The young people have been working hard for their exams for months with the help of our amazing team of volunteers tutors helping them they’re en route to achieving their learning goals and rebuilding their self-confidence and self esteem.

Our learners can take the exams when they are ready and whilst many sat exam papers earlier in the year but summer is always the busiest time. We’ve got a 100% pass rate so far with the results of 11 full exams published – another 15 to go.

As the number of students grows to an average of 40-50 every year, so has the level and complexity of administration and coordination. There are a large number of systems and procedures we have to go through to register students for exams and run them in the centre in Sherborne (we are an officially accredited Pearson’s Examination centre for L2 Functional Skills). And of course coordinating rooms and people can sometimes be like herding cats.

While some learners will continue their studies with us in the autumn, others are being helped and prepared for college , employment opportunities, and apprenticeships through our employability project, “The Future is Yours.”

To help us manage this growing workload, we have appointed Val Catley as a part-time exam coordinator. Val, who is also one of our volunteer tutors, is shadowing Julie Bartle who runs the programme and has already started to make her mark and ease Julie’s workload.

Picture: The Learning Awards, Summer 2022 – H with tutors Judy and Hugh