WEA courses

Building a website is easier than you think with WordPress. If you’d like to have a space online to share your thoughts, work, or creations, this beginner’s WordPress course can prepare you to launch your site in a matter of weeks. Whether you’re a small business owner, vendor, blogger, or just enthusiastic about a subject, you can benefit from having visibility online. This WordPress training takes you through the process of creating your website step by step. This WordPress course is aimed at beginners, so don’t worry if this is new to you!

Digital skills are increasingly in demand in modern society. Picking up essential digital skills can help you go about your everyday life, as well as open doors to employment opportunities. This course starts at the beginning and covers everything from using a digital device to getting started on social media and making videos. This Entry-level 3 digital skills course is aimed at complete beginners- so don’t worry if this is new to you. If you want to learn digital skills for everyday life or improve your job prospects, this course is ideal for you. It's also suitable for people reentering the workforce after a long break.

Develop skills to help you read, write, and communicate in English with confidence. Improved language skills open doors to work and study opportunities and help you learn key skills for employment. Level 1 functional skills courses are not like learning English at school. They’re created by adults for adults, and aim to teach you practical English skills through real-life situations. Strengthen your writing skills and learn reading techniques to help you tackle everyday situations at work or while studying. This adult English course helps you develop your language skills through real-life situations. Functional Skills level 1 is a government-funded accredited English course for adults. Functional Skills qualifications are free if you don't already have a GCSE in English or Maths at grades A*-C, or 4-9. We'll check your level and any previous qualifications before you start. This ensures you are on the correct course. This course is funded by the West Midlands Combined Authority.

Have you learnt the basics of painting in watercolours and are looking for fresh ideas? Do you want to learn how to create expressive and creative textures and effects in watercolours? Are you unsure where to start, what to use and how to use it? Why not join this course to explore your own creativity, find inspiration and receive support and encouragement? This ten-week course aims to provide lots of ideas and techniques for working spontaneously and expressively as well as how to create a variety of different textures and effects. You will also have the opportunity to share ideas and take part in weekly discussions about your artworks with the tutor and other students on the course.

The theme this term is ‘Learn from the Best’, which will give us a focus for exploring a range of arts materials and techniques. It is a traditional method to examine and copy famous and excellent artists to learn their techniques. We will be looking at a selection of artists, learning from their style and recreating our own original works in that style. Studying a variety of artists will give us a focus for exploring a range of different arts materials and techniques including pastels, watercolour, oil, acrylic and other paints. This is a friendly and supportive group, offering a space for experimentation.

The course aims to encourage learners to attend art exhibitions and/or musical events with a greater background knowledge in order to enhance appreciation. If actual attendance is not possible, to undertake independent research and hence, enjoy a more active and cultural lifestyle. The class also offers an opportunity for learners to interact socially with like- minded people in intellectual pursuits. It also encourages learners to acquire critical and analytical skills through debate and discussion. The course covers all styles and periods from the Renaissance to the present day. It is multi media to accommodate diverse learning styles and preferences. It is suitable for beginners and connoisseurs alike.

For Charles Dickens, writing and worrying went hand in hand. His books were knitted together out of his own anxieties and struggles. And yet, despite the weight of all these worries, his novels are never depressing. To read Dickens is to glimpse the possibilities of new life. We all probably intend to read Dickens ‘one day.’ We all know his characters from various films and TV adaptations, so perhaps the time has finally come to get stuck into a major work. On this eight-week course we will read ‘Little Dorrit.’ We will also study some of Dickens's essays, short stories, and letters. You may already be a Dickens enthusiast, or a complete newcomer to his work. Either way, I hope that you will join us to explore a writer whose books still have the power to move and enlighten us today.

Reading short texts is an excellent introduction to the works of some of the greatest writers of the western canon. Each week we focus on a short classic novel, reading and discussing key passages. The selected novels are in chronological order, from the 18th century to modern times. We begin with Candide and end with The Ballad of the Sad Café. We’ll be able to share and debate interpretations, sharpen our critical and appreciative faculties, understand what fiction can tell us about the society and culture that produced it, and, hopefully, be inspired to read other works by the writers featured on the course.

Thomas Becket and Henry II— The struggle for supremacy between two powerful, stubborn men, Archbishop and King. This course explores the relationship between Becket and Henry and sets it in its historical context. Rivalries between father and sons, brother against brother, wife against husband. The course will consider the critical role played by Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, who history has blamed for the rebellion of her sons against their father, the King. In addition, we will consider the part played by Henry and Eleanor’s sons, Henry the Young King, Richard, Geoffrey and John.

For the last century, crime fiction has been the most popular and lucrative of literary subgenres. But this commercial success belies a formal inventiveness and experiment, a constant drive to ‘make it new’, which has long been central to the genre. In this course we will read six crime novels (and three short stories) which chart the development of crime fiction. As well as considering each of these novels in isolation from week to week, we will also use the eight week course to ask ourselves: how has crime fiction changed through the years, and how has it remained the same? No previous knowledge of crime fiction is necessary – everybody is most welcome!