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The Listening Project

A group taking part in a sharing and listening exercise

Foreword

As part of the Faculty’s Athena SWAN team (SAT) communication plan, we will be sharing monthly blogs written by members of the SAT. Thank you Maria for sharing the first such blog of 2020.

Kerry Jordan-Daus

Faculty of Education

Athena SWAN Lead

***

The purpose of this blog is to reflect on my understanding of the Athena SWAN and the Faculty Plan and why this is important for me. The Athena Swan Charter (2005), was initially established to encourage and recognise commitment to advancing both the careers, and employment in higher education and research of women in science, technology, engineering, maths and medicine (STEMM). Since May 2015 this charter has evolved to recognise the work undertaken to address gender equality more broadly, and not just barriers to progression that affect women.  

I initially volunteered to become part of the Faculty Athena SWAN Self-Assessment-Team (SAT), with the understanding that it was a project concerned with inclusive practice. I have since learnt that it relates specifically to gender equality.  I imagine that this could have far reaching implications in terms of exploring the Faculty’s culture and commitment to equality and inclusive practice.  As the Programme Director for the BA Primary Education Part-time route, I have seen the impact of flexible learning and flexible working for many of our students. I am committed to widening participation and enabling those who cannot access full-time study achieve their professional goals and achieve qualified teacher status through part-time and flexible study. 

In our first team meeting in December, the SAT learnt about the background and status at Canterbury Christ Church University (CCCU) of Athena SWAN.  We already hold the institutional Athena SWAN Bronze Award (November 2016). The University goal is to progress to the institutional Silver Award. Before this can progress, all the Faculties/Schools need to have achieved at least Bronze.  Achieving Bronze requires a review against a series of criteria and the development of an action plan. As we embark on the Faculty’s plan, to submit for our Faculty Bronze award, I see this as an opportunity to celebrate inclusive practice. I am looking forward to learning more about the Faculty and how we can build on where we are; this is must be a listening project. For our plan to mean anything, in my opinion, it must be a true representation of the voices, views and actions of colleagues within the Faculty. 

At the initial meeting of the SAT working group on Tuesday December 10th 2019, there were discussions that arose from, and are perhaps inexplicably linked to inclusion and gender equality. These quite naturally included the reference to the staff profile of both the Faculty, and wider university. Currently, Bronze Award does not explicitly include professional services staff. We think this is unfortunate, but with Shelley McAuley, Faculty Manager, Operations and Quality, we are committed to including all colleagues’ voices going forward.  

The Faculty’s SAT represents a wide group of colleagues, who bring to the team different experiences and different ways of working and different personal perspectives. Whilst the SAT will be using key data sets, they have also agreed to hold focus group discussions. This affirms our commitment to the Faculty’s Athena Swan plan being based on staff voice. This is our listening project. I look forward to meeting and talking to colleagues as we move forward. 

Maria Elsam

Senior Lecturer – Primary Education (Science), Programme Director – BA Hons Primary (part-time)

Further reading

Athena Swan Charter

Athena Swan at Christ Church

From track to teaching: How Dr Kristy Howells draws on her cycling success through academia

Kristy Howells cycling
World Masters Cycling womens team sprint

It has been a good season on the track for Dr Kristy Howells. The Reader of Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy has a stellar record in competitive solo and team cycling over the years; 2019 was no different.

Dr Howells’ successful year in competition was topped off by being part of the team to take victory in the Women’s Team Sprint event at the British Masters Track Championships, which took place in Newport, Wales, back in June. More recently at the World Masters Track Championships, Dr Howells’ team, Sirens of the Pine, picked up silver in the Team Pursuit event.

Their time of 4.50.070 was agonisingly close to victory, ending up just 0.02 seconds off of the gold medal place. Prior to the final, Dr Howells’ team even set a new world record time in qualifying – a record that stood for five hours before nine seconds was knocked off in the gold/silver medal ride off, which demonstrates just how strong the field is in the World Masters series.

World Masters Team Pursuit

As well as team pursuit success and a 9th placing in the team sprint at World Masters, Dr Howells’ individual performance has seen her take eighth in the World 2km Individual Pursuit, and 10th in the 500m time trial. Thanks to such a strong overall performance through 2019, she has been awarded a place on Ashford Leisure Trust’s Talented Athlete Programme (for the third time, having been awarded in 2016 and 2017). Through this, Dr Howells and other talented athletes within the Ashford borough are awarded bursaries to support them in achieving their goals in their selected sports.

Applying sporting success into research and teaching

As Reader in Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy, Dr Howells applies her personal experience as an athlete to both her research and her teaching. She also recognises the importance of being a role model for both children and adults alike. By her own admission she “lives and breathes the importance of physical activity, physical education, sport and movement and fluid intake to help with physical as well as mental health”.

Unlike many academics, who have typically focused on secondary age children in their research into physical activity in the school setting, all of Dr Howells research focuses on young children. Within her doctorate she studied children the physical activity levels of primary school age. This novel focus provided useful data into how perceived and actual physical exercise matched up in a primary school setting, as well as helping to understand where these levels of physical activity sit against the WHO’s recommendations.

She continues to research and teach with a focus on Mastering Primary Physical Education and publishes both internationally and nationally on a range of areas. These include physical activity, physical education and most recently on the importance of fluid intake and young children’s understanding and knowledge of what and how much they should be drinking. This again was matched against the recommended guidance.

More recently, Dr Howells discussed the positive effect that physical activity and exercise has on the mental health of not only young people, but also on the teachers whose job it is to educate them. With teachers in such a pressured environment, she notes that it’s difficult for them to become wellbeing role models when they themselves often struggle to look after their own physical and mental wellbeing. Addressing this issue through encouraging staff to better connect with one another, take art therapy and even circuit training could be as impactful – if not more impactful – than offering additional training.

Dr Howells own involvement in sport evidently comes into play; “Being actively involved in life long participation in sport, physical activity and movement can enhance feelings of connectedness, remove the feelings of loneliness and hopelessness and thus reduce feelings of suicidal ideation,” she states.

She continues to advocate for the importance physical activity for all ages and emphasises the vital need to encourage a life wide excitement for moving, so everyone can move just a little more to ensure they have fit and healthy lives.

If you want to find out more about Dr Kristy Howells and the programmes she teaches on, visit her profile on the Canterbury Christ Church website. 

Do you know about Makaton?

Dr John-Paul Riordan writes about Makaton:

Makaton is a sign and symbol language programme used by children and adults with speech, language and communication difficulties and their families, friends, teachers, carers, etc. The signs (hand gestures) are derived from the language of the local deaf community (British Sign Language in the UK). Each sign has an associated symbol, which is a carefully designed black and white line drawing. Signs are divided into a core vocabulary of 450 concepts and a resource vocabulary of about 19,600 concepts. Makaton is intended for use to support spoken language, so the signs and symbols are used with speech and in spoken word order. Makaton use needs only low technology hand gestures and hand-drawn or printed symbols, but can be augmented using Alternative or Augmentative Communication devices. Below is an example of the symbol and sign for ‘learn’:

 

© Makaton Charity 2019 (used with permission)

Makaton is used by more than 100,000 people in the UK and has been adapted to be used in over 40 different countries (Devarakonda, 2012). It can be a really useful and fun skill to have for those working in education, healthcare, the legal system, shops, leisure, etc.

At CCCU we run Taster, Foundation and Enhancement courses every year which are open to people inside and outside the university (see the Enrichment Blackboard for details). We have a site licence for the entire Makaton Collection of 41,000 symbol and sign line drawings available to all students and staff (see ‘Makaton Collection’ on the public drive).

‘Makaton Friendly’ is an award for organisations working to become more accessible to people who use Makaton to help their communication. There are currently 360 groups worldwide with this status from Canterbury to Dubai. CCCU is the first (and only) university in the world to become Makaton Friendly. We are supporting a project led by local special schools to make Canterbury the first city in the world to become Makaton Friendly. This will involve lots of organisations joining this scheme, like nurseries and schools, care providers, charities, hospitals, cafes, libraries, museums, pubs, etc. This project will then expand to make Kent the first county in the UK to go Makaton Friendly.

Here are details of how to nominate an organisation to become Makaton Friendly. On social media please use and search for #MakatonFriendlyCanterbury. We are fundraising to support local charities who may not be able to afford the training costs. If you know of anyone who might be interested, please pass on this message.