Skills for life and work
We offer a range of courses for you to develop your skills and knowledge for both life and work. You can enjoy a course starting from beginners’ level all the way to advanced level. Build your confidence in reading, writing, mathematics, and digital skills on a short or long course. Our supportive tutors will help you gain the skills and qualifications to achieve your ambitions.
Most of our courses are FREE if you are on a low income or claiming benefits.
How do I apply?
Step 1: Book an appointment for an assessment at our campus so we can offer you the right course.
Step 2: We will mark your assessment in 7 working days and email you with the courses we can offer.
Step 3: Then complete your enrolment by either calling or visiting the college enrolment team.
How to book an appointment for an assessment?
Call 02045820423 or email universal.skills@citylit.ac.uk
Where will the assessment take place?
Initial assessments take place at our City Lit Campus Keeley Street London, WC2B 4BA on the M floor student learning centre.
- Gateway to English Language GCSECourse start date: Mon 12 May 2025 (and 1 other date)
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Are you excited by the English language? Do you need to test your abilities before attempting the qualification course? Do you want to give yourself more than a year to achieve the qualification? Then this Preparing for English Language GCSE is the course for you. It will get your ready you for the accreditation and familiarise you with its content, level and expectation.
You need to do a pre-course assessment. Contact universal.skills@citylit.ac.uk / 020 8078 0489 for a face-to-face assessment or click the Start Assessment button on this page. Log on with your email address (not name).
This course is FREE if you are employed and on a low wage or you are claiming benefits. For more information Click here
Full fee £209.00 Senior fee £167.00 Concession £105.00 - Gateway to maths GCSECourse start date: Fri 4 Apr 2025 (and 2 other dates)
Location on this date: Online
Unlock your potential with our comprehensive "Gateway to GCSE Maths" course, designed to prepare you for the Maths GCSE exam in May 2026. This course offers:
• In-Depth Lessons: Covering key topics and concepts needed for the exam.
• Interactive Practice: Engage with a variety of exercises and past paper questions to build confidence and ability.
• Expert Guidance: Learn from experienced tutors who provide clear explanations and personalized support.
• Flipped Learning: Access materials online at your own pace on Google classroom and join your tutor for live sessions on a weekly basis.
Join us and take the first step towards achieving your Maths GCSE goals with confidence and ease!
This course is FREE if you are employed and on a low wage or you are claiming benefits. For more information Click here
Full fee £209.00 Senior fee £167.00 Concession £105.00 - Learn English - discover London, its history, culture and people (level 1-level 2)Course start date: Mon 7 Jul 2025 (and 2 other dates)
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Do you want to improve your English and learn about London, its history, culture and people at the same time? On this course, you will visit places of interest and learn about the history of these places especially about the different people and cultures who have lived there, and about important events which have shaped the city. You will do your own research and so improve your reading and writing skills as well as your speaking and listening. In addition, you will feel more at home in London and able to participate in its rich and diverse life.
You need to do a pre-course assessment. Contact universal.skills@citylit.ac.uk / 020 8078 0489 for a face-to-face assessment or click the Start Assessment button on this page. Log on with your email address (not name).
This course is FREE if you are employed and on a low wage or you are claiming benefits. For more information Click here
Full fee £69.00 Senior fee £55.00 Concession £35.00 - Learn English - learn about London (entry 2-entry 3)Course start date: Tue 8 Jul 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Do you want to improve your English and learn about London at the same time? This course will help you feel more confident about living in London and using your English. You will visit interesting places and learn about the history of the city and the people who live there. You will also learn about important events in the city in the past and now. You will improve your speaking, listening, reading and writing. You will learn a lot of new words to describe people and places and how to express yourself fluently and correctly.
You need to do a pre-course assessment. Contact universal.skills@citylit.ac.uk / 020 8078 0489 for a face-to-face assessment or click the Start Assessment button on this page. Log on with your email address (not name).Full fee £59.00 Concession £30.00 - English pronunciation: stage 1 (intensive)Course start date: Mon 21 Jul 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: David John GwillimImprove your pronunciation of standard English on this intensive course, running each day in the same week, which includes detailed study of vowel and consonant sounds. This course is for speakers of other languages who are fluent in English. Some homework required.Full fee £229.00 Senior fee £183.00 Concession £160.00 - English pronunciation: stage 2 (intensive)Course start date: Mon 28 Jul 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: David John GwillimIdeal if you have completed 'English Pronunciation: stage 1', this intensive course develops fluency and clarity and explores diphthongs and triphthongs, inflexion and intonation, and the rhythms of standard English.Full fee £229.00 Senior fee £183.00 Concession £160.00 - English communication skills - for life and work (level 1)Course start date: Mon 28 Apr 2025 (and 3 other dates)
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Do you want to improve your communication skills and become more confident speaking, listening, reading and writing English? This course will help you develop all your English language skills so you can act confidently in the most important everyday situations inside and outside work. You will become a skilled communicator when writing, using digital resources and in face-to-face interactions. You will develop your active listening skills so you can understand and empathise better. You will work on how to express yourself when speaking in different situations. You will practise your reading so you can see the whole picture and find details, make effective decisions about what you read, and prioritise matters. By the end of this three-term programme, you will be a competent speaker, listener, reader and writer both at work and home and ready to do exams such as Functional Skills Level 2.
You need to do a pre-course assessment. Contact universal.skills@citylit.ac.uk / 020 8078 0489 for a face-to-face assessment or click the Start Assessment button on this page. Log on with your email address (not name).
This course is FREE if you are employed and on a low wage or you are claiming benefits. For more information Click here
- English communication skills for life and work (ESOL entry 2)Course start date: Tue 15 Apr 2025 (and 3 other dates)
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Can you have short conversations in English, and read and write simple emails, but want to do more? This course will help you talk, read and write about more interesting subjects and make fewer mistakes so people can understand you, you can understand them and you can read and write important messages, emails, forms and news stories. You will improve your vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation. By the end of this three-term programme you will able to interact confidently with English speakers in your daily life. You can join the course at any time.
You need to do a pre-course assessment. Contact universal.skills@citylit.ac.uk / 020 8078 0489 for a face-to-face assessment or click the Start Assessment button on this page. Log on with your email address (not name).
This course is FREE if you are employed and on a low wage or you are claiming benefits. For more information Click here
Full fee £179.00 Senior fee £143.00 Concession £90.00 - Grammar in practice: intermediate (entry 3-level 1)Course start date: Mon 22 Sep 2025 (and 1 other date)
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Confused by verb tenses? Need to know when to use past simple or present perfect? Puzzled by the passive? This course will make English grammar simpler for you and increase your confidence by giving you lots of opportunities to put your grammar into practice.
You need to do a pre-course assessment. Contact universal.skills@citylit.ac.uk / 020 8078 0489 for a face-to-face assessment or click the Start Assessment button on this page. Log on with your email address (not name).
This course is FREE if you are employed and on a low wage or you are claiming benefits. For more information Click here
Full fee £179.00 Senior fee £143.00 Concession £90.00 - English pronunciation: stage 1Course start date: Sat 26 Apr 2025 (and 4 other dates)
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: David John GwillimAre you a non-native fluent speaker who wants to improve your pronunciation of English and to speak the language more clearly and confidently? Work on clear formation of vowel and consonant sounds including the English neutral vowel and the distinction between voiced and unvoiced sounds. This term the course will be taught in the college.Full fee £259.00 Senior fee £259.00 Concession £181.00 - English pronunciation: stage 2Course start date: Thu 1 May 2025 (and 3 other dates)
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: David John GwillimDesigned for people who have completed ‘English Pronunciation: stage 1’ although new students with sufficient skills can join. Develop confidence and clarity, explore diphthongs and triphthongs, inflection and the rhythms of Standard English. This term the course will be taught in the college.Full fee £259.00 Senior fee £259.00 Concession £181.00 - Maths for life and work - Pathway to Entry levelCourse start date: Mon 6 Oct 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
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This course is FREE if you are employed and on a low wage or you are claiming benefits. For more information Click here
Full fee £179.00 - English dialogue: speaking, listening, pronunciation, performance (level 1-2)Course start date: Thu 9 Oct 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Do you want to sound ‘more English’ when you speak? Do you want the chance to experiment with becoming expressive in English, playing with how you sound when you speak different dialogues? On this course, you will work on different dialogues from everyday speech and well known plays. And you will also create your own! The chance to work on how to perform and enact this speech will enable you to focus on how to link and ‘chunk’ words, develop your rhythm and stress, work on your fluency and ensure that the meaning of what you are saying becomes expressed. You will also be working with ‘real’ language, not the sometimes artificial language of English course books. Although you will be performing the texts, you do not need to be an actor, just willing to give it a go. By writing your own dialogues, you will also develop your writing skills so by the end of the course you can write and perform together with your classmates your own 5 minute play!.
You need to do a pre-course assessment. Contact universal.skills@citylit.ac.uk / 020 8078 0489 for a face-to-face assessment or click the Start Assessment button on this page. Log on with your email address (not name).
This course is FREE if you are employed and on a low wage or you are claiming benefits. For more information Click here
Full fee £179.00 Senior fee £143.00 Concession £90.00 - Develop your confidence in writing: grammar, punctuation, expression (level 1-2)Course start date: Fri 2 May 2025 (and 2 other dates)
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Would you like to be more confident in the way you write whether emails or reports at work or messages to friends? Do you want to work on how you form sentences, understand grammar and use punctuation so your writing is more creative? Do you want to learn how to create meaning in your writing?. This course will help you be more secure in your professional, academic or creative writing skills and help you improve some of your weak areas around forming and punctuating sentences with appropriate grammatical form. You will develop your confidence in the most essential areas of writing including different sentence structures, writing paragraphs, using punctuation effectively, using active and passive voices and proofreading.
You need to do a pre-course assessment. Contact universal.skills@citylit.ac.uk / 020 8078 0489 for a face-to-face assessment or click the Start Assessment button on this page. Log on with your email address (not name).
This course is FREE if you are employed and on a low wage or you are claiming benefits. For more information Click here
Full fee £179.00 Senior fee £143.00 Concession £90.00 - Workplace communication with digital skills: English for the office and business (intermediate level 1-level 2)Course start date: Tue 13 Jan 2026
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Are you working in an office and need to improve your communication skills? Would you like to become an administrator but feel your written English is holding you back? This course will help you become a confident, flexible and successful communicator in writing, in person, on the phone and online. You will work on using the right language for written documents and for when speaking to colleagues, managers, customers, in meetings and on the phone. You will focus on different levels of formal and informal communication and how to speak and write clearly and concisely, with appropriate tone e.g. in emails and letters on a PC. You will also work on how to lay out key documents using Word, spell well and punctuate correctly. You will also start to learn about the cloud and how to use key parts of Microsoft 365. By the end of this course, you will confident you can work successfully in an office environment.
Contact universal.skills@citylit.ac.uk / 020 8078 0489 for information and to book a pre-course assessment. You can also click the Start Assessment button on this page.
This course is FREE if you are employed and on a low wage or you are claiming benefits. For more information Click here
Full fee £149.00 Senior fee £119.00 Concession £75.00
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