Hello
CDN Update

I hope you are all well. It's been an extremely busy month, and I hope you've had the opportunity to engage with CDN's action-packed programme of activity.

We kicked off September with the highly-anticipated College Awards shortlist announcement. The Awards recognise the talent, innovation and achievement demonstrated by our colleges, their staff and their learners.
We would like to thank everyone who submitted entries and send our congratulations to the shortlist. Discover more below.

Also, at the start of the month we launched the new report Pathways from Poverty - Colleges for Communities. The report comprises case studies with an overview that further explores the work of colleges in addressing the experience of material deprivation in Scotland’s communities.
The launch of the report was shortly followed by the Pathways from Poverty Symposium on 8 September. Discover more below.

We were also delighted to launch the new Workforce Survey Analysis Report. The report details the key findings from the 2022 Workforce Survey undertaken by CDN. On 15 September, attendees joined virtual event CDN Workforce Survey 2022 – What did we find out? to explore key report findings and considerations for future professional learning planning.

We continue to offer a wide range of impactful Courses, Events and Research to support your professional development. Take a moment and have a look at what's on offer below and on CDN’s website.
  
As ever, please don’t hesitate to contact me if you’d like to talk about any aspect of our work, if you'd like to suggest new ways that we can support you, or share experiences and great practice that colleagues in the sector would find useful. You can email me at: jim.metcalfe@cdn.ac.uk
Jim Metcalfe, Chief Executive, CDN
CDN Workforce Survey 2022 – What did we find out?


This month, we launched the new Workforce Survey Analysis Report providing key findings from the 2022 Workforce Survey undertaken by CDN.
 
The Workforce Survey was open to all members of the college workforce across Scotland, and we received an incredible 1,810 responses.
 
The purpose of the survey is to identify the future learning requirements of the workforce, and crucially how college staff want to learn.

The launch of the report was shortly followed by online event CDN Workforce Survey 2022 – What did we find out? on 15 September. This event explored the key findings from across the college workforce, and outlined some key considerations for future professional learning planning, at both college and sector level.

Event recordings will be available here soon
College Awards Shortlist Announcement

We are delighted to announce the shortlist for the CDN College Awards 2022!
 
The Awards recognise the talent, innovation and achievement demonstrated by our colleges, their staff and their learners.
 
This year we received a record-breaking number of entries - 160 inspiring submissions highlighting the fantastic work of Scotland's colleges.
 
We would like to thank everyone who submitted entries and send our congratulations to the shortlist.
 
View the titles of the shortlisted submissions on CDN's website here.
 
The winners will be announced at a celebration ceremony at
Radisson Blu, Glasgow on Friday 25 November 2022.
Choose College at Scottish Learning Festival

As part of the Choose College campaign, CDN’s Marketing and Communications Network organised a School-College Pathways Showcase at this year’s Scottish Learning Festival (SLF).

Hosted by members of CDN’s School-College Partnership Network, the showcase was part of activity around the in-person SLF Satellite event, which took place on 21 September at the Fife College Carnegie Conference Centre. The event featured a keynote from Shirley-Anne Somerville, Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills and launch of the National Discussion on Scottish Education. Other SLF Satellite events were hosted by City of Glasgow College, Dumfries and Galloway College, Dundee and Angus College, and Forth Valley College.

Members of the School-College Partnership Network also delivered a seminar as part of the SLF online programme, School-College Pathways: Co-creating the Learner Journey, exploring how school-college partnerships support personalised learner journeys and positive outcomes.

Recordings of the seminar are expected to be available to those who registered to attend SLF.
Pathways from Poverty:
New Report and Symposium Success



Since publishing the Pathways from Poverty report, the CDN team has been working on in-depth case studies of specific poverty-related work being undertaken by our colleges.

We are delighted to launch new report Pathways from Poverty - Colleges for Communities. The report comprises case studies from Ayrshire College, Borders College, Forth Valley College and Glasgow Kelvin College; combined with an overview that further explores the work of colleges in addressing the experience of material deprivation in Scotland’s communities.

On 8 September, we ran a hugely successful online event: Pathways from Poverty Symposium: The Role of Colleges in Leaving No-One Behind.

The symposium considered the themes in the Pathways from Poverty report and the learning from this further work as the basis for thinking about how we support our learners, their families and communities over the next five years and beyond.

Event recordings will be available here soon
Finance and HR Annual Conference 2022
Thursday 13 October - Friday 14 October
The conference will bring together the Finance and HR networks from across Scotland. Delegates will consider how we can learn from the struggles and experiences of others.

The conference will enable delegates to consider what the college sector should look like in this new normal and what role does the college sector play in a post COVID-19 pandemic world.
Coaching Skills for Managers
This new CDN Leadership course is designed to develop your coaching knowledge and skills, enabling you to adopt a coaching approach when leading teams and individuals.
 
The course will introduce you to coaching theory, models and tools; alongside the opportunity to practice and improve your coaching skills. By the end of the course, you will have gained an effective coaching toolkit to support your role.
New Online Sustainability Course

We recently welcomed the launch of new online course ‘Introducing Action for Sustainability’

This course was developed for CDN by Learning for Sustainability Scotland (LfSS) and the Environmental Association of Universities and Colleges (EAUC Scotland).

The self-guided online course is designed as a first step in supporting everyone working in Scotland’s colleges to understand the importance of sustainability and consider how they can play their part in making it a reality.

The online course takes approximately 45 minutes to complete and is now available on CDN LearnOnline here.
CDN Professional Learning Communities

We currently offer a range of Professional Learning Communities (PLC), allowing practitioners from across Scottish colleges to come together and speak to colleagues who are involved with the delivery of the same subject.

PLC's are focussed across a wide range of subject areas and are designed to allow lecturers and other colleagues to share good practice within their subject specialism.

We are delighted to welcome two new subject areas:

  • Childhood Practice/Early Years
  • Health and Social Care
Did someone share this email with you? Sign up to receive more of our emails.