WEA courses

Join like-minded crafters and our enthusiastic tutor and create a range of beautiful gift bags and boxes, along with gorgeous personalised tags and decorative bows. This course is all about the gift wrapping and we will be making lovely gift boxes in a range of sizes – and with the formula I will share with you you can make them any size you wish! We will also be making gift bags in a variety of sizes all with matching gift tags and finished off with a handmade bow. Utilising the skills you already have and hopefully adding some new ones we will make our own festive wrapping, all matching and looking fabulous under the tree. Crafting is a fun and rewarding way to enhance your mental well-being, helping to manage the stress we often feel at this time of year. Come and join our friendly fun group and get crafting! This course is for beginners to paper-crafting and for those who are creating gift bags and boxes for the first time. More experienced crafters are of course welcome too.

Are you bilingual? Ever thought about using your language skills to help out in the community? Did you know you can get many jobs with languages? If you speak English and another language fluently, you could make a great community interpreter. This community interpreter course gives you an introduction to the language and interpreting skills needed for this type of work. It can teach you foundational concepts to test your community interpreting skills informally with family or friends. This course can prepare you to help members of your family or community to overcome language barriers in their everyday lives. It can also help you decide if you’re interested in pursuing community interpreting jobs. This course is funded by the West Midlands Combined Authority.

This course is designed for pre-entry ESOL learners to introduce basic digital skills. During the course, students will learn fundamental computer skills such as using a keyboard, mouse, and navigating the internet. The course covers basic software applications like word processing and email. Practical exercises and interactive tutorials will help students gain confidence in using digital tools effectively. By the end of the course, students will have developed essential skills for using computers and the internet, empowering them to navigate the digital world with confidence.

This course will discover five texts ranging across twentieth century European and British literatures. The texts are: Stories from the City of God by Pier Paolo Passolini; Baron Bagge by Alexander Lernet-Holenia; Forbidden Notebook by Alba de Cespedes; The Hundred and Ninety-Nine Steps by Michel Faber and Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. These texts include essays, novellas and novels are by turn extravagant fantasies and profound social commentaries on the last unlovely century. There will be ample scope for discussion of issues such as class identities, social and political identities and the desire to create stories to explore the nature of the mutable worlds of the twentieth century.

This course will explore four novels: The Turn of the Screw by Henry James; Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame; Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence; The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford, and the work of one poet, Thomas Hardy, specifically Poems 1912-1913, a record of his reactions to the death of his first wife. We will discuss the end of Empire, the rise of Modernism and Feminism and psychological study, and the political situation leading up to 1914 and changing perceptions of individual and national identity. There will be ample opportunity for discussion and a chance to reassess what may in some instances be familiar texts.

Are you bilingual? Ever thought about using your language skills to help out in the community? Did you know you can get many jobs with languages? If you speak English and another language fluently, you could make a great community interpreter. This community interpreter course gives you an introduction to the language and interpreting skills needed for this type of work. It can teach you foundational concepts to test your community interpreting skills informally with family or friends. This course can prepare you to help members of your family or community to overcome language barriers in their everyday lives. It can also help you decide if you’re interested in pursuing community interpreting jobs. There will be once face to face session on 13th February at at venue TBC. You must live in the Peterborough and Cambridgeshire postcode areas to get this course free.

Are you bilingual? Ever thought about using your language skills to help out in the community? Did you know you can get many jobs with languages? If you speak English and another language fluently, you could make a great community interpreter. This community interpreter course gives you an introduction to the language and interpreting skills needed for this type of work. It can teach you foundational concepts to test your community interpreting skills informally with family or friends. This course can prepare you to help members of your family or community to overcome language barriers in their everyday lives. It can also help you decide if you’re interested in pursuing community interpreting jobs. You must live in the Peterborough and Cambridgeshire postcode areas to get this course free.

The term will begin with an analysis of Eastern Europe and the Near East at the beginning of the 11th century, exploring the steps towards a climate that would produce the first crusade. In particular, we will examine the condition and policies of the Byzantine Empire and why its position would be so critical in the events which unfolded later, along with the conquests and upheavals of the Seljuk Turks, leading to the critical battle of Manzikert. Thereafter, we will look at how developments in Western Europe would then lead to the circumstances and outcomes of the first crusade.

How did the Roman Empire survive the great challenges it faced during the later 8th century? We will examine how the later reign of Konstantine V and then his heirs not only oversaw an even stricter type of iconoclasm, but also how they brought about other key developments within mediaeval Roman society. We will also explore how the struggle against the Abbasid Caliphate continued to evolve. Finally, we will look at the emergence of Empress Eirene during the later years of the eighth century, and how she maintained her grip on power, despite much internal opposition.

We will consider a range of films, from classics to contemporary cinema. We will discuss the style and meaning of diverse extracts drawing on key ideas from Film Studies. We will consider films from diverse countries, comparing and contrasting these with American and British cinema. The class will be organised around discussion of selected extracts, with guidance on points to look for, including different aspects of film such as the screenplay and cinematography. Students will be encouraged to develop their responses in small groups. Case studies will be included on Alfred Hitchcock and British cinema.