Wolverhampton City Learning Region_Vision and Values Statement

The Wolverhampton City Learning Region (WCLR) initiative is a partnership between the core partners: City of Wolverhampton Council, University of Wolverhampton, City of Wolverhampton College, Adult Education Wolverhampton, Wolverhampton Learning Platform and Wolverhampton Learning Communities, and a range of key organisations across Wolverhampton and surrounding areas. 

The WCLR initiative brings together a wide range of local partners across all sectors to put learning at the heart of the city with a shared understanding that learning is vital to the economic and social development and growth planned for the city so that local people benefit. 

Together we believe that the key to personal, community and regional growth lies in the transformative power of learning to improve prosperity for all – learning of all types, at all levels and for all reasons.

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Partnerships matter and to ensure sustainability of the Wolverhampton City Learning Region, effective partnerships are continually developing with all sectors (public, private, third). The aim is to bring everyone together to invest in the long-term ambition of building a learning city. 

The Wolverhampton City Learning Region offers exciting opportunities for partners to work together, both strategically and on the ground, to:

• Provide a strong and shared vision and direction for lifelong learning in the City Learning Region;
• Ensure long-term planning in which strong leaders promote lifelong learning and go above and beyond their organisational remit to achieve it;
• Ensure a broad interpretation of learning which advances equality, health and well-being, employment and social cohesion;
• Effectively targets activity to meet evidenced needs and address gaps;
• Share knowledge to;
• minimise duplication of funding and effort;
• sustain and embed effective interventions;
• work together collaboratively  to put learning at the heart of the region and focus on the means by which learning creates transformation to achieve economic and social development and growth.

The initiative is a partnership between

Working with a range of organisations across Wolverhampton including

The Learning City Plan for Wolverhampton is encapsulated in the city’s The Vision for Education 2030: Shaping a City of Learning and is based on earlier developmental work undertaken by key partners independently and jointly.  

The City of Wolverhampton aspires to become a city of learning where:

• An ethos of quality underpins the provision of continuous learning opportunities for all children, young people and citizens within the city.
• Partners work together to create an education system that provides local solutions to local challenges.
• Access to learning is available for all levels and to all ages with increased participation from hard to reach/disadvantaged communities.
• Learning is innovative and technologically advanced and narrows the skills gap to develop a highly skilled workforce, joining skills to future business needs.

(The Vision for Education 2030: Shaping a City of Learning, 2017)

Wolverhampton became a member of the UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities (GNLC) in 2018, affirming the city’s strong commitment to implement lifelong learning for all.

The UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities (GNLC) is an international policy-oriented network providing inspiration, expertise and best practice in lifelong learning and developing Learning Cities. The network comprises of around 170 member cities from more than 50 countries around the world which are united in their determination to promote inclusive lifelong learning for all and, through it, sustainable development in their cities. 

The UNESCO GNLC Network supports the achievement of all 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in particular SDG 4 (‘Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all’) and SDG 11 (‘Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable’).

Being a member city of the UNESCO GNLC has many benefits and Wolverhampton is developing partnerships and profiling the city nationally and internationally to exchange ideas, solutions and to achieve success. In 2019 Wolverhampton was shortlisted for the UNESO Learning City Award 2019 in recognition of successful progress with building a learning city.  

In February 2020 Wolverhampton was welcomed as a member city of the UNESCO GNLC thematic cluster on Education for Health and Well Being.  Working alongside the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL), the UNESCO's Section for Health and Education will bring its expertise to this cluster’s activities, while the cities of Cork (Ireland) and Osan (Republic of Korea) lead exchanges as the cluster’s coordinating cities.

More information about UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities (GNLC)

Wolverhampton City Learning Region is a member of the PASCAL Learning Cities Network. This is a network of cities and international experts from around the world who exchange good practices and shared experiences in sustainable learning city development and share ideas and experience directed at innovative responses to the big issues confronting cities.  The City of Wolverhampton is profiled internationally through this network.   

Wolverhampton City Learning Region joined the international PASCAL EcCOWell 2 Community Recovery Programme in April 2020.  This new programme is directed at the recovery of communities from the coronavirus pandemic and will be developed by PASCAL in two stages. The initial stage in 2020 is directed at rethinking current practices in learning communities of all sizes. A series of stimulus papers  on resilience, mental health, environment policy, and lifelong learning, among other topics, will appear over the coming months.  A PASCAL report on the insights gained, to be prepared by the end of 2020, will help many more communities recover in ways that make them more sustainable. The second stage in 2020 will focus on recovery, understanding that the process is unlikely to be linear and sequential, and that each community will advance at a different pace.  We are collaborating locally & internationally to develop creative responses to Covid-19 to support sustainability of Wolverhampton Learning Communities.

More information about PASCAL Learning Cities Network

The City of Wolverhampton with a population of almost 260,000 is one of the top ten growing economies in the UK and forms one of three cities in the UK government’s devolved West Midlands Combined Authority.  The city is diverse, one third of the city’s population is from Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) groups and 19% of the city’s residents were born outside the UK. There are over 88 languages spoken in the city. 

Wolverhampton is an ambitious city committed to transformation with billions of pounds private/public investment planned, yet faces significant challenges around inequality, incomes, skills and health and wellbeing in the city. 

The University of Wolverhampton and City of Wolverhampton Council formally launched the Wolverhampton City Learning Region initiative in 2017 along with key partners and organisations linked to economic and social development, including Wolverhampton Learning Platform, City of Wolverhampton College, Adult Education Wolverhampton, Local Enterprise Partnerships, employers, schools and colleges. 

The launch event in 2017 involved the full and diverse range of stakeholders and city leaders in a consultation on the significant challenges faced and priorities required. Agreement was reached on the need for the learning city initiative to focus both on where people live and work rather than administrative boundaries (thus the term City Region) and on the 3 key cross-cutting priorities that require action – realising aspirations, skilled workforce, and engaging adults in learning to improve health and well-being.  The goal of working to ensure that everyone can benefit from learning throughout their lives already forms part of the work of all the key education partners but needs to be expanded across all parts of the region and formally understood and represented as vital to economic and social development and growth.

Wolverhampton is committed to improving skills levels and progression opportunities and increasing sustained employment for its residents. The city is working actively with Black Country and West Midlands Combined Authority partners across the region to address skills and productivity challenges and the Wolverhampton City Learning Region initiative will help provide an important impetus to this work. 

The goal of the initiative is to put learning at the heart of the Wolverhampton City Learning Region which includes the city and its surrounding areas that face similar problems linked to aspiration, a skilled workforce and increasing understanding of the vital role that learning plays in economic and social development and growth. 

The Wolverhampton City Learning Region initiative is incorporated into the city’s  Strategic Economic Plan 2018 to 2030 and it is embedded as a core work stream of the Education, Skills and Employment Board (which reports directly to the City Board), under the Working and Inclusive City theme. 

The University of Wolverhampton is playing a catalytic role for innovation, research and development within the initiative and supporting its implementation.  It brings together a wide range of local partners across all sectors to put learning at the heart of the city.  The development of WCLR is based on a series of artefacts which have helped shape the WCLR initiative.  This includes a lifelong learning study of the city’s community and voluntary sector, a benefits of learning study, role of learning in your life study and futures of learning discussion paper.   

The city’s Wolverhampton Learning Communities won the 2019 UALL Award for innovation for its integrated lifelong learning approach.  This is jointly funded by organisations in the Wolverhampton Learning Platform (community learning providers) and the City of Wolverhampton Council.  It is a holistic model for sustainable, community-based lifelong learning and skills development on a city-wide scale and responsive to learning needs and interests of Wolverhampton residents. It has been established to offer a coordinated response to supporting people across the city especially those who are socially excluded to access skills and employment services.  This is a key priority for development to make sure that there is accessible learning for all residents in the city. 

Other priorities include developing the city’s learning festival which began in 2019 and developing a collaborative cross-sector approach to make a difference to the factors that influence participation in lifelong learning.   

Wolverhampton City Learning Region promotes learning throughout life (lifelong learning) for all, to enhance individual empowerment and social inclusion, economic development and cultural prosperity, and sustainable development.

Wolverhampton has a wide range of organisations working together in partnership to place learning at the heart of the city to tackle social and economic challenges using education and learning as the focus including:

Wolverhampton Learning Communities; community-based Lifelong Learning and skills development on a city-wide scale and responsive to the learning needs and interests of residents.

The Learning City Quarter; a £50m investment in transforming a section of the city centre into a Learning Quarter.

The £100m Springfield Campus Project; bringing together regional businesses and the education sector to maximise impact on the economy. 

The University of Wolverhampton Children’s University; an innovative approach to tackling unrealised aspiration and attainment in the city region.

Wolverhampton For Everyone; connecting people, places and communities to unlock potential and create positive change across the city. 

The ‘Skills Support for Workforce’ project; helping people in work develop their skills and increase their potential and income.

NHS Futures Zone; the city’s health and social care education resource centre, offering training opportunities and widening potential NHS career opportunities for local people.

Wolverhampton Wanderers Foundation; using the city’s premier league football club for education, health and community engagement programmes to empower local people to realise their potential.

City-wide WCLR Learning Festival; celebrating and growing a city-wide culture of learning throughout life to encourage involvement and making learning accessible to all.  

Due to the circumstances of Covid-19 in April 2020 Wolverhampton City Learning Region Core Partners convened to identify collectively the emerging key challenges of Covid-19 for Wolverhampton and its response.

Significant challenges are evident on the economic impact of Covid-19 for Wolverhampton with an increase in redundancies, new types of support needed to help people get jobs and access training and support without creating new barriers through digital skills, access and confidence.  There are also challenges with adapting learning  venues and facilities  to support social distancing measures for learners. 

Plans are currently in development for longer-term responses to the challenges of Covid-19 for the city.  Wolverhampton Learning Communities Covid-19 response is both through the work of the different partners who can support local residents and through innovation through the WCLR initiative.