The Education Group held its first half-day Continuing Professional Development (CPD) event on Wednesday 27 November. Colleagues braved the rain and puddles to head over to the Westwood Teaching Centre for an afternoon of keynotes, pastries, networking, chocolates, and a range of short workshops, from Working with International Students to Learning and Development Resources for You.

The event opened with three engaging and thought provoking keynote speakers, Chris Twine (Academic Registrar), Kim Eccleston (Head of Admissions, SROAS) and our invited guest speaker, Vicki Stott (Deputy CEO of the Quality Assurance Agency). A highlight was, of course, the Academic Registrar’s dog (pictured!), but each speaker brought their own distinctive perspective to the subject of career pathways and narratives, and the 'joys' of public speaking.

The workshops enabled staff to select topics of direct relevance to their role, or to try something completely different. Feedback on these sessions has been overwhelmingly positive, with the main comment being that more time could have been devoted to each topic. A sample of comments reflects the benefits of these sessions to attendees:

“I was pleased to be able to … meet other part-time colleagues and have good discussions about the issues/concerns that arise with part-time working.”

“ … I am already considering ways to work on improving my skills … talking about things with other people makes you evaluate yourself and it has more of an impact.”

“It was great to have students attend the workshop and speak from their perspectives.”

The consensus of those who attended was that it was worth taking time away from day-to-day responsibilities to meet colleagues and improve our understanding of ourselves and of the wider context in which we work.

Slides from the afternoon are available here: 27 November 2019 Education Group CPD Event.

A big thank you to everyone involved in organising the event, those who volunteered their time to speak, and those who helped out on the day. Thank you also if you have already provided feedback on the event; if you’ve not yet done so, you can complete the feedback form here.

If you have more general feedback which would help us plan future events, you can email the Education Group's Staff Development Working group at: academicregistrar@warwick.ac.uk.

Fiona Groenhout