BA Education and Community Development as a programme on campus is closing

UEL stopped recruiting for the BA Education and Community Development from January this year.  Although the programme is closing.  I hope to continue (start) blogging about education and community development here.

I am teaching the following modules that are part of the programme:

• Diaspora Communities in the UK
• Children in Their Social Context
• Community Development Theory and Practice
• Gender Security and Education For All

The aim of this blog therefore, will be to use this blog to support these modules of learning.

Useful summer reading list on the experience of childhood

Check out Caradoc King's top 10 childhood memoirs at http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jun/01/caradoc-king-top-10-childhood-memoirs.  From Roald Dahl to Nigel Slater, the King chooses the best books about what it's really like to be young for the Guardian.  

Caradoc King is head of the literary agency AP Watt and represents a wide range of literary, commercial and children's authors.  His selection includes Nigel Slater's Toast that was adapted for Television and screened in December 2010.

If you want to keep your brain stimulated, speed up your reading, improve your writing, build your vocabulary and your general knowledge working your way through this list is a good idea.

The list includes, Jewish, Welsh, Scottish, Australian and Iranian childhoods but no Asian or African ones.  So for the sake of balance I would add Ake by Wole Soyinka and Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie to this list even though the latter is not a memoir it does have something to say about the experience of childhood.

Your Space provides counselling and workshops. We use a community development approach to engage people from the Canning Town area in the London Borough of Newham. We seek to appoint an experienced community development worker to the post of:

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Community Catalyst Coordinator

Part-time (18.75 hours per week) £27,850 pro rata

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The post involves coordinating our workshop programme and other community-building activities in the E16 area. This is an exciting time for the project. Help us to work together to build a community with stronger emotional support networks: local people, Community Catalyst volunteers, Your Space therapists and community partners.

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The successful applicant will be experienced in community development work, of managing volunteers and of working in settings of social deprivation with a cross-cultural context.

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Applications from women and Black and Minority Ethnic individuals are welcome because of under-representation within the organisation and to enable the project to respond to the needs of the local community.

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To request an information pack, please email Colin Berry, Lead Therapist on: colinberry@waitrose.com or phone 020 7474 9605

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Closing date for applications: 9th July 2010

EDUCOM Cores and Options

* students must take the module unless the equivalent skills/dissertation module is taken in the student's other joint programme.

Peter Townsend Memorial Conference

Friday 20th November 2009

10.00am to 4.00pm

Conway Hall

25 Red Lion Square

London, WC1 (nearest tube: Holborn)

For free tickets send an e-mail to: townsend-memorial@bristol.ac.uk

This free one day memorial conference for Peter Townsend will consist of four panels of speakers about Inequalities in Health, Older People, Poverty & Social Exclusion and Social Policy.

The aim of the conference is to be forward looking rather than only reminiscing about the past. Speakers will be asked to spend at least half their time talking about what still needs to be done (both academically and politically) and how this can be achieved. Each session will have time for discussion.

Speakers will include:

Julio Boltvinik (El Colegio de México)

Jonathan Bradshaw (University of York)

Roger Bullock (Social Research Unit at Dartington)

Danny Dorling (University of Sheffield)

David Gordon (Townsend Centre for International Poverty Research)

Kate Green (Child Poverty Action Group)

Paddy Hillyard (Queen's University, Belfast)

Hilary Land (University of Bristol)

Ruth Levitas (University of Bristol)

Roy Parker (Centre for Social Policy)

Allyson Pollock (University of Edinburgh)

Asuncion St.Clair (University of Bergen)

Randall Smith (University of Bristol)

Nick Spencer (University of Warwick)

Peter Taylor-Gooby (University of Kent)

Alan Walker (University of Sheffield)

Margaret Whitehead (University of Liverpool)

Nicola Yeates (Open University)

This memorial conference is designed to complement the memorial celebration that will be held at St Martins in the Field, Trafalgar Square, London WC2N 4JJ, between 11.00am and 12.30pm on Thursday 19th November - all are invited.

The conference is being supported by:

• Academy of Social Sciences,
• British Academy,
• Child Poverty Action Group,
• Comparative Research Programme on Poverty,
• Fabian Society,
• Social Policy Association,
• Social Research Unit at Dartington and the University of Bristol.
  

Academic Advice - Programme and Module issues

It is Thursday of the second week of the semester and I am just finding time to catch my breath and take time to welcome new students to the programme and the School, and also to welcome back those of you who are continuing students.

During the last two weeks I have spoken to several of you about a wide range of issues in lectures, in Academic Advice Sessions and in passing, in the indoor and outdoor passages of the Stratford Campus.

The beginning of the Semester is generally quite hectic for me because in addition to leading three modules of learning, I am also Programme Leader, and Admissions Tutor with responsibility for organising the welcome and induction of all undergraduates in the Cass School of Education.

Several of you still have unresolved issues to do with the modules I teach, the Education and Community Development Programme or Induction. To see me about any unresolved issues, please come to one of my Academic Advice which are on:

Mondays between 2 -3 in RB.G.19

Tuesdays between 4 - 5 RB.G.20

Wednesday between 12 - 1 in CC.1.17

If you have not enrolled or registered for your modules yet, please do so before tomorrow as after the second week of teaching it will not usually be possible to make changes to your programme of studies and you are going to have to make the best of what you have signed up for. As your programme leader my responsibilities include advising and supporting you with that.

If you need information or advice about issues relating to your programme of studies you might find information on these pages. On the navigation bar to the right of this page are links to the official pages for the programme. Further down you will find links to some of my favourite Study Skills sites.

Scroll down this page to see the 'up to date' programme structure with a list of the modules you need to do to qualify for the BA Education and Community Development (Hons). If the modules you are taking don't follow the pattern outlined below, you should try to see me as soon as possible.

In addition to being programme leader, this year I am also the module leader for ED1010 Children in Their Social Context; ED1015 Diaspora Communities in the UK and ED3022 Gender Security and Education For All. Clicking on the titles just listed will take you to the wetpaint sites for these modules.

If you are reading this because I have sent you an email through UEL Plus, please visit my blog again soon for news about developments with the Wetpaint Wiki for the module.

One of the task I should have time to do over the next couple of days, in addition to updating your UEL Plus sites, is finding out why some of the features of Wetpaint that we used for the modules earlier in the year have been removed. I am very disappointed with how Wetpaint have developed and shall be searching to find out how other lecturers who have been using Wetpaint are coping with these changes. I shall report my findings here and via your UEL Plus sites.

The new MA in Youth and Community Work

For information about this new postgraduate Masters programme online go to - http://www.uel.ac.uk/education/programmes/postgraduate/youthcommunity-ma.htm.

In the video below, Mohamed Moustakim talks about this brand new post graduate programme.