Using AQA’s Unit Award Scheme to support positive learning experiences in prisons
The AQA Unit Award Scheme (UAS) presents a valuable opportunity for prisons to invest in the education and rehabilitation of prisoners. By promoting education, building confidence, fostering personal growth, and developing transferable skills, UAS can contribute to breaking the cycle of reoffending and transforming the lives of individuals within the prison system.
The benefits extend far beyond the prison walls, as prisoners are better equipped to reintegrate into society, find employment, and lead productive lives. UAS brings immense value to the rehabilitation process.
A ‘can do’ way to build confidence and make progress
UAS is a powerful motivational tool giving immediate, tangible evidence of each prisoner’s personal learning successes and progression. With its ‘can do’ approach, UAS rewards even the smallest achievement. Each UAS unit of learning provides short, accessible goals to work towards, building a prisoner’s sense of self-worth and confidence.
Rewarding learning straight away with an AQA certificate of achievement creates a positive attitude towards education. It leads to a culture of success and feeling of hope for the future by increasing motivation and raising self-esteem. This makes a real difference to the well-being of the prison community.
Tailoring UAS to create bespoke learning opportunities
UAS can be adapted to meet the bespoke needs of a prisoner’s Personal Learning Plan whether that be to support health and well-being, literacy and numeracy, employability or to develop an appreciation for literature, art and culture. You can choose from a ready-made bank of units covering an extensive range of core subjects and skills; or write your own suites of units tailored, for instance, to industrial workshops and programmes. This allows you to deliver learning in an engaging way that makes sense to a prisoner and provides evidence of meaningful progression.
See a list below of popular subjects used by prisons to give formal recognition of knowledge, skills and experiences. Not only are they valuable within the prison environment, but they are also highly transferable in the outside world, supporting a prisoner’s chances of gaining successful employment post-release.
- Healthy lifestyles
- Mental and physical wellbeing
- Literacy
- Numeracy
- Digital skills
- Bespoke vocational skills
- Work related learning
- Creative arts
- Culture
Case study: HM Prison Low Newton
Find out how UAS has helped prisoners at Low Newton, an all-female prison near Durham, gain successful employment following release back into the community.
Low Newton’s success story with UAS
We currently run the AQA Unit Award Scheme at HM Prison Low Newton in our Manufacturing and Services workshops.
When choosing AQA UAS, we were looking for something that could help us build up the confidence of our women, who often come to prison with little or no belief in themselves, having often failed school or been part of the care system.
Our bespoke programme has been created to train our short-sentenced women in housekeeping to fill a gap in the labour market caused by Brexit. The programme, called Turnaround, teaches 10 AQA UAS units, from Pre Entry to Entry, and includes on-the-job training and consolidation of learning. We have partnered with four major hotel groups, who are using our Turnaround programme as evidence of capability to work in their sector.
We have really benefited from the flexibility of units available with UAS, from cleaning a floor, to preparing washing, to basic health and safety and packaging. There is always something to choose from in the online unit library for the task you need to instruct. We also really value being able to write our own units; this has enabled us to map units to our existing bespoke curriculum.
Our programme has placed three women into employment which has been a real success for us. We now run our Turnaround on a monthly basis and this will continue as business as usual for the prison with a dedicated new instructor.
Diane Corr, Industries Manager, says:
“We find UAS simple and straightforward to deliver to our prisoners. It recognises the knowledge, skills and experience achieved as part of our employability workshops which help prisoners reduce their reoffending and increase their chances of gaining employment following release.
“The scheme helps us to recognise and reward both academic and practical skills, and increase the confidence our prisoners have in academic settings, many of whom have not previously been successful in learning environments.
“We have identified a full suite of UAS learning opportunities which run in all our prison workshops. They are often the first step for prisoners when starting in the workshops, many of whom have no previous work experience.”
Units offered by HM Prison Low Newton
| UAS unit title | UAS unit code |
|---|---|
| Changing bed linen | 90483 |
| Cleaning a bath | 90283 |
| Cleaning a bedroom | 70187 |
| Employability: adapting to a new working environment | 114316 |
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