Not a holiday - honest!

7/8/9 July Isle of Man

What was by necessity (one mid-morning flight out, and one early afternoon flight back) a three-day trip for one day's work, did include three rounds of golf at some lovely courses and an evening at the Southern Cross motor cycle race meeting, so technically it was mainly leisure.....

As the college has only just moved towards delivering degrees (from September 2008, validated by Chester & Liverpool John Moores) they requested that I go over & share some thoughts with the college's HE staff (7 departments) on a few pertinent issues such as:

• How to create and sustain a HE culture in a FE environment in terms of resources, teaching and research.
• How HE and FE differ in terms of students’ needs and how they might need to change or develop their offering to improve the student experience.

A very challenging day, but hopefully has helped what is a remote (in terms of staff development opportunities anyway) part of the British Isles to see how what they compare with the mainland.

Denman College, Marcham

Delegates from around the Oxford/Herts/Berks/Surrey area gathered today at the Women's Institute's Residential Adult Education College near Oxford to hear a welcome from Di Batchelor, Abingdon and Witney College's Vice Principal, followed by John Raftery, Pro Vice Chancellor (External Affairs), Oxford Brookes University.
I followed with "Higher Education in Further Education: Challenges and Opportunities" and other speakers included Liz Starbuck Greer (Deputy Director, South Central Lifelong Learning Network) "Increasing Progression to Higher Education", Bill Hunt (HE Co-ordinator, Swindon College) "Preparing for IQER", Lorraine Goss (Educational Consultant) "Effective Teaching Strategies in Higher Education" and Sue McGregor (Curriculum Manager, Solihull College) "Feedback Strategies for Higher Education Students in FE".
A enjoyable good day out, & well worth last night's 4 hour train journey and what will be a nearly 6 hour trip back as my first train is already delayed so I'll miss the connection in Birmingham....