Staff Development Activities

These staff development activities provide a stimulus for staff with an interest in widening participation issues to share existing knowledge, explore family issues and concerns and generate ideas for creating other resources. The activities work well with staff from different types of institutions as well as cross sector gatherings involving staff working in school, FE or HE and other organisations e.g. Connexions or the Youth Service. Some of the activities can also be adapted for use with parents/guardians, see also family activities.

• Staff Development 1 – Corners
  This icebreaker encourages participants to meet other participants and to begin to think about some ways in which they or their institution can work with families to raise awareness and aspiration for higher education. NB It is possible to use different questions depending on the session focus.
• Staff Development 2 – Ask the Family
  This activity helps to raise awareness of the things that staff working in higher education might take for granted, it encourages participants to think about terminology that might be off putting or confuse families without higher education experience.
• Staff Development 3 – Question Time
  This adaptable activity focuses on barriers to and benefits of higher education. The general idea can be adapted to cover different questions, a useful mechanism for generating lots of ideas.
• Staff Development 4 – Disability
  Disabled students remain an under-represented group within higher education, this activity encourages participants to consider some of the services HE offers disabled students.
• Staff Development 5 – Postbag
  Although the general idea can be used to discuss any ‘problems’, the current format encourages participants to think of the specific issues facing minority ethnic and working class families – cultural and social factors.
• Staff Development 6 – Support Services
  Higher education providers offer a vast array of services to support students; this activity encourages staff to think about how they describe and publicise services. It highlights the confusion arising from calling similar services different things.