On 16th March, I attended the Higher Education Beyond Fellowship Conference at Conference Aston, Birmingham. The event gathers together colleagues from across the UK who are involved in academic development, mainly those who are responsible for leading postgraduate certificates or internal CPD schemes.

There was good representation from York St John University. Mandy Asghar presented two sessions, a ‘think piece’ about the use of dialogue as a ‘safe space’, and a workshop on exploring good practice in dialogic assessment. Both were well received and highlighted the interest colleagues have around professional dialogue. I co-facilitated a workshop, along with colleagues from several UK institutions, the initial findings from an international research project I have been involved in which is exploring the impact of fellowship on academic staff. Our initial qualitative data analysis identified perceptions of impact across four domains: the self, the institution, colleagues, and students. The session was well received though much work is to be done in terms of quantitative data analysis before we can come to any conclusions and start working on publication outputs.

There was much discussion around the ‘levy’ fundable programme for a new academic role apprenticeship. For YSJ, this will likely involve ensuring that our PCAP programme is aligned with the apprenticeship standard for higher level degrees. There’s clearly a lot of ambiguity around the details, specifically operational issues for HR departments and timescales, and there’s plenty of work to be done at a government level before things gain more clarity. However the HEA re-emphasised their position that they are prepared to assist subscriber institutions in preparing their documentation before the deadline.

Resources and presentations will be available through the HEA website (heacademy.ac.uk) over the coming days.

By Mark Dransfield, Educational Developer @ York St John University