Prior to Covid, 98 per cent of Norfolk County Council’s adult education provision was delivered in 200 community venues across the county.

But, by April 2020, everything had changed. The delivery of adult education moved 100 per cent online yet, against a national decline in adult participation in qualification courses, the council actually increased the number of students.

Staff were quick to mobilise when Covid hit, and offered a personalised service to keep in touch with learners over the phone, via email and by post. The Independent Living Skills team, for example, kept all 145 learners with learning disabilities on its programme through Zoom sessions and an interactive workbook, combined with individual weekly phone calls from a tutor.

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By the end of May that year, a redesigned community programme - with 200 new courses - was in place, tackling loneliness and connecting learners to each other and their community. An online wellbeing programme had almost 100 per cent achievement and learner satisfaction. And more than 3,000 learners attended the county’s Creation in Isolation courses.

Tes FE Awards 2021: Norfolk County Council wins adult and community learning provider of the year 

Lead judge at the Tes FE Awards 2021 Sue Pember said: “Norfolk County Council is a worthy winner for its amazing ability to do what’s right for its community. In normal circumstances, the Norfolk adult education service would be delivering approximately 10,000 adult learner enrolments per year.

“It offers a wide range of programmes, including foundation qualifications - such as English, maths, digital skills and English for speakers of other languages - vocational qualifications and apprenticeships, and access to higher education from entry-level to level 5. It also complements this vocational provision with a broad community learning provision, including independent living skills, lip reading, creative arts and modern languages.”