Durham Skills Boost

Building your learning, literacy and digital confidence

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How we help

Get back into learning with Durham Skills Boost!

With our free one or two-day taster course, we can help you to gain a better understanding of your learning options, supporting you to have the confidence to pursue your goals.

Our experience tutor helps you take your first steps to build your digital skills and confidence with reading, communicating, and learning.

On completion of the course, you will receive a £25 voucher!

You may also receive up to £100 for travel or childcare costs.*

Support from our experienced tutor

Our tutor, who will support you throughout the course, is Margaret. Margaret has many years of experience supporting people to get back into learning.

Durham Skills Boost is delivered by Education Development Trust in County Durham. It is supported by Durham Learn and funded through Durham County Council’s Shared Prosperity Fund by the UK Government.

Hear from our participants

Here are some quotes shared by some of our participants on their experience with Durham Skills Boost.

"Excellent course, very well presented. Tutor very friendly and helpful."

"It was run really well and allowed great interaction during the week."

"I have really enjoyed this course, felt listened to and been helped in my next step. I am looking forward to the next step in my life thanks to Margaret and this course. so thank you Margaret I hope to see and work with you again."

"The tutor made us feel comfortable and she engaged with us on a personal level. That made me feel comfortable and made me contribute my thoughts easily without fear of being told off. I was able to achieve some goals as get pointed out to where I could find other courses and apprenticeships to further progress. Thank you for this opportunity."

Our benefits

Take your next steps into learning or getting work
Build confidence in reading, speaking and learning
Develop your digital skills
100% satisfaction of our course and tutor

Click here to book

What does the course involve?

Our friendly and supportive tutor will work with you to find out your learning goals. You will get a chance to talk about any concerns you may have and then work towards creating a personalised plan.

By the end of the course, you will better understand how improving your literacy and digital skills can help you in learning and work. We will also help you with some of the skills needed to get ready for work.

This includes:

- Understanding what a job requires and application instructions in job adverts
- Exploring common interview questions and how to answer them
- Understanding key workplace documents such as policies, procedures and payslips.

Latest course dates and venues

Please inquire for further details.

January

7th January 09.30am to 2.30pm - Spennymoor YCA
13th January 9.30am to 3.30pm - The Venue, Stanley
14th January 9:00am to 3.30pm - Elvet Methodist Church
21st January 09.15am to 3.45pm - Belmont Community Association
22nd January 9.00am to 3.30pm - Horden Youth and Community Centre

All sessions are held face-to-face across County Durham.

Our current venues are:

Alington House Community Association, Durham
Bullion Hall, Chester-le-Street
Spennymoor Youth and Community Association, Spennymoor
The Venue, Stanley

Stakeholder information

Are you an employer or representative of an organisation? If yes, we would love to collaborate!

Durham Skills Boost offers many benefits for its participants, but we also welcome any chance to engage with external stakeholders. Work with us and you could:

Meet new people in a friendly small group environment
Support your client and giving them the confidence to take the next step with their learning
Help them to understand their strengths and how to utilise these in learning and work
Further enhance their employability skills
Gain literacy and digital confidence
Help to remove barriers to learning, such as travel and childcare costs
Learn from our qualified literacy, numeracy and ESOL tutor with many years of experience supporting learners with different needs.

Click here to get involved

Register your interest

Eligibility Criteria

You must:

Be age 19+
Not have an English qualification at GCSE Grade 4/C, Level 2, equivalent or above
Live in County Durham and have lived in the UK for the last three years*

*Eligibility criteria apply, contact us for more details.

Click here to register your interest