This Centre was established on 1 April 2006 following the
restructuring of Welsh by the Welsh Assembly Government,
who established 6 regional Centres throughout Wales. This
Centre is one of the 6 and is responsible for all the
Welsh for Adults
provision in North Wales. The Centre's
catchment area includes Ynys Mon, Gwynedd (not including
Meirionnydd), and Conwy in the west, and Denbigh, Flint
and Wrexham in the east. This means a region fromPen
Llyn in the west to Wrexham in the east and as far south
as Meirionnydd and Montgomery's northern borders. The
region has a population of 631,283; with 30% on average
either speaking, reading or writing Welsh. The region's
providers had over 7,000 enrolments on Welsh for Adults
courses in 2005/2006, by far the highest number of enrolments
of the 6 regions.
The Centre's main office is in Parc Menai in Bangor and it
also has an office at the St Asaph Business Park, as well
as a member of staff in Connah's Quay (with thanks to
Deeside College).
The Centre's main functions are:
Information and support - Provision of wide-ranging
support for learners on all aspects of the provision.
The workplace - Develop and extend the support which
is available to workplaces who wish to improve the learning
opportunities offered to their staff.
Families - Develop real opportunities for non-Welsh
speaking parents to learn Welsh and assist their children
with their bilingual education.
Informal learning - Develop a structure and
opportunities, in collaboration with other prominent
public and voluntary bodies, to allow learners to use Welsh
naturally outside the classroom.
Resources - Develop Welsh for Adults courses and
resources so that the best modern resources are available
for our learners.
Tutor training - Establish a continuous training
programme for tutors and prospective tutors in north Wales.
This includes offering the new national qualification from
October 2007 onwards, as well as a comprehensive training
and development programme for the region.
Strategy - Provision of strategic guidance for the
Welsh for Adults field in north Wales.
Planning - Effective co-ordination of the field and
the provision, in co-operation with the current providers
in order to improve upon the provision available to learners.
Contracting - Offer contracts to as many of the
individual providers in north Wales as possible so that
the Centre can offer a wide choice of courses to learners
in the north.
Co-ordination - Of all the provision in the north in
a way which will offer the best and widest possible choice
to the region's learners.
Market research - Regularly undertake research to
keep in touch with learners' demand and needs.