BLACKPOOL AND THE FYLDE COLLEGE SCHOLARSHIP REVIEW 2021
Welcome to the Scholarship Review 2021 Helen Fogg Director of Higher Education
Welcome to the 2021 edition of the Scholarship Review. This publication is one of the mechanisms through which staff at Blackpool and The Fylde College (B&FC) are able to disseminate their research and scholarship outcomes and to share these with the cohesive, self-critical academic community. The review opens with Françoise Peill’s paper entitled “The pursuit of happiness: an early year’s explorative study into the challenges of recognising and supporting child health and wellbeing”. It addresses rising concerns surrounding child mental health and wellbeing and examines the appropriateness and timeliness of interventions in early year’s environments within socio-economically deprived communities. Richard Dunston’s paper ‘Questioning the efficacy of online Continuous Professional Development (CPD); practitioner reflections through experiential and theoretical lenses’ explores the need for CPD while questioning its nature. The work draws upon studies which consider distance learning and the human psychological reasoning as to its success or failings, alongside considering transactional distance theory and its application in face-to-face, online and distance learning methodologies. Colette Mazzola-Randles’ paper highlights the views of participants from a variety of university settings in the United Kingdom and Ireland. The findings were gathered from semi structure interviews exploring the emotional connections and sense of belonging to teaching and learning online. The key findings evidence that not all staff used visible interactions (via web cameras) to develop emotional connections online and the asynchronous environment appeared to support students becoming more confident and express themselves. Graham Mason and Mark Belfield’s paper offers an interesting view on the impact of diet and nutrition on mental wellbeing of students at Blackpool and the Fylde College. The paper documents their project which aimed to evaluate the current level of wellbeing of students and their current dietary intake, to determine if there is a direct correlation between nutrition and mental wellbeing. David Hayes piece ‘Reflections on the need to develop a multi-heritage critical citizenship education’ offers insight and perspective on the historical context of policies surrounding British Values. Looking at the impact of both New Labour and Conservative discourses around British citizenship, and questioning the pedagogic rationale of embedding this version of British Values into curriculum delivery. The writing offers the potential for a multi-heritage education model that engages with more complex and ‘lived experience’ of local and regional communities.
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