In January 2015, Drs Amy Ludlow and Ruth Armstrong were successful in obtaining support from The University of Cambridge’s Teaching and Learning Innovation Fund to pilot a new educational initiative called Learning Together. Since then, Learning Together has attracted funding from the British Academy, ESRC and HEFCE and has become a national initiative with growing international connections. Learning Together was highlighted as an example of best practice by Dame Sally Coates in her 2016 review of prison education. Amy and Ruth have since received a Butler Trust Award and awards from the Prisoner Learning Alliance and the University of Cambridge for public engagement with research for their work on Learning Together.
Learning Together brings together people in criminal justice and higher education institutions to study alongside each other in inclusive and transformative learning communities. Learning Together partnerships provide higher education opportunities for people to study together, and learn with and from each other through dialogue and the sharing of experience. Learning Together courses are academically rigorous and their design and delivery builds upon and, through evaluation, advances educational, sociological and criminological research and best practice.
‘Learning Together made me realise my world was small. I know a few people, on a few streets. I thought universities and places like that were spaces I couldn’t go to, but now I realise I can go there. I can exist outside of my small world.’ (Eugene, Learning Together student 2015)