WEA courses

Gain essential knowledge and skills for living and working in the UK with our comprehensive course. Learn about UK culture, employment rights, and practical tips for everyday life. Ideal for newcomers to the UK seeking to integrate smoothly and confidently.

This Pre-Entry Beginners English ESOL Conversation Class is designed for non-native speakers with little to no English proficiency. Held on Monday mornings in Brighton, East Sussex, this course offers a friendly and supportive environment for those starting their English language journey. The focus is on developing basic conversational skills, essential vocabulary, and simple sentence structures through interactive activities, group discussions, and role-plays. Ideal for building confidence in speaking and understanding English, the class encourages learners to practice and improve at their own pace. Join us to start communicating more effectively in English!

How do the popular representations of smuggling in novels, songs, poems, paintings and film match up to the reality? We will look at some of the enduring romantic depictions alongside official records to consider the reality of life for people up and down the Essex coast in the 18th century engaged in smuggling or the fight against it.

This friendly creative writing course will invite you to enter into relationship with your bodies and surroundings. The session will be held in a supportive way and will integrate some simple meditation (adaptable to all bodies), prompts for creative and reflective expression through writing, and even some environmental science! You will be guided to a holistic understanding of person and place. This course is ideal for people who like to write and to contemplate how to live more skilfully as individuals, as a community and in relationship with their surroundings. There will be time for sharing small parts of your writing towards the end of the workshop but no pressure, it’s about an unfolding individual/shared creative process and participants need to feel at ease to write freely.

This course looks at the troubled years after 1140, when England was ravaged by civil war and had two rival monarchs: the Empress Matilda, the daughter of King Henry I and her cousin, King Stephen. The Empress spent 17 years trying to secure her birthright. These years were called ‘The Anarchy’ by historians because of the destruction wreaked by both sides on villages and towns across southern England and the breakdown of law and order. The course explores the reasons why William Adelin’s sister, the Empress Matilda never achieved the Crown.

Having a child or loved one receive an autism diagnosis can be worrying and unsettling. It’s difficult to know how best to support autistic children’s needs without external guidance. This autism course can teach you how to offer support to help autistic young people live healthy and fulfilling lives. This taster course is ideal for you if you have regular contact with autistic children or teenagers. It is aimed at parents, family members, community workers, or volunteers who interact closely with autistic kids. It can be useful both if you are going through diagnosis, and also if you feel you need extra resources to help support a developing autistic child.

In order to redress the balance of the narrative, each week this course covers different women artists depicting aspects of war set within the historical context. There will be a bias towards British artists, but not exclusively. You will look at artworks that these artists produced before, during, and after a war and these artworks will be in different mediums from pencil to oil and encompass print mediums too.

Continue developing English skills to help you in work and everyday life situations. This functional skills English entry 2 course teaches you skills for reading, writing, and communicating in English. Learn how to improve your writing skills and build on the basic reading skills from entry 1. Adult English courses teach you practical communication skills to help you get a job or study. Develop your English skills through real-life situations. This course teaches you tools and resources to improve your use of English in new and familiar situations. These skills can help you succeed in your studies, professional situations, and social interactions. This 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.

Take your first steps towards employment with our comprehensive course. Develop essential skills and knowledge needed for job applications, interviews, and workplace success. Ideal for individuals seeking to enter the job market.

We shall discuss the tidal waves of history which enabled the Low Countries to become the driving force in trade, exploration and also painting at this time. This course will educate and entertain those with an interest in the life and work of three of the greatest artists of their age and probably of all time – Pieter Paul Rubens, Rembrandt van Rijn and Johannes Vermeer