youth work recognises the young person and the youth worker as partners in a learning process
The activity, venue, and approaches utilised to deliver this are varied – and include youth clubs, youth projects, specialist or targeted provision, social activism, outdoor learning, youth literacies, awards programmes, uniformed organisations, and democratic participation.
YouthLink Scotland champions the role and value of youth work, challenging government at national and local levels to invest in the development of the sector for the benefit of our young people. Our vision is of a nation which values its young people and their contribution to society, where young people are supported to achieve their potential.
About this Response
This response has been made by YouthLink Scotland and may not representative of the views of our individual members.
Adult Literacies Curriculum: learning, teaching and assessment
Questions for consultation, February 2016
(1)How useful is the content of the updated Adult Literacies Curriculum?
YouthLink Scotland welcomes the update to the Adult Literacies Curriculum. We see this is a timely update, and an opportunity to reflect contemporary policy and strategies – in particular Adult Learning in Scotland: a statement of ambition, and the National Youth Work Strategy.
The style and tone of the document is well balanced between strategic direction and operational practice examples.
YouthLink Scotland has, due to capacity constraints within our own organization, made our response by identifying areas of omission rather than by recognising strengths and areas of consensus. Our response priorities Question 3 and 4 – which we have chosen to combine.
(2)How logical is the structure of the updated Adult Literacies Curriculum?
The document is logical, but could be aided by further illustrations and section summaries.
(3)Please share any comments you have about any specific sections of the updated document.
Page 6: Terminology – missed opportunity to define adult within adult literacies; this issue is not addressed, and provides a meaningful opportunity to include young adult learners and in particular adults in transition to adulthood such as those 16+ seeking employment, young parents, or care-experienced young people.
We would pose the following questions for consideration:
- Are adult and youth literacies the same?
- Should the support/response made to the individual rather than being prescribed by age?
- Do youth literacies workers only work with young people; and therefore adult literacies workers only work with adults? Or is literacies learning flexible enough that practitioners can work with either.
Page 10-11: Accreditation and Recognition of Achievement could be strengthened in the Wheel.
Page 13: Use of the term ‘soft’ skills devalues the significance of these skills for future learning, life and work. Such skills are highly valued by employers as shown in our recent report The Social and Economic Value of Youth Work in Scotland. We would welcome a footnote or additional sentence which problematizesthis term ‘soft’ skills.
Page 13-14: There is a gap in this section regarding the partnership work of Digitally Agile Community Learning and Development. The Principles agree through this partnership should be recognized and reflected within this section of the Curriculum. More at
Page 16: Consideration could be given within the learning cycle and the document more widely about identification of need and opportunities for agency-referral and self-referral of learners. This matter does not seem to be adequately addressed within this section.
Page 22: This section specifically includes adults and young people. This commitment to including young people as literacy learners needs to be strategically addressed from the outset of this document, as mentioned above.
Page 25: There is a gap in recognition of the Youth Awards as outlined in Amazing Things 3, and which have been subject to a recent HMIE Aspect Review. Youth Awards provide an opportunity for young adult learners to achieve, and some awards are not limited by age so would be suitable for adult learners too. More at:
Page 27-29: Contexts for learning, this section should include settings where literacies learning is may be the secondary focus e.g. within Activity Agreements, or within Youth Groups.
Page 30: Whilst this section title includes employability, we do not feel that the literacy needs for employability are adequately discussed or considered in this section. In particular focus on supporting individuals to be work-ready and pre-employment support such as Activity Agreements.
Page 31: There is a gap in this section around digital literacies and in particular for welfare reform where many of financial systems will be solely online.
Page 32: You may wish to consider rewording the sentence which currently implies that people whose first language is not English are not ‘full citizens.’ Whilst this is meant to be concerned with participation in communities, it could be interpreted as an issue of immigration status.
Page 34: There is a gap in this section with regard to the role of the CLD Standards Council, in particular the CLD Competences and CLD Code of Ethics.
Annex A: The National Youth Work Strategy is currently omitted from this policy scope.
(4)In relation to your own particular area(s) of interest/expertise, is there any additional content you think we should add or signpost to?
Whilst this document recognises the contexts of literacy work to take place, there is an opportunity to address who is included within the literacies workforce: in particular for youth workers who deliver literacy work within their youth work practice. There is also an opportunity to consider how volunteers contribute to the delivery of literacy activities and their training and development needs.
(5)Do you have any suggestions for examples of practice,tools or resources that we might use to illustrate aspects of the document?
Suggestions for further tools have been included in the response above.
For further information please contact Susan Hunter, Senior Policy and Research Officer. or 0131 313 2488.