@PIoE News and Views
October News
Welcome back to the new term, everyone. A warm welcome especially to Will, Louise and Hayley who join us this term, as well as to Rollo and Jo who return. Welcome all. Many thanks personally from me for all the hard work in terms of moving furniture and getting rid of rubbish. I had a meeting with the furniture company recently and once they come back to me, I will say more on EdInfo about next stages. Unfortunately our colleague in Estates who has been working with me is not well, and this may delay final arrangements a little. Sally, however, is working on plugs and signage.
Elsewhere in this newsletter you will see a diagram which outlines the new structure of the Institute Executive Group. We hope it will be a clearer view of accountability. It's very important that changes to timings, events etc come through PLs and the ADs. The next step will be to look at the more general structuring, and this will be done over the next month. Additionally every third IEG will be a '+' one where the PLs can bring on the ground up to date information to inform strategy.
Beth has been looking closely at the workload returns, as well as keeping an eye on developments at University level re workload. The aim is to understand more clearly what needs to be done where. Please make sure you fill in the form if you haven't already done so. It would be a shame if the Associate Directors had to make educated guesses for you. It will of course be discussed with you.
Benji and Julie are working on an electronic calendar for us. More on that, leave and planning in the next newsletter. For now, enjoy the start of the new semester, putting the students experience as the core of what we do.
Finland enrichment trip
In August 2015, 8 Year 2 students went on a 3 week enrichment trip to Finland with Carrie Ansell, Miles Opie and Keith Ansell. They engaged in an intercultural exchange with mainly Finnish and Armenian students during a week’s Summer School facilitated by the University of Oulu and based in Syöte Nature Park in Lapland. During the Summer School students worked in mixed intercultural groups to develop their understanding of environmental education, professional ethics for education, the goal of human rights education and the role of education in the globalised world. Various trips were built in to visit the University of Oulu teaching school, Ranua Zoo and of course the all-important visit to meet Santa Claus. Many students left having formed strong, long-lasting friendships and connections with students they met from a diverse range of backgrounds and cultures. They all went on to meet some students at the University of Lapland and teach Finnish children for 2 weeks in 8 different classes at Saari Primary School in Rovaniemi, the capital of Lapland in Northern Finland. This gave them a unique opportunity to hone their ability to communicate effectively with children with English as an Additional Language. The students all had an extremely rewarding and memorable experience and some choose to travel afterwards to Talinn and Stockholm on their way home.