So I think I've been able to act as a sort of a gauge almost (to assess) is this normal for the discipline…you know… is this good for history teaching in the UK…. is it not so good, what would 'normal' look like. So I think I've really been able to feed in very effectively in terms of...yes, this is an absolutely typical problem that they're facing here. Actually, that's a really clever way that they're trying to beat it.

Well, it's inevitably in these things you can't help but get ideas. You hear really innovative things happening somewhere else. It gives me a sense too of what excellence is here. You know a lot of the practice that we've seen here has been really outstanding.

It has made me reflect very immediately on how we run our own reviews. One thing it made me reflect on is a particular thought that I had is that looking at learning and teaching abstracted from the department perhaps isn't always so helpful. So actually that broader context of looking at it in the context of the whole department, with its research, with its whole culture, with its recruitment strategies, with all of that is perhaps a helpful thing to do.

So both in terms of something that I thought was a wee bit lacking maybe, but also in terms of something that I thought was great in terms of practice. Those are all things that I can bring back and reflect on. Also just to add, I thought the process here is very efficient. You get the participants to think about a lot of material in a very effective way. And I think what I also liked is that you invite the department to say what they want to talk about. So this isn't just a process that's being done to them, it's very much a process that's being done with them.

I think it led to a really positive atmosphere to invite the department to say… look what do you want to focus on. In this case, it was PGT, but you know it could have been anything.

They (the department) got to have agency in the conversations we were having; they got to set the conversations. So it was collaborative in that sense in that it was with the school not about the school or against the school. But what was also very collaborative about it is how much professional services colleagues and also students were very, very involved. And I was particularly impressed by how attentive the students were and how involved they were in every single part of what we were doing.

I think discussions engaged in positive critical analysis to a very great extent. If we pick up the word positive first, you know whenever you're sitting on the 'being reviewed' side of the table, it can feel like some sort of inquisition. We've all been there.

But it's not intended to be that. Anybody who goes in as a reviewer to these just wants the unit, the department, the school, whatever, to learn about themselves to feel confident in their strengths.So that this is reiterated to them. So to feel confident in their strengths but also to have a really sort of kind mirror held up to the things that perhaps just aren't so good.

So in that sense, I think it was positive in that we really drew out the strengths and the positives which were numerous, but also in terms of the things that weren't so good that was done in a really constructive fashion and it was quite analytical. You know we had a huge amount of data to look at. The school had also gone through data. So it's done in a very precise way. It's not anecdotal. It's based on hard data. From my perspective it was done entirely in a positive spirit.

I think the genuine highlight was that this became a conversation rather than a sort of inquisition.

There was a lovely moment when all of the panel and the students and the members of staff from the department were just, it became a conversation about “how could we do that?” And we were all joining in and it became, it was about a problem that is very hard to solve. But we were all saying, oh, we've tried this, have you tried that? And it genuinely was a conversation between peers. And that was just a really lovely moment.

I think my number one advice would be to be guided by the panel team secretary, because there can be a huge amount of information floating around and if you just start at one end of it, you will get lost. So just be guided by the time frame that you're given, be guided in terms of what information you're directed to look at and when, because there is a structure there that will take you through everything in an orderly fashion because as you can imagine, there are numerous facets. So just be guided by the team who are excellent. I think be prepared to learn as well and that's one of the enjoyable bits of it. And also it's just it's nice to have a chance to reflect with peers you respect and admire for what they do. You don't often get that chance in this job.