The results are in!

Always keen to know what our community throughout Somerset thinks, we launched our Workshops & Short Courses Survey in September, leaving it open for 3 weeks. We had a truly amazing response and gained a real insight into what you want!

We are delighted so many people responded and gave us such detailed, valuable feedback and we want to thank each and every one of you who gave us your time and took part! And here’s a summary of what we learned…

We asked you how and when you’d like to learn

According to our survey the majority of you would like to learn face to face, or with a mixture of online and face to face. And the favoured time for learning was the morning or evening…

Where would you like to learn?

What time of day and when would you like to learn?

We asked you what you’d like to learn

There were hundreds of great suggestions so we arranged the main themes into groups and are already starting to offer more courses in these areas…

Arts / Crafts / Creative

  • Drawing
  • Pottery 
  • Crochet/sewing
  • Lino printing
  • Jewellery making
  • Upholstery
  • Watercolour and painting
  • Xmas crafts
  • Creative writing
  • Photography 
  • Floristry 
  • Cake decorating
  • Card making
  • Decoupage
  • Knitting

Business

  • Start-ups
  • Online selling
  • Social media for business
  • Management
  • CV stuff
  • Confidence + assertiveness
  • Getting back into work
  • Management techniques

Childcare/Parenting

  • Working with children with SEN
  • Supporting families with autistic children
  • Phobias 
  • Mum / parent and baby groups
  • Understanding children’s school work

Cooking

  • Cooking on a budget
  • Family cooking
  • Healthy eating
  • Veggie / vegan cooking
  • Bread making

Digital Skills

  • Gaming
  • Tech skills for older people
  • Excel / Word / Office suites
  • Basic IT skills
  • Photo editing
  • Podcast/video editing

Health & Wellbeing

  • Counselling
  • Mindfulness and mental health
  • Anxiety management
  • Healthy eating – food/mood
  • Alternative therapies e.g. aromatherapy, massage, reiki etc 
  • Yoga

Humanities

  • History
  • Geography

Life Skills

  • DIY
  • Mechanics / electronics
  • Car maintenance 
  • First Aid
  • Finances and budgeting

Languages

  • British Sign Language
  • French
  • German
  • Spanish
  • Italian
  • Greek

Music

  • Song writing
  • Instrument lessons – guitar, piano, ukelele
  • Singing / drama

Outdoors

  • Gardening and growing veg
  • Foraging
  • Plant/animal exploration
  • Environmental education (e.g. living a ‘greener’ life)
  • Walking / outdoor exercise
  • Horticulture

What will we do with the information?

We’re already using the feedback to plan our upcoming courses, and will be offering more and more as the months go on…

To see what’s available right now, you can view our monthly blog which has a list of all our free workshops and courses available each month.

Here at SS&L we provide help, advice and support for anyone who needs it and aim to give our learners the best experience, making it fun to learn with us. If you have any more suggestions or queries, please do get in touch – our friendly team are available on 0330 332 7997, via Live Chat below or use the contact us form. We’d love to hear from you!