Sara Hodges

Community Learning Lead

Sara is our Community Learning Partnership Lead who oversees community learning, contracts, performance and quality and compliance. She is passionate about supporting others, changing lives and has a wealth of experience in engaging with the community and delivering quality education and training. Sara enjoys seeing the positive impact that the fantastic projects have.

Andy Norris

Community Partnership Coordinator

Andy is an experienced Community Partnerships Coordinator and Staff Director. He is very keen to nurture, support and help develop adult learning opportunities for disadvantaged groups across Mendip and Sedgemoor.

Anna Caddy

Community Learning Administrator

Anna provides excellent administrative support to the wider community learning team and our community learning partners. Anna co-ordinates meetings, communicates with external partners and tutors, creates contracts, collates due diligence requirements, records payments to partners, quality checks learning plans, inputs data and updates performance data. Anna’s role is fundamental to community learning.

Anna is also a dog groomer and has to admit- dogs really are her best friends!

Catherine Dance

Community Learning Partnership Co-ordinator

Catherine brings a wealth of experience in community learning, networking and partnerships.

Emily Tavakoli

Community Learning Co-ordinator

Based in Frome, Emily oversees the community learning across Mendip ensuring a programme of delivery is in place to support the local community with learning, health and wellbeing. Emily networks across Mendip providing learning to community groups and ensuring SS&L has a diverse offer for the Mendip community. Emily manages 2 tutors and utilises their skills and experience to enhance our programme of delivery. 

Emily has an extensive background in community learning programmes and supporting the community and a lovely sense of humour!

Janet Phillips

Tutor

Janet’s passion and purpose is to enable people development through personal and professional growth opportunities, joining the SS&L Community Learning Team in September 2020.

Leaving a career within the corporate commercial world Janet transitioned into a career within education and training in 2014, after many years working directly and indirectly with a diverse range of industries and sectors, to follow her passion to utilise her skills, experience and passion to enable people development through personal and professional growth opportunities.

Janet’s expertise includes:
Personal Development courses including Developing Personal Confidence and Self-Awareness, Effective Time Management, Understanding Imposter Syndrome, Developing Emotional Resilience, Understanding Communication and Behaviours styles, Developing Assertive Communications and Behaviours, Problem Solving, Career Transition, and Menopause Awareness and more…………

As well as personal development Janet is an enabler of skills development and offers insight courses into subjects such as, An Insight into Volunteering, An Insight into Counselling and Starting your own business - the basics and essential elements you need to know.

Having a varied career based around customer service, leadership and management, recruitment, sales, manufacturing, Janet is a Tutor and Assessor for accredited and apprenticeship courses also.

Very solutions focused living by her mantra ‘ there is always a solution, sometimes we have to dig deeper to find the solution’ enables her to help others through coaching and guidance.

Enjoys Walking - has walked the entire 630 miles of the South West Coast Path (not all in one go!)

Kay Frost

Tutor

Kay has worked in the creative arts and health & wellbeing sectors for over thirty years. Teaching and inspiring others in the development of their own creativity is now Kay’s primary focus and she was delighted to join Somerset Skills & Learning in the Summer of 2021.

Lucy Hewitt

Tutor

Georgeana Gibbins

Tutor

Kezia Portt

Tutor

As a Digital Skills tutor I really enjoy being around people, contributing positively to people’s digital lives and the wider digital community. Technology has moved on so quickly, which had meant many people have felt left behind and at times have missed opportunities due to a lot of services moving to online-only platforms.

The aim of my role is to minimize digital exclusion and enhance further digital skills. Delivering digital skills to all age groups from 6+ year olds and teenagers, right up to my oldest group aged 80+. I teach skills such as, how to switch on a smart device and make a call, to more advanced digital skill sessions on coding and website design.

Digital skill can sound overwhelming, especially when we see friends and family whizzing away on their devices like there is no tomorrow. I only know too well how people who want to learn skills are shown so quickly they don’t get the chance to see how it was done.

The Digital skills session we run is all about helping you become confident to use your devices in the way you want. It may be that you are wanting to do online shopping, find information or further your career. Doing a digital skills course will provide you with the skills and confidence to become independent and stay safe whilst using your devices.