Adult Learning and Employment

Adult and Family Learning in Lincolnshire

The Lincolnshire Adult Skills and Family Learning Service offers a wide range of courses supporting and enabling people to enhance their quality of life and opportunities. Courses are delivered in community venues, local colleges, schools and children’s centres, and online.

Some courses are specifically designed to support parents and their families and are likely to be available in the daytime, evenings, and weekends.

Courses funded by the government, including ESOL and Level 3 - Courses for Job Offer, will be free of charge to Ukrainian nationals living in the United Kingdom on Ukraine scheme visas. Local training providers may charge a small fee for private classes.

To find out about opportunities in your area:

• Visit www.2aspire.org.uk or ring 01522 782011 to find out about courses and training providers in Lincolnshire
• Use the National Careers Service website which offers advice on choosing courses and a postcode search to help you find a suitable class
• Read notices in local newspapers or on noticeboards in schools, children’s centres, doctors’ surgeries, community centres, libraries or voluntary groups

Careers Guidance for Adults

Lincolnshire County Council also have a team who are able to support adults with education and employment advice.

The advice the team can provide might be about what adult education courses are available to you, or it might be support with finding a job - for example help with writing a CV or practising interview skills.

If you would like to ask for some help you can contact the team via the 2aspire website.

Skills Bootcamps

Skills Bootcamps provide learners with technical skills that employers need. They are free to learners and can be online, face-to-face, or a mixture of both depending on the subject.

They are flexible courses of at least 60 hours of learning, giving people the opportunity to gain sector-specific skills.

Skills Bootcamps are for adults over the age of 19. Learners who are self-employed or unemployed can attend Skills Bootcamps to gain skills for a new job or a new contract.

Adult Learning at Colleges

Courses for adults are also run at colleges in and around Lincolnshire. Details of specific courses can be found on the colleges’ websites:

• Lincoln College – note that Lincoln College also have a site in Newark
• Grantham College
• Boston College – note that Boston College also have sites in Horncastle and Spalding
• Skegness College
• Grimsby Institute
• North Lindsey College, Scunthorpe
• Peterborough College

Finding employment in the UK

There are many employment agencies around Lincolnshire who help find jobs for candidates that are registered with them. Typical roles may include manufacturing, IT or agriculture.

There are many different routes into employment, below are several useful links to job search sites where vacant positions can be applied for:

• www.findajob.dwp.gov.uk
• www.monster.co.uk
• www.indeed.com
• www.linkedin.com/jobs
• www.jobsite.co.uk

There are also a lot of tools online to help with CV writing, topic areas to be covered within an application, interview skills and interview preparation – for example, National Careers Service advice about CV writing.

Careers Guidance for Adults

Lincolnshire County Council also have a team who are able to support adults with education and employment advice.

The advice the team can provide might be about what adult education courses are available to you, or it might be support with finding a job - for example help with writing a CV or practising interview skills.

If you would like to ask for some help you can contact the team via the 2aspire website.

We understand how important learning to speak English is to help with finding a job. There are lots of opportunities in Lincolnshire to learn and improve your English. English language courses are sometimes referred to as ESOL – English for Speakers of Other Languages.

The Learning to Speak English section includes a lot of information about the different opportunities to learn to speak English in Lincolnshire. Some of these are formal educational settings like colleges, some are informal places like community groups.

When offered a job or start work, there are a number of things you should be aware of while working in the UK.

When you go to work, you have the right to be treated fairly and work in a safe environment. Organisations and businesses have a legal duty to treat everyone fairly in the workplace and in the way they recruit people for jobs. Men and women have the right to work. Men and women have equal rights and duties in employment. It is illegal to discriminate against anyone applying for a job or in the workplace on the basis of gender, race, religion, being married or in a civil partnership, disability, age, sexual orientation or if they are pregnant.

You also have the right to be able to work without fear or harassment from your employer, colleagues or customers. Workers over the age of 18 are usually entitled to three types of break – rest breaks at work, daily rest and weekly rest.

If you work more than six hours in a day, you have the right to one uninterrupted 20 minute rest break during your working day. The break doesn’t have to be paid – it depends on your employment contract. Almost all workers are legally entitled to 5.6 weeks paid holiday per year (known as statutory leave entitlement or annual leave). An employer can include bank holidays (also known as public holidays) as part of statutory annual leave.

Every employer in the country must pay their employees a minimum amount per hour. How much this is depends on how old you are.

Find out the national minimum wage and living wage rates.

When setting up a business, there are considerations about what type of business, where you work and whether you plan to employ people within your business. Information on setting up a business can be found here. If you are considering starting your own small business, but unsure where to begin, you can contact your Jobcentre Plus work coach for more information.

There is also the government-backed business support schemes.

We have worked with NBV Enterprise Solutions Ltd in 2023 to deliver some training sessions to Homes for Ukraine Guests who were considering setting up their own businesses. NBV is a not-for-profit organisation who offers support and advice in the form of Starting in Business programme including training course led by an experienced business trainer, one to one advice and mentoring with a business adviser. They can help you transform your idea into a business by sharing their knowledge and expertise including help to explore what funding and finance options are available.

This programme is fully funded by the UK government through the UK Shared Prosperity fund and delivered locally by NBV enterprise Solutions Ltd.

For more information, visit the NBV Website: Start-Up Business Support for small to medium businesses (nbv.co.uk).