ACP Conference

Oxford Brookes University was pleased to welcome 70 delegates to the annual ACP Conference on Thursday 16th January 2025. 

Guest speakers presentations

• Creating Resources for Resilience - Dr Sam Mather, Head of Talent, Leadership & Performance at Thames Water
• Ethical Decision Making with AI - Professor Mary Davis, Academic Integrity Lead, Oxford Brookes University

Student Panel

We welcomed three current partnership students to join us for a student panel. Students were asked questions relating to their student experience, which provided invaluable insight into what we can all do to further improve and enhance the experience of being a Partnership student. 

Networking Sessions

• Cross-Team Collaboration: Delegates were split into mixed groups combining academic and professional services experiences. The theme of this session was improving conversion from application to enrolment, with some common themes being that the application process should be inclusive and wide-reaching.
• The Partnership Student Experience: Groups fed back on how we can all contribute to creating a positive student experience across our partnerships, and discussed the key benefits of being a partnership student, with the most common responses being flexibility, cost and support. 

Oxford Brookes University was pleased to welcome 103 delegates to the 10th annual ACP Conference on Friday 10 January 2020.

Theme

• Working in partnership: ensuring success for all students

Guest speakers presentations

• Student success in the ACP: what we know and what we don’t know - Helen Hall, Oxford Brookes University
• An alliance of partners: the politics and possibilities for partnerships between FE and HE sectors - Ellie Russell, University Alliance

Workshop presentations

• Improving student success through the use of effective research - Dr Samantha Child and Rowan Fisher, Oxford Brookes University. Research and evidence stresses the importance of having effective evaluation in place to understand the impact of teaching and learning initiatives on students, especially for groups that are statistically known to perform worse in HE. For example, BAME students.The Evaluation Team will provide insights into what is effective evaluation and good practice and then share the tools they use to evaluate a range of access and participation initiatives. There will be a question and answer about the challenges you face in evaluating teaching and learning.
• Recruitment marketing: how sharing the problem can help us to find solutions - Liz Broadbent, Oxford Brookes University. This interactive workshop is an opportunity for different HE providers with similar aims to get together and share their difficulties and successes in targeting harder to reach demographics. It will focus on how we can be supportive to each other with these key points in mind: How do we create more awareness of being a HE provider in the local community? How do we help prospective students see HE as an option for them? How do we encourage prospective students to take action?
• Supporting students with their mental health - Stephanie Byrne, Oxfordshire Recovery College, Restore. An interactive workshop sharing ideas about how to support students struggling with anxiety or other mental health challenges. It will be an opportunity to share knowledge, identify what helps to support students and know where to signpost.
• Embedding employability - Dr Mary Deane and Kat Kwok, Oxford Brookes University. How prepared are your students for their future careers? What support strategies do you use to help your learners plan for professional success? Come along to explore best practice and engage in debate about your own role in relation to the Employability Agenda. This workshop creates space for you to reflect upon ways of connecting with employability experts and exploring how to ensure all your learners reach their full potential both now and in the future.

Oxford Brookes University was pleased to welcome 115 delegates to the 9th annual ACP Conference on Friday 18 January 2019.

Theme

• Working in a changing environment: the evolution of technical Higher Education

Keynote presentation

• The evolution of technical higher education, Amanda Burnside, Wiltshire College and University Centre

Workshop presentations

• Embedding work-based learning in the curriculum, Ann Minton, University of Derby
• Customer journey mapping, Liz Broadbent and Kirsty Holland, Oxford Brookes University
• Student experience projects, Andrea Macrae, Oxford Brookes University, and follow-up notes about project promotion
• Academic integrity, Debbie Witney, Oxford Brookes University
• Applying for HEA Fellowship, Professor Jackie Potter, Oxford Brookes University
• The scholarship framework, Pauline Osborne and Jolanta Peters, University Centre Somerset
• Using TEF metrics as a quality improvement tool, Rebecca Philbrook and Jenny Craig, Abingdon and Witney College