Investigation into running course specific taster tutorials within prisons for non-OU students

Project leader(s): Colin Blundell
Theme: Access, Participation and Success
Faculty: STEM
Status: Archived
Dates: July 2020 to July 2024

Students in Secure Environments (SiSE) can typically have different issues to other students from pre-registration through to the end of their studies.

The first part of this project was the establishment of ‘taster’ tutorials within prisons in the North of England for non-Open University (OU) students. The idea was to run them as informal sessions with an emphasis on mathematics and engineering. A member of the student in a secure environment (SiSE) support team would attend to cover administrative areas for both prisoners and the education department. The prisons approached were those with low OU student numbers, woman’s prisons and Young Offender institutes.

The second part of the research is an evaluation of an associate lecturer (AL) running SiSE only tutor groups on two mathematics level one modules MU123 (Discovering mathematics) and MST124 (Essential mathematics 1) as opposed to just a couple of SiSE students in a group.

The research has delved into other SiSE related areas within the OU and this report will bring these together and suggest areas for improvement.

The main finding of the taster sessions is that these are extremely beneficial and informative for the prisoners and prisons, but they should be run in a coordinated way with higher level backing and coordination from both prisons and the OU rather than an AL trying to organise on an ad hoc basis.

The main findings from the SiSE only groups are that the AL is much more efficient and effective, there is consistency for the education departments and the AL naturally develops deeper knowledge and understanding of the nuances of SiSE through networking both within the OU and within prisons.

Several ‘quick win’ solutions to current issues when supporting SiSE became apparent.

One recommendation that came out of the evaluation is that a compulsory short training module should be completed by all ALs tutoring SiSE to aid knowledge and understanding and also consistency.