Education
We positively encourage prisoners to study either on a full-time or part-time basis. The education department is run in conjunction with City College Manchester and it is the aim to encourage, motivate and support all prisoners by enabling them to take responsibility for their own learning and training whilst extending their personal development.
Prisoners are offered the opportunity to improve basic literacy, numeracy and information technology skills or take academic courses leading to certification from GCSE up to degree level.
Prisoners have access to learning resources held in the education department as well as the prison library which if necessary can arrange the loan of books.
Courses available and achievable qualifications within main education
Courses available are the core subjects in the education department. Those listed can be studied at various levels and across differing locations within the prison.
- Information technology
- English
- Maths
- Key skills
- College unit
- Social and life skills
- Art-Craft & design
Library facilities
The library is a popular place where prisoners can borrow books or story-tapes or read magazines and newspapers in peace. It is staffed by a professional librarian who is helped by prisoner library assistants.
The library is owned and run by GSL. It is arranged to be as much like a normal branch library as possible. All prisoners have access to the library at least twice per week where they can borrow books and story-tapes for two weeks at a time. The library holds the usual collection of materials - reference books, non-fiction books, fiction books as well as the story tapes - but is naturally tailored to meet the specific needs of the prison population. To this end the library stocks a range of foreign language materials, including newspapers and magazines, and has a large collection of prison law information and the standard legal reference works that all prison libraries must stock. We also have access to Braille and Moon materials.
The library is often the only resource within a prison for inmates to continue their informal independent learning especially those who do not feel that full-time education would suit them. The library is the central access point for prison law information and for leaflets and booklets such as Criminal Cases Review Commissions or the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman.
We positively encourage prisoners who have previously lacked confidence in their reading ability by providing a wide ranging collection of adult literacy materials sometimes called 'easy reading' where existing titles by authors such as Stephen King and John Grisham are rewritten using a limited vocabulary. Other non-fiction adult literacy titles are also stocked to encourage the reading habit.
In addition to the above a trolley service is delivered to the segregation and healthcare Units.