June 2005 - Humanities, Languages and Social Science ...

Accessing the Faculty
3
On 16 March an Open Day was held
for Level 2 Access students here in
the Geoffrey Manton building. The
day was organised in response to
requests from Access tutors at local
FE colleges, many of whose students
had enjoyed the Level 3 Open Day
held last November. Access tutors
were keen that their students -
relatively early in their return to study
- should see what our university offers
and hear from MMU tutors with a real
enthusiasm about what mature
students bring to our courses.
These Open Days - for Level 2 in
Spring and for Level 3 in Autumn - are
to be annual events, getting the
message to students at local colleges
that we want them to study on this
Faculty’s degrees.
Around 40 students (and their tutors)
from five local centres - City College,
MANCAT, Manchester Adult
Education, Tameside FE College and
Hopwood Hall heard from Alf Louvre,
Kaye Tew, Dave Hodgkinson and John
McHugh - and from a panel of current
and recently graduated mature
students who had come to MMU
from Access courses.
The emphasis of the day was on the
range of courses they could choose
from, the flexibility of subject choice
(especially within the new Combined
Honours programme) and the
strength of the tutorial support on
offer from staff, many of them wellversed
in dealing with the problems
mature students encounter. The
stress, too, was on the huge record of
success enjoyed by mature students
on our degrees over the past 20 years.
As ever, the contributions of current
and recent MMU students were
particularly telling. Their honesty,
enthusiasm and no-nonsense
assessment of what studying for a
degree had really meant to them was
what visiting students most wanted
to hear.
The new Faculty Lifelong Learning
website with information on student
achievement, support available,
course options and information on
admissions was in active use during
the day. Visiting students left with a
better understanding of what the
Faculty has to offer - and, we hope,
with an increased interest and
confidence in moving through to
Higher Education.
For further information see
www.hlss.mmu.ac.uk/lifelonglearning
Alf Louvre
Combining Forces
As part of the Faculty Lifelong Learning initiative, several
departments are getting together to consider providing
innovative courses for Greater Manchester Police.
Over the next few months specialist staff from Sociology,
Criminology, Politics, Philosophy and Law are collaborating
with each other and GMP staff to create course units on
Community and Evidence and Procedure. The intention is
for these to feature on GMP’s prestigious new Initial Police
Learning and Development (IPLD) programme, as part of
the comprehensive training offered to probationary
officers in parallel with their work on the beat. GMP are
co-funding course development work by MMU in these
areas to the tune of £10,000.
The IPLD programme is one of many being trialled across
the country over the next two years under the direction of
the Home Office and GMP are determined that their
training will set the standard nationally.
For many MMU staff, this collaboration offers the chance
to open up a new kind of work in the area of Continuing
Professional Development. The goal, as ever, is to make
the expertise and experience within the Faculty available
to as wide an audience as possible - and to maximise our
social impact.
Working with GMP will also mean developing new
‘intensive’ kinds of course delivery. It is expected that
some 300 officers will be recruited by GMP each year in
five cohorts of 60, each of which will join a ‘rolling’ training
programme. MMU teams are currently exploring the
potential of week-long, full-time, 9-to-5 modules,
supported by on-line archives of background and research
material. GMP’s own specialist trainers will participate in
aspects of course delivery and assessment. Assessment
tasks will focus on case studies, based on the officers’
professional experience following their classroom work.
As well as demonstrating MMU’s continuing commitment
to the community, this collaboration also provides practical
benefits for MMU students. Those with career interests in
the fields of criminal justice and policing will, we hope, be
able to access these specialist courses (and, indeed, other
elements of the IPLD programme), hence increasing their
insight into professional practice and helping prepare
them for careers. More broadly, the intensive models of
course delivery may be relevant to many students’ needs,
allowing them to construct study programmes that are
more flexible and economic.
Alf Louvre, Principal Lecturer, Lifelong Learning for the
Faculty, hopes that, in the longer term, MMU and GMP can
build on this initial work. “We hope to create study
pathways and qualifications related to GMP career
progression and offer specialist short-courses for senior
staff. This might lead to a dedicated Institute or Centre
facilitating long-term collaboration.”
Alf Louvre