MONMOUTHSHIRE'S Adult and Community Education service staff are celebrating an outstanding Estyn report. 

Estyn, the Welsh Government's education and training inspection body, reported on the Gwent Adult Community partnership and gave it top marks for its prospects for improvement. 

Current performance was judged to be good as were the standards of teaching and wellbeing, care, support and guidance, learning environment, leadership, partnership working and management.

The Gwent Adult Community partnership covers the five unitary authorities of Monmouthshire, Blaenau Gwent, Torfaen, Caerffili and Newport. Estyn rated the partnership as good because learners achieve good standards on their courses and their success rates compare well to national comparators.

Partners also work well together to plan the curriculum while the teaching and assessment are good or better in most cases.

The quality of leadership and management is good too; there is a good level of strategic planning and good arrangements in place for quality assurance and planning for improvement.

Estyn commented further, saying that the prospects for improvement are excellent because the partnership has: a track record of improving outcomes for learners, a good range of provision that enables learners from priority areas to access education, a strong partnership and an ethos of collaboration between partners and other agencies, and clear strategic leadership and plans for improvement. 

Monmouthshire's head of adult and community learning, Andrea Charles said: "We are delighted with the findings of the Estyn report which reflect the hard work of our staff and the way we operate the service, even though we have been faced with economies as budgets shrink. 

"We look forward to further improvement in the future."

Councillor Phil Hobson, Monmouthshire's cabinet member with responsibility for adult education said: "The high standard attained by the adult and community education service demonstrates what can be achieved with an effective partnership of five local authorities.  I'm very pleased that this success has been recognised."