The impact of Skills for Life on adult literacy, language and numeracy learners. Final report on analysis of new quantitative data.

Headline findings There were modest but statistically significant and worthwhile average gains: - in numeracy for numeracy learners, from the upper end of Entry level 3 to Level 1 - in reading for literacy learners who took the less easy assessment, from near the upper end of Level 1 almost to the top of Level 1 - in reading for literacy learners who took the easy assessment, from the upper end of Entry level 3 to just over the threshold of Level 1 - in reading for ESOL learners (who all took the less easy assessment), from the upper end of Entry level 3 to just into Level 1, and - in writing for ESOL learners, from within Entry level 2 almost to the threshold for Entry level 3, but not in writing for literacy learners. Literacy learners’ overall attitudes to literacy and self-confidence improved, as did ESOL learners’ self-confidence. There were only two statistically significant differences in amount of progress made by different subgroups – ESOL learners aged 16-19 made significantly more progress in reading than other age groups, and literacy learners of white ethnicity made significantly less progress in writing than learners of other ethnicities. On the whole, this means that provision was working equally well for many different groups of learners, and few groups were being left behind.