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Developing Staff and Students in Health and Social Care
Start date: Jun 1, 2015, End date: May 31, 2016 PROJECT  FINISHED 

Our project was designed to provide training, in the areas of Childcare and Health and Social Care, for lecturing staff at the Isle of Wight College. We sent 3 lecturers to Norway to learn more about forest schools as this is something we are starting to develop on the Isle of Wight. Our childcare department is passionate about outdoor learning and we believe that we have the right environment here to introduce it. However, we lack some skills to ensure that it is developed sustainably and with maximum impact. Norway is ranked far higher than the UK in the Children's Society's worldwide happiness survey and it is thought that this is linked to outdoor learning. We also sent 3 lecturers to France to a Maison Familiale Rurale to see how rural education is delivered and how parents and the local community are involved. We investigated the compatibility of curricula and shared good practice on work placement organisation and monitoring. Visiting staff learnt about student mobility and, ultimately, hope to send UK students abroad on work placements. Both strands of our project have been researched by staff and our partners were selected according to their experience and what we can learn from them. Wel prepared our lecturers, both culturally and linguistically, pre-visit and they consulted with our students and local employers concerning what they would like to learn about our partners. During the visits the lecturers shadowed their peers, visited work placements and discussed the education system and curriculum of the respective countries. On their return this information and their new found skills has been disseminated to the rest of their department, their students, local employers and the rest of the college. We hope this will inspire more staff and students to take a more European approach to their teaching and learning. In our quest to encourage our students to become better European citizens, and more interested in living and working abroad, we see this project as the first step in a long-term goal to send our students abroad on work placements and ultimately enter into an ECVET project.
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