Welcome to the Stick with it! site. On these pages you can learn how to develop strategies that will help your learners to persist, or stick with learning in order to progress and achieve in ways that are right for them. These strategies are based on a sound research and development programme, which you can also find out about here.
Persistence has been identified as one of the critical elements in successful learning, especially for Skills for Life learners. The ability to foster, nourish and support the development of persistence is a crucial skill set for teachers and trainers.
The evidence overwhelmingly tells us that we need a learner-centred conception of support for persistence, progress and achievement, and that this can be a more helpful approach than the organisation-focused concept of ‘retention'. Many learners and practitioners prefer to think in terms of ‘sticking with it'.
The Stick with it! project focuses on adult LLN (language, literacy and numeracy) learners and those supporting them. In 2006/07, we completed a research and development programme to explore the barriers that learners face, and the strategies and support that can be put in place to help them to persist and progress within the Skills for Life qualification framework.
In 2007/08 this was followed by a development programme based on this research, which involved working with 14 organisations to develop and assess interventions and strategies to help learners persist with learning.
In the About section, you can read a summary of the research and development work we carried out, and find out about related government policies and initiatives. For more detailed information, go to the Resources section, where you can download our project reports.
In Resources you can also find our publications, Supporting Skills for Life learners to Stick with it! A guide for managers, practitioners and learners and Using ICT to help Skills for Life learners Stick with it!. These are intended to help you develop your current practice and identify actions that will better support learner persistence. They also contain resources for learners. You can also download a ‘persistence plan' and the documents associated with the CPD Persistence module developed for the project by London Southbank University.
'Half of those learners who are going to withdraw from any literacy, numeracy or ESOL course will have done so by the time the course is 30% completed.'
Source: Skills for Life
You can find this page and download any referenced resources from the Excellence Gateway at http://excellence.org.uk/stickwithit.
