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Expressive Arts Days empower future teaching talent
Trainee teachers at Bishop Grosseteste University (BGU) learned about the value of creative arts in primary schools through a series of Expressive Arts Days. Led by Sarah Howe, Ruth Pearson and Mark Larrad, Seniors Lecturers in Primary at BGU, the aim of these carousel sessions was to show the trainees how art activities could support their teaching, even if they didn’t believe art was one of their skills. The activities included sessions on approaches to painting from still life, the value of 'small world' play across the primary curriculum, as well as the opportunity to design art around the theme of blossom trees on the BGU campus. Despite not always having a prominent focus in curriculum plans, creative arts offer a wealth of opportunities to encourage and support pupils, as Mark Larrad explained: “It is often stated that the arts are crowded out of the National Curriculum. As educators we have a duty to ensure the next generation of teachers is empowered to be able plan and teach purposeful and motivational expressive arts activities, knowing they are making a real difference to outcomes for children and their schools. All teachers should be able to teach art, not just those who considered themselves to be artists, and the sessions provided support for all those who realise their main challenge is to inspire the disposition to create in all the class, not just those children who have a special talent. Ultimately, whilst we know that art will always have a less prominent focus in school than the core subjects, like English, Maths or Science, we aimed to ensure trainees were empowered to be able to ensure that what little time they for expressive arts in school will really count, so maximum benefit is achieved; and the enthusiastic feedback we had suggests the trainees found all of these sessions really useful. We´re looking forward to repeating the carousel next year.” If you’d like more information on how to begin your adventure in the world of education, visit our website or contact our Enquiries Team today to find out more about our range of PGCE and Primary Education courses. -
International Symposium to Continue Bishop Grosseteste's Exploration of Spatial Relationships
Bishop Grosseteste University (BGU) will be welcoming the Ordered Universe Project (OUP) to campus for a four day symposium on 13th-16th May. -
42nd Implicit Religion Conference to Explore Human Rights, Punk Rock and UFOs
The 42nd Implicit Religion Conference will be held at BGU from 17th – 19th of May. Scholars will gather from around the world to discuss questions and ideas of what we mean when we talk about terms such as ‘religion’, ‘secular’, ‘sacred’ and ‘profane’. The theme of the conference for this year is “Religion and the Encounter” and through that we will be examining the ways that structural inequality in areas of race, gender, sexuality and non-human lifeforms are encountered, controlled, shaped and marginalised. The Edward Bailey lecture keynote address will take place on Friday 17th from 7:30 -9pm in the Hardy building. It is free to members of the public and will be delivered this year by Professor Tim Jenkins from Cambridge University, who will be speaking on "Encounters with Aliens: research into images of life elsewhere." This will be focused on his research into reports of flying saucers, and will draw some tentative conclusions about the nature of religion and what ‘implicit’ means in the contemporary period. In addition to the Edward Bailey lecture the conference will have papers on Human Rights, Human suffering, pain and death, Education policies, football, punk rock and the implicit religion of The Smurfs. The Edward Bailey Lecture is free to members of public and is held in the Hardy building from 7:30 -9pm on Friday the 17th May. There are also a small number of audience spaces available to interested members of the public in each of the panel sessions – Please feel free to email Dr Francis Stewart at BGU francis.stewart@bishopg.ac.uk If you’re interested in a future exploring and discussing religion then our Theology courses and RE teaching pathways could be for you. Visit our website or contact our Enquiries Team today for more information. -
BGU to Launch New Religious Research Centre
Bishop Grosseteste University is excited to announce the launch of a new research centre, the Alister Hardy Religious and Spiritual Experience Research Centre. The Alister Hardy Religious and Spiritual Experience Research Centre is a collaborative research project with the Centre for Mind and Culture, Boston University, USA. The project, sponsored by the John Templeton Foundation, is designed to build on the pioneering research initiated by Sir Alister Hardy in Oxford 1969 into the science of religious and spiritual experience. The project will be led by Professor Jeff Astley, the Alister Hardy Professor of Religious and Spiritual Experience at BGU. Signing off the project alongside Professor Leslie J Francis, Chair of the Alister Hardy Trust, BGU Vice-Chancellor the Reverend Canon Professor Peter Neil said: “BGU is proud of this opportunity to collaborate with Boston University in the USA to open up a new era in the science of religious and spiritual experience.” Professor Francis added: “Professor Astley’s appointment at BGU earlier this year as the Alister Hardy Professor of Religious and Spiritual Experience came at an opportune time to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Alister Hardy Archive of Religious and Spiritual Experience. This new project is designed to explore the question of how Sir Alister would design a new Archive now, given the advances in knowledge about religious and spiritual experience. Such an initiative in BGU is also consistent with the vision of Bishop Robert Grosseteste who in the thirteenth century was eminent as both theologian and scientist.” If you’re interested in a future exploring and discussing religion then our Theology courses and RE teaching pathways could be for you. Visit our website or contact our Enquiries Team today for more information. -
BGU Launches First Distance Learning Degree Programme
Academics from Bishop Grosseteste University’s (BGU) School of Social Sciences have collaborated closely with the Centre for Enhancement of Learning and Teaching (CELT) to design the University’s first distance learning degree programme. -
School of Teacher Development Primary Team undertake research in Copenhagen
Dr Emma Clarke, Aimee Quickfall and Shaun Thompson of the School of Teacher Development Primary Team have visited the University College of Copenhagen (UCC) this week as part of their ongoing research on the well-being of teacher trainees. The visit was organised with the help of Sabine Lam, the international coordinator at UCC and Erasmus funding. Aimee told us about the collaboration, "Working with colleagues at UCC has been a fantastic experience. We have been made very welcome on the Carlsberg Campus and everyone we have spoken with has given us new insights and ideas." Emma, Shaun and Aimee collected data from students, lecturers and newly graduated teachers who are now embarking on their first teaching job. Participants have been interviewed on their perceptions of well-being on their training programmes, as well as being asked to identify challenges and resources that impact on well-being. They have also engaged in drawing timelines of how their well-being, challenges, resources and other personal factors have changed over time. Emma commented on the findings so far, "It is exciting and illuminating working with international peers, students and teachers. Specific key themes are now emerging which we aim to use to develop a larger research bid to enable us to continue with this exciting project." The team are looking at examples of good practice in European teacher training, including Finnish, Swedish, Dutch and Danish contexts as a comparison with data collected in the UK. The aim is to inform ITE programme planning and delivery, as well as sharing findings with partnership schools and other colleagues engaged in training teachers. Shaun, regional partnership lead for Primary ITE commented, “Despite many similarities in the issues facing teachers and schools throughout these European countries, the research has provided us with valuable insight into some pertinent challenges and resources relating to well-being, and more importantly, how to maintain the balance. Hopefully, we can now draw upon some of these and consider them within our own ITE programmes, as well as supporting our school partners, to ensure that well-being remains a key priority within education.” If you would like to find about more about the teaching training courses that BGU offer please visit our postgraduate training courses. -
Staff and Students Reflect on Research with IMPact
Two tutors and two 2nd year students from the BA Primary Education course at Bishop Grosseteste University have had an article published in IMPact the University of Lincoln’s journal for Higher Education research. Dr Ashley Compton and Emma Rogers, both lecturers in Primary at BGU, co-authored the paper alongside students Christopher Johnstone and Dan Waite. The paper reflects on their learning about research through researching with children as part of the ‘Beginning to Research’ module of the Primary Education course. During this module the students learn about designing and undertaking research, including the ethics involved, and then have two days when children come on to campus to take part in the research projects. Staff at the University of Lincoln read about the research days on the BGU website and contacted Ashley and Emma asking for a write up of the experience for their journal. Following the publication Dr Compton discussed the unusual opportunities for reflection it offered: “The process of writing an article about practice makes you reflect quite deeply on what you're trying to achieve with that practice and what theory underpins it - things we don't always articulate when focusing on our research” “Both Emma and I felt it was important to incorporate staff and student perspectives and were delighted that Christopher and Dan were able to work with us, both have been excited about being published authors now” The paper has now been published and is available to read in the first anniversary edition of IMPact. If you’d like more information on how to begin your adventure in the world of education, visit our website or contact our Enquiries Team today to find out more about our range of PGCE and Primary Education courses. -
Students Support National Goalball Finals
Three second-year students from the Sport, Coaching and Physical Education degree course at Bishop Grosseteste University (BGU) volunteered to assist in the running of the Goalball UK 'intermediate finals'. Nathan Dowe, Jessica Machin and Laura Smith, along with their course lecturer Luke Liddle, travelled to the English Institute of Sport, in Sheffield on Saturday 18th May to support the tournament. The morning was spent setting up two goalball pitches ready for the competitors to start play at 10am before providing continued support to the organisers throughout the day. Following the event course lecturer Luke was full of praise for the students’ effort and enthusiasm: “Nathan, Jessica and Laura were a credit to BGU and all involved thoroughly enjoyed helping the event organisers produce an exceptional day of fierce and fair competition.” Goalball is a game played by two teams of three players with a maximum of three substitutions on each team. It is open to both male and female visually impaired athletes, and sighted players can also play domestically. The object of the game is to score a goal by bowling the ball along the floor so that it crosses the goal line of the opposing team. The defending team has to prevent the ball going in to their goal by stopping it while remaining in their team area. They must then try to control the ball and attack by bowling the ball back again thereby trying to score in the other goal. Originally developed by Hanz Lorenzen (Austria) and Sepp Reindl (Germany) in 1946, as a rehabilitation programme for visually impaired World War II veterans, Goalball has swiftly grown in popularity and recognition and became an official part of the Paralympic movement in 1980. If you are interested in pursuing a future in sports education and coaching you can find more information about Sport courses at BGU on our website, by contacting our Enquiries Team or by joining us on one of our Open Days. -
Geography lecturers team up with South Pacific colleagues to explore energy use
Dr Sarah Hemstock, Programme Leader for Geography, and Dr Mark Charlesworth, Associate Tutor in Geography, from Bishop Grosseteste University (BGU) have teamed up with Ranjila Devi Singh, from the University of the South Pacific, to publish a new paper on Household energy use and public health. The paper outlines the use of traditional bioenergy in direct correlation to indoor air pollution and health. Dr Hemstock, Charlesworth and Devi Singh explain how current Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which were set by the United Nations General Assembly in 2015, are currently not being met. The use of bioenergy and its impacts on indoor air pollution and health are in direct contradiction to SDG3: Good Health and Wellbeing which aims to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all. The paper recommends ways in which SDG3 can be reached, with recommendations at a country wide level that will help to ensure a healthy life for all those who live there. Dr Hemstock’s previous works have also focused on bioenergy and sustainable development. Household Energy Usage, Indoor Air Pollution, and Health is a section in the Good Health and Well-being volume of the Encyclopaedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. You can find the publication here. You can find more information on our Geography courses on our website, by contacting our Enquiries Team or by coming along to one of our Open Days. -
Academics Explore Research Partnerships with International Visitors
Academics from Bishop Grosseteste University (BGU) welcomed Kerem and Meral Coşkun from Artvin Çoruh University in Turkey to explore and discuss potential collaborative research opportunities. Their planned research is based on the social, emotional and moral development of young children and has developed from a collaborative article ‘Is it possible to teach values without social psychology?’ (International Journal of Progressive Education, 14 (6). pp. 38-50. ISSN 1554-5210) written by BGU’s Dr Pat Beckley and academics from Artvin Çoruh. Dr Beckley discussed the new research and how it would build on the existing work carried out by the collaborative group: “The research builds on previous comparative studies the group have undertaken and focuses on differences and similarities between perceptions of social, emotional and moral development in selected primary school sites in England and Turkey. It is proposed to broaden those participating in the studies in both countries. It is an exciting opportunity for BGU as it creates a dynamic collaboration between two similar sized universities which have teacher training as a fundamental element of their work.” If you’re interested in a future in Early Years provision or Teaching there are few institutions that can provide a better experience than BGU. You can find information on our range of education based courses on our website, or by contacting our Enquiries Team.
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