@PIoE News and Views
June 2015
June News
We are interviewing for the substantive Associate Head and Deputy Director posts. Once these are in place, Megan will look again at how we spread good practice in leadership throughout the Institute.
Please let Sally continue to know about all the good work that's going on amongst us so that she can broadcast it. We all want to be able to celebrate each others' achievements.
Ed Studies PedRIO research project
BA Education Studies PEDRIO research project award 2015-16, is off to a great start having held a successful two day residential at Dartington Hall in June. The project: ‘Becoming Student’- partnerships and voices. Developing a ‘relationships for academic success and transformation’ model, aims to access our varied stories and engage with a pedagogy of emotion as linked to the work of Kahu (2013) and Tronto (2012).
Other projects were also part of the PEDRIO research bid success. Can yours be featured here next time?
Beyond words research project
Jocey Quinn and Claudia Blanden have been awarded a prestigious Arts Council Research Grant in partnership with Plymouth Music Zone. It is one of only eight funded nationally, which include projects involving the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal School of Music. The two year £152,000 project is called 'Beyond Words. The unspoken/non-verbal in inclusive music practice: Implications for the Arts in a posthuman world'. It is an ethnographic study exploring how learning music helps people who are non-verbal, such as those with dementia, autism and strokes, and how music workers use the unspoken in their practice. It will also interview 100 carers and families and involve teachers, social workers and health workers. It will end with an international conference focusing on how academics and practitioners can explore the unspoken across all the Arts, using posthuman theory. Jocey and Claudia have built a strong relationship with Plymouth Music Zone over the last 2 years conducting small award-winning research projects on singing with older people in care homes and on music helping transitions for families escaping domestic violence. This strong partnership is one reason why their bid was successful. It is one example of how we can build the local partnerships that we have in PIoE into bigger research projects.
Happy Camping Kids
According to their parents, children who camp outdoors at least once a year go on to do better at school, as well as being happier and healthier. Nearly 600 camping families, members of the Camping and Caravanning Club, responded to an in-depth survey carried out by Sue Waite.
She said, "Interestingly, the parents surveyed believed camping supported the key curriculum subjects of geography, history and science and that stacks up because the most common camping activities were natural - such as rock pooling and nature walks - where children were getting to understand ecosystems and identify lifeforms, respecting nature and the environment."
The research was commissioned by the Club to coincide with National Camping and Caravanning Week and its main theme, Get Kids Camping, with the research published on the first day of the week, 25 May.
PIoE in Hungary!
Three members of staff presented papers at the international conference ‘Play Around the World’ at the University of Debrecen, Hungary in May. The two day event hosted by the university’s Faculty of Child and Adult Education drew together delegates from Germany, Croatia and Slovenia as well as local early years practitioners.
Mandy Andrews and Verity Campbell-Barr presented papers at the symposium ‘Play in the Present and the Future’ while Phil Selbie highlighted the importance of preserving child-centred pedagogy during times of uncertainty and change in his keynote ‘Jan Amos Comenius: a pioneer of play and early learning in 17th Century Europe’.
Attendance at the event highlights the increasingly strong links between the Institute and overseas HEIs and comes hot on the heels of the announcement of Verity Campbell-Barr’s successful Marie Curie Fellowship based at the Hungarian University.
FRSA Steve Wheeler
Dates for the diary
These days will become increasingly important as we move forward in the University, so please put the next one in your diary now - 20th October, 2015, when we will be looking at (amongst other things) online assessment practice.
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Plymouth Institute of Education
Email: sally.thorne@plymouth.ac.uk
Location: Nancy Astor Building
Phone: 01752 585300