THE staff at a Welsh language-learning programme for adults, based at Coleg Gwent, are celebrating a strong performance in their recent Estyn inspection.

The Learn Welsh Gwent programme received 'excellent' scores in two categories – for wellbeing and attitudes to learning, and for care, support and guidance. Estyn gave the department 'good' scores in all other categories of inspection.

The Estyn inspectors gave particular praise to the programme's sense of community.

Learn Welsh Gwent is “an inclusive and supportive community of enthusiastic and ambitious learners, in which nearly all learners feel safe in their learning environment and are very highly motivated to learn Welsh,” their report notes.

Geraint Wilson-Price, who leads Learn Welsh Gwent, said the inspectors' report "clearly shows" the programme's success in encouraging more people from the region to learn how to speak Welsh.

“I am very proud of the work staff and learners are doing across the region and so very happy to see the results of everybody’s hard work being recognised in this way by Estyn," he added.

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Learn Welsh Gwent was set up in 2016, and is based in the Bilingualism and Community Learning department of Coleg Gwent's Pontypool campus.

It offers courses to adults from beginner- to proficiency-levels of Welsh learning.

In the 2018/19 academic year, around 1,400 adults enrolled in the programme's various courses.

The scheme employs around 60 staff, most of whom are full-time tutors.

By working towards the aim of ‘nurturing the love, interest and respect of our learners and the wider community towards the Welsh language and culture’, the provider has succeeded in creating an ethos that promotes the Welsh language in the community through the areas of old Gwent, which permeates all aspects of its work," the inspectors noted in their report.

Estyn also commended Learn Welsh Gwent for the "highly positive working relationships" between tutors and learners.

The programme's learners, the inspectors added, enjoy learning and "make strong progress towards achieving their personal aims" in learning to speak Welsh.