{"id":1106,"date":"2020-01-20T14:41:23","date_gmt":"2020-01-20T14:41:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/facultyofeducation\/?p=1106"},"modified":"2020-03-12T11:30:05","modified_gmt":"2020-03-12T11:30:05","slug":"the-listening-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/facultyofeducation\/the-listening-project\/","title":{"rendered":"The Listening Project"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"689\" height=\"451\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/facultyofeducation\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/637\/2020\/01\/listening-project.jpg\" alt=\"A group taking part in a sharing and listening exercise\" class=\"wp-image-1130\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/facultyofeducation\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/637\/2020\/01\/listening-project.jpg 689w, https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/facultyofeducation\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/637\/2020\/01\/listening-project-300x196.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/facultyofeducation\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/637\/2020\/01\/listening-project-680x445.jpg 680w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 689px) 100vw, 689px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Foreword<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>As part of the Faculty&#8217;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. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Kerry Jordan-Daus<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Faculty of Education <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Athena SWAN Lead<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>***<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The purpose of this&nbsp;blog is to reflect on my&nbsp;understanding&nbsp;of&nbsp;the Athena&nbsp;SWAN&nbsp;and the&nbsp;Faculty Plan&nbsp;and why this is important for me.&nbsp;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&nbsp;the work&nbsp;undertaken to address gender equality more broadly, and not just barriers to progression that affect women.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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&nbsp;learnt&nbsp;that&nbsp;it relates&nbsp;specifically to gender equality.&nbsp;&nbsp;I imagine that this could have far reaching implications in terms of&nbsp;exploring&nbsp;the&nbsp;Faculty\u2019s&nbsp;culture&nbsp;and&nbsp;commitment to equality&nbsp;and inclusive practice.&nbsp; As the Programme Director for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.canterbury.ac.uk\/study-here\/courses\/undergraduate\/primary-education-part-time-20-21.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"BA Primary Education Part-time route (opens in a new tab)\">BA Primary Education Part-time route<\/a>, 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.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In our first team meeting in December, the SAT learnt about the&nbsp;background&nbsp;and&nbsp;status&nbsp;at Canterbury Christ Church University (CCCU) of Athena SWAN.&nbsp;&nbsp;We&nbsp;already hold the&nbsp;<strong>institutional<\/strong>&nbsp;Athena&nbsp;SWAN Bronze Award (November 2016). The&nbsp;University goal is to&nbsp;progress to the&nbsp;<strong>institutional<\/strong>&nbsp;Silver Award.&nbsp;Before this can progress, all the Faculties\/Schools&nbsp;need&nbsp;to have achieved at least Bronze.&nbsp;&nbsp;Achieving Bronze requires a review against a series of criteria and the development of an action plan. As we embark on the&nbsp;Faculty\u2019s&nbsp;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.&nbsp;For&nbsp;our plan to mean anything, in my opinion, it must&nbsp;be a true representation of the voices, views and actions of&nbsp;colleagues within the Faculty.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At&nbsp;the initial meeting of the SAT working group&nbsp;on Tuesday December 10<sup>th<\/sup>&nbsp;2019, there were&nbsp;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.&nbsp;Currently, Bronze Award does not explicitly include professional services&nbsp;staff. We think this is unfortunate, but with Shelley McAuley, Faculty Manager, Operations and Quality, we are committed to including all&nbsp;colleagues\u2019&nbsp;voices going forward.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Faculty\u2019s 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.&nbsp;This affirms our commitment to the Faculty\u2019s 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.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>Maria Elsam <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>Senior Lecturer &#8211; Primary Education (Science), Programme Director &#8211; BA Hons Primary (part-time)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Further reading<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"Athena Swan Charter (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ecu.ac.uk\/equality-charters\/athena-swan\/\" target=\"_blank\">Athena SWAN Charter<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"Athena Swan at Christ Church (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/cccu.canterbury.ac.uk\/equality-diversity-and-inclusion\/equality-initiatives-and-charters\/athena-swan\/athena-swan-at-cccu.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">Athena SWAN at Christ Church<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As part of the Faculty\u2019s Athena Swan Team (SAT) communication plan, we will be sharing monthly blogs written by members of the SAT. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":215845,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,17],"tags":[429,270,433,434],"class_list":["post-1106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-teaching","tag-athena-swan","tag-canterbury","tag-listening","tag-stemm-subjects"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"authorName":"White, Benjamin (b.white276@canterbury.ac.uk)","featuredImage":false,"postExcerpt":"As part of the Faculty\u2019s Athena Swan Team (SAT) communication plan, we will be sharing monthly blogs written by members of the SAT. 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