About Newcastle City Learning

Newcastle City Learning (NCL) is the post-16 delivery service within Newcastle City Council. Newcastle City Learning works within the context of the city’s demographics and priorities.

Our mission

The stated purpose of the service is:

Providing opportunities in Newcastle for all to learn, improve and grow.

Our vision

Enabling Newcastle city residents to grow and thrive by providing high-quality, relevant development opportunities, making a difference to the employment chances and lives of all our learners.

Within the City Council, Newcastle City Learning (NCL) sits within the Deputy Chief Executive's (DCX) Directorate. NCL is also represented on a number of key local authority groups including the Skills & Employability Group, the Skills Hub steering group and the North of Tyne apprenticeship hub working group.

At the heart of the service is an ethos of supporting the people furthest away from the labour market in the city to develop their skills and confidence to move them closer to the jobs market.  All our work is underpinned by the city council’s values of "proud, fair and ambitious".

As well as delivering adult community learning provision, NCL has strong links with a range of partners including Job Centre Plus (JCP), Council Careers and Guidance team, Social Services, Your Homes Newcastle, Newcastle Futures Ltd, North East Combined Authority, schools and a range of employers with whom it collaborates to provide additional training and support to the residents of the city.  NCL is a provider of apprenticeship provision on behalf of the Council and other local employers.

In addition, NCL delivers programmes of learning to young people.  Many of the cohorts have progressed from local schools and alternative provision providers.  Many of our young learners have a wide range of additional needs and require higher levels of support to make the transition into further education, apprenticeships, or employment.

Newcastle sits within the North East Combined Authority area and Adult Education Fund funding has been devolved from the 2020/21 academic year. NCL is working very closely with the leaders of North East CA to ensure that our curriculum meets both the needs of the city, the residents, and the wider geographical area within the north east region.

NCL receives funding through the Adult Education Fund (including the former Community Learning element), 16-18 Study Programme, the Apprenticeship levy and Advanced Learning Loans as well as some full cost delivery.

The service has a very large ESOL provision. However, the city still has a significant unmet demand for ESOL, and local providers are working with JCP to try to manage this as effectively as possible within the budget constraints.   This curriculum area continues to be a very important part of our provision and continues to perform very well offering high-quality learning opportunities at our Westgate College campus for a growing number of residents to assist them to develop their English and to be able to integrate more seamlessly into life within their communities.

NCL also has a strong basic skills curriculum which provides core support in the development of literacy and numeracy to the residents of the city.

NCL also offers vocational training to help adults gain qualifications to help them move closer to the jobs market.  The curriculum leaders have established good working relationships with several employers to support the delivery of this strand of the curriculum and continue to look at regional trends to ensure that the curriculum offer remains relevant and meets local priorities.  

The service also provides a range of community learning and recreational leaning to support the residents of the city.

The service offers courses from four main buildings across the city:

• Westgate Community College 
• Newcastle Skills Centre (on the Westgate site) 
• Heaton Centre
• Gosforth Library and Learning Centre

The service received a full Ofsted inspection visit in October 2021.  At this visit the service was awarded the judgement of Good in all provision types and key judgements.  Overall effectiveness was also judged as Good in recognition of the significant improvements made since the last inspection.  

"Learners of all ages thrive in a learning culture that celebrates diversity. NCL offers courses for many of the city’s most marginalised groups, such as asylum seekers, refugees, vulnerable adults, and young people from difficult backgrounds. Staff promote and value the aspirations of all learners, irrespective of their backgrounds." - Ofsted (2021)

For details of our Ofsted inspections see

• inspection of Newcastle City Council further education and skills reports on Ofsted

Newcastle City Learning continues to provide good quality specialist support to learners of all ages with learning difficulties and disabilities including those who attract additional high needs funding. The college has established itself as a high-quality provider of education for learners with high needs and works in partnership with the council to ensure that these learners continue to receive specialist support and education to help them make progress against individual targets within their Educational Health Care Plans. 

The following areas for improvement were identified at the last inspection visit:

• Ensure that teachers have high ambitions for apprentices and provide them with the guidance and teaching that they need to achieve distinction grades on their apprenticeship programmes.
• Ensure that teachers identify and correct errors in the standard of written English produced by learners with high needs, so that they can provide learners with feedback on how to improve the accuracy of their work.
• Invest in the internal and external fabric and facilities of the buildings used by adult learners so that they can enjoy a more comfortable and inspiring learning environment.
• Ensure that more learners enjoy an outstanding experience in lessons.