To think night classes don't seem to exist anymore?

[Mongrelsrbeautiful]

Will soon have more time on my hands and have been looking at local colleges. What's happened to night classes? In the past you could do anything from cake decorating to Italian, to car maintenance. There seems to be nothing going on for adults in my area. Are night classes a thing of the past?

I've thought this too. Our Local Authority used to run lots of evening classes but they are almost bankrupt now so I guess they have cut back as it's not a priority.

This might be an area dependent thing. Have you any colleges nearby, most near me seem to run out of those. When I was younger my mother went to the parish Hall though.

I actually just got an email from the council (Waltham Forest) & was pleasantly surprised to see they are running some adult education creative evening classes. Maybe it depends on area though.

There are definitely classes in my local Surrey area

This is what 15 years of the Tories has done 😞 huge cuts to Local Authority funding. It makes me so sad and angry. Thank god they’ll be out soon.

I used to get loads of council run class pamphlets through the door, but I don't think I have seen any for a good couple of years - because of cuts I'm guessing.

Funding for adult education has been substantially cut. Some schools and colleges run some night classes on a for-profit or at least break even basis but that tends to be the wealthier areas.

Most of it has gone.

We have a local college in walking distance that does those (and some in the day, which I'm looking forward to doing when youngest starts school). Can do jewellery making Am, sculpture, photography, photography, languages, drama. Am in a London borough, and most boroughs have something similar. Then there are other colleges like City Lit and Morley which run hundreds of courses. Really you could learn anything here if you can get on the tube and get to one of the numerous colleges.

I've just started a course run by an independent printing studio. Very interesting and not too expensive. What are you looking to learn?

I agree that in general the local offering from our local uni is not very good.

What happened was that funding was cut and courses were left more expensive and had to show people working towards qualifications. So all the useful fun evening classes pretty much disappeared.

Its the wrong time of year to look as they will have started for the year with new courses in Jan and May, but there are loads local to me and I live in a tiny town.

What sort of thing do you want to do? There are loads of clubs advertised on meetup, which might cover things you are interested in.

All cut in our london area except vocational - sewing, basically.

City Lit also do quite a lot of online courses, including some more usual languages like Cornish.

15, 20 years ago you could do anything from an A level to car repairs. Now there is very, very little on offer. Budget cuts.

Yes, if you don’t want to do an academic subject, there’s not much else.

I'm looking just to learn for fun - new skills, a language, had visions of flitting from one thing to another. Nothing serious.I've had to study at Uni level for years for my job. I'm in the northeast, and starting to wish I hadn't asked - I'm jealous now. I've checked colleges in the 4 nearest cities, and come up with nothing. Looks like I'll have to make do with online courses.

correct! you used to be able to go to night classes and study most academic subjects up to Higher level. Not now. nat 5 maths is about it!

It was always the highlight of my parents' year, getting the list of evening classes & deciding what to do. They usually did a different one each term - art, languages, woodwork, cookery, badminton, French, German. I was looking recently but there isn't really the equivalent these days, just privately run clubs which doesn't really allow you to dip in & try new things.

I was thinking this not long ago.
When I was a young adult, you could, as you say, do courses in anything - flower arranging, car maintenance, calligraphy, decorating, cookery, languages, book keeping, but sadly it all seems to have gone by the wayside around here. Not seen anything for 20 years or so.

Definitely check out City Lit. I recently did an online course with them last year. It was really well run and the teaching was excellent.

As an aside they have an outstanding Ofsted. And no I don't work for them!

Tory austerity. We voted public services into oblivion.

Same in my area. Very little in regards to adult education.

I remember our local homestart 15 years ago finding fun little courses and taster sessions for our 5 hours a week only break which was brilliant and was well received and enjoyed by the mums (and one or two dads)

it all stopped due to budget cuts and any course or session that was organised had to involve working towards a qualification. It was patronising and demoralising. Its not what we were there for.

many of us were traumatised, lonely, had mental health issues, in domestic abuse situations or just struggled to cope. It’s not what we were there for. That five hours a week was our safe space to relax, whilst our kids were next door in the crèche, we could do card making, sewing, glass painting, word skills, pc skills or just relax and chat if we wanted. Or sleep.

I'm obviously still living in the 90's - which was the last time I did courses for fun. I would even have done an A level, in something I hadn't done before - but adults don't seem to be able to. At least I can get super fit - no shortage of those classes around.

Not me!