Crystal Chandelier

Crystal Chandelier was an innovative regional project to support teachers in post-16 education and training who work with learners with literacy, language or numeracy needs.


The project, which ran from 2005 to 2008, was funded through the European Social Fund (ESF) funding.  It successfully brought £2.5m into the South West region to support and enhance the effective delivery of Literacy, Numeracy and English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) by providing opportunities for the teachers and other staff working with learners with Skills for Life needs to update and upskill.


The Crystal Chandelier Project Team based at Learning South West worked in partnership with learning and skills providers and trainers across the West of England, Devon, Somerset, Wiltshire, Swindon, Bournemouth, Dorset and Poole, and Gloucestershire to help ensure that there were enough teachers in the South West to meet the literacy, language and numeracy needs of adult learners.


The project aimed to:

promote and support the delivery of Level 3 and Level 4 Skills for Life teaching qualifications across colleges, adult learning and work-based learning organisations; and

reach out to employers, prisons, voluntary organizations, communities, the armed forces and other bodies, so that learners could have their skills improved in those contexts


In addition, the project:

•   increased the number of teachers / trainers with Skills for Life teaching qualifications
•   facilitated quality improvement through sharing best practice
•   created a regional support framework for providers; and
•   recruited new providers in new contexts


The project culminated in a Regional Conference during the Summer of 2008, which celebrated the success of Crystal Chandelier and included a celebrity guest speaker - Toyah Willcox.

Click here to view photographs from the event.