We are passionate about informal learning in community settings. If you turn up to one of our classes, it could be in a noisy coffee shop. Not at all conducive to learning.

However, we know that these local spaces are just the place some people feel comfortable and that learning isn’t always a formal liner path. The story below highlights why we are so passionate about how things happen round here at Starting Point.

One of our regular learners kept mentioning a relative she wanted to bring along to the session but she “hadn’t been able to convince him”. She knew he would find the sessions beneficial, but he was reluctant to join the group.

One week he turned up to our drop-in session. Chatting to him it became apparent that this was a big step for him (“I wasn’t going to come, I thought I’ll just figure it out by myself”) and he felt hesitant about asking for help. We spoke at length about what brought him to the session, and he told us about how he had previously worked with computers, and how he had always been able to remember things without needing to write them down. He felt different trying to use his phone though and often couldn’t remember where to find things which he found extremely frustrating.

He told us how his phone was causing him a lot of anxiety, constantly pinging with notifications, some of which were worrying as they asked for money. We worked out that he had downloaded lots of security apps onto his phone, and these were all sending
notifications about security breaches and paying to keep his phone secure. After reassuring him that he didn’t need them we spent time deleting them all. By the end of the session, he was visibly more relaxed. He said:

I’m delighted I came, I wasn’t going to
bother but it’s really helped, look at me now, I’m so much calmer.

He said he would like to attend regularly, and we hope this will be the start of his learning journey with Starting Point. Learning at his Starting Point.

This worked happened because of our work with Stockport Council and the #Digiknow network. Funded by GMCA