WEA courses

This course is funded by South Yorkshire Combined Authority.

Embrace the festive spirit with our Christmas Crafts course! This engaging workshop welcomes all skill levels, guiding you through the creation of unique Christmas crafts. Over four sessions, you'll craft personalized items to enhance your seasonal celebrations. Join us to learn new techniques, express your creativity, and add a handmade touch to your Christmas festivities. This course is funded by the Education Skills and Funding Agency.

The portrait has flourished as an art form from the ancient world to the present day and this innovative course will explore its continuing popularity. We shall study not only the painted face and figure but a variety of formats and formulae, from statuary to pendant medals and miniatures, and study artists as diverse as Holbein, Titian, Gainsborough, Singer Sargent and Francis Bacon. We include a reflection on the place of the photograph in this history of portraiture.

The role of the community interpreter is an integral part of our changing communities and increasingly important. The interpreter acts as a bridge between communities and enables people to access the services they need and approach situations which otherwise would not be possible. The Level 2 Certificate in Preparing for the Community Interpreting Role enables learners who are speakers of other languages to develop the language and skills necessary to go on and train as Community Interpreters at Level 3 and Level 4. This is the ideal qualification for anyone who wants to enter the interpreting profession and become a paid interpreter or volunteer in the UK. This course is funded by the West Midlands Combined Authority.

This course is designed to ignite your creativity and equip you with the knowledge and skills to craft stunning, personalised greeting cards to delight friends and family over the festive season. Whether you're a beginner or have some experience in card making you'll learn a variety of techniques and fold styles to create unique professional looking cards that will wow your recipients. On this course we will look at: · design principles · Bought or made card bases? · different crafting techniques · the use of various materials and tools · Dimension and bling. We will use a variety of fun folds, including pop-up and diorama, to create our stunning showstopper cards. Crafting is known to enhance your mental well-being, helping to manage the stress we often feel at this time of year so come and join our friendly supportive group of like minded crafters and make something gorgeous!

Learning to plan your time more effectively can help you increase your personal productivity and perform better in various aspects of your life. If you feel like you’re constantly behind and rushing from one thing to the next, this time management training course can help you take the reins on your schedule. Learn techniques to help you enhance your productivity without burning out. Improving your time management skills can help you perform better in voluntary roles, work, or as a parent. It can also help you find ways to juggle all of these responsibilities without generating stress.

If you enjoy the buzz of learning environments, this qualification can teach you key skills for employment in a school or college. This government-funded course prepares you for a variety of roles. It provides the basic skills and knowledge necessary to work in admin, technical, or support roles in a learning environment. Studying support work in schools at level 2 can be a first step towards working with kids in teaching positions. It also provides you with the qualifications needed to work in admin at schools. No matter what role you’re interested in, this course can teach you skills for employability in schools and colleges.

Interested in children's fantasy novels? This day school delves into classics like J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, Ursula K. LeGuin's A Wizard of Earthsea, and J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan. No need to read the entire novels; we'll focus on specific chapters. Explore the literary significance and themes of these works, and discuss their lasting legacy. Resources will be available on Canvas for pre- and post-session reflection. The day combines tutor presentations with group discussions, connecting the novels to broader cultural contexts and examining how fiction relates to the real world.

A chance to ask historical questions about the most famous individual in history. Did Jesus even exist? What historical sources do we have about him? Are the gospels reliable? What was Jesus’ attitude to the Roman Empire? Why was he crucified? On this introductory course, you will find out what historians say about Jesus – from the issues on which most scholars agree to those on which they are bitterly divided. You will have chance to apply historical scrutiny to some early texts about Jesus – including from the New Testament – and to draw your own conclusions about what we can know and whether it matters. This course is open to people of any religion and none.

What do you know about John Singer Sargent? He was a high society portrait painter? He painted Madame X, and Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose. In this session, you will learn about the life and career of this extraordinary painter, in greater details. American, he lived in Italy, in France and mainly in England, where he became a sought-after portrait painter. But there is much more to Sargent than his portraits of wealthy patrons. We will also discover some of his impressionist paintings and his watercolours. Sargent’s art is paradoxical: modern by some features, and classical based on some others. But always, in portraits as in landscapes, he comes across as a brilliant painter.