Taster Days held at Bishop Burton – the regional networks are casting their nets wider!

This was deemed a success by both students attending and the staff at the hosting and sending colleges.

The attendees came from Equine and Animal Management qualifications, all accepted the offer of free accommodation for overnight. 

Staff involved in the days were Andrea Miller (part-time VETNET LLN co-ordinator at Bishop Burton College), Kath Darlington and Mark Sanderson (Equine department at Bishop Burton), John Pemberton (Animal Science and management) and an ex student Lucy Waters who had progressed through from the ND in Animal Management, onto the Foundation Degree in Animal Management and Behaviour and topped up to an Honours Degree on the BSc in Applied Animal Behaviour and Training.

After an initial welcome and tour of the campus an icebreaker session of ‘What makes a good HE student’ was conducted with the whole group. After lunch the equine and animal students were then split to engage in practical sessions related to equine therapy and enrichment for captive animals.

Taster sessions included a practical dog training session and ‘Safe Sex for Horses’ (as featured in Animal Uni – this always proves popular with the students).

Feedback from the students was overwhelmingly positive with all of the participants either agreeing or strongly agreeing that the event had been useful and enjoyable and had made them think about their options for the future. The tutors found the students to be enthusiastic and very interested in the various subject areas.

These students would not be considering progression onto a Level 4 programme until Sept 2010 so evaluation of this project will involve assessing applications during 2009/10 from the participating institutions.

When Andrea was asked what advice she would give to other institutions considering running similar initiatives she suggested more structured activities for the evening of the overnight stay and more structured activities to make use of the learning resource centre to enhance students HE study skills.

This pilot event is to be followed up with cementing the relationship with progression accords onto the full range of courses at Bishop Burton College and this event will be run in future years to support student progression from a wider base of colleges offering FE.