Cleaner's maths takes them to Radio Devon

Gail McLeod, Yvette Smith, Lisa Clarke, Lorraine Thomas who are part of the cleaning team at Brixham College were invited to get back into maths by their boss, Frank Armstrong. They enrolled for an entry level 3 course at Brixham Adult & Community Learning Centre (ACL) last September and were given time off their cleaning duties to attend each Thursday.

Their tutor, Marie Hubbard was delighted when they passed their computerised City & Guilds test at the end of term and then Gail, Yvette and Lorraine decided to go onto to study at the next level in their own time.

Their story was picked up by Radio Devon who invited them onto the Interactive Lunch show with David Fitzgerald (known as Fitz) on Monday 22nd February. They were invited along with their Tutor, Marie Hubbard.

Gail and Loraine were quite nervous about going onto the radio, but found as with their maths, it wasn't that scary at all. They were asked about their experiences at school and confirmed that they had been hopeless at maths and hated school but now found learning great fun.

Lorraine said “I love learning with Marie, she's a great teacher and I can now help my daughter with her homework. We decided to go on to study in our own time as it interfered with our work and now I am learning computing too.”

Marie discussed with Fitz the skills that everyone has without realising them and how she uses chocolate to encourage students and make the sessions fun. Marie is part of the South Devon College team who offer learning at three outreach centres around Torbay. She was nominated for the Star awards this year for her outstanding teaching skills and was a runner up in her category.

Marie is keen to encourage everyone to be aware of the ‘Get On Campaign' that enables adults to get back into learning by improving their literacy and numeracy.

Brixham ACL centre are offering a new set of courses for next term. Call 01803 853302 for further details, drop into your local library for a newsletter or visit www.southdevon.ac.uk

Please click on the link below to hear our interview

Our bit is between 53:22 and 1:13 seconds of the recording

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/p006gd3j