Our official Employee Assistance Programme provider, Care first offers a numbers of services and provide useful advice and support, including weekly webinars.

This week’s (Monday 25 January – Friday 29 January) webinars are as follows:

Monday 25 January 2021 – ‘How Care first can support you’
Time: 12.00-12.30 – to register please click on this Go to webinar link.

Tuesday 26 January 2021 – ‘Tips to beat the Winter blues’
Time: 12.00-12.30 – to register please click on this Go to webinar link

Wednesday 27 January 2021 – ‘Tips for Parents on Managing Screen Time, Technology and Social Media use for Children’
Time: 12.00-12.30 – to register please click on this Go to webinar link

Thursday 28 January 2021 – ‘Keeping motivated whilst Working
from Home’
Time: 12.00-12.30 – to register please click on this Go to webinar link

Friday 29 January 2021 – ‘Burnout & Tiredness during the COVID-19 Pandemic’
Time: 12.00-12.30 – to register please click on this Go to webinar link

The E-Learning Team are pleased to announce that the next event in our series of ‘Digitally Enhanced Education webinars’ will take place on Friday 5 February, 10.00 – 12.10 with a theme of ‘Technology to Develop Inclusive Learning Experiences’.

Please find the agenda for the event below.

10.00 – 10.05 – Dr Phil Anthony: Introduction

10.05 – 10.20 – Ben Watson: Digital accessibility as the fundamental building block for good user experience

10.20 – 10.35 – Paul-Georg (Postgraduate research student in Kent Law School): What technology for inclusion means to me

10.35 – 10.50 – Dr Stefano Biagini: Strategies to improve Accessibility and Inclusivity in Higher Education

10.50 – 11.05 – Matthew Deeprose (University of Southampton): Making it simple to ensure the use of colour is both on brand and accessible.

11.05 – 11.20 – George Rhodes (Accessibility Consultant): Mapping public sector accessibility legislation compliance

11.20 – 11.35 – Daniel Clark (University of Kent): Catalyst or Distraction: The Global Pandemic and its Impact on Digital Accessibility in Higher Education

11.35 – 11.50 – Claire Gardener (University of Derby): Digital Accessibility at Derby

11.50 – 12.05 – Ian Woolner (Microsoft): Accessibility tools in Microsoft 365

If you would like to join the webinar series, please express your interest by enrolling on the Digitally Enhanced Education Webinars Moodle module, or by requesting access to the Team Digitally Enhanced Education webinars linked to the webinar series.

Colleagues from outside the University of Kent are very welcome to join and so feel free to circulate. Please register your interest via the link here if you haven’t already. We will send you an invitation to join the Microsoft Teams site.

We hope to see you there.

The E-Learning team

The University has always been committed to working across all protected characteristics and promoting a culture of diversity and inclusivity for all. Recent global events have pushed issues related to race and ethnicity to the fore, prompting Kent to seek to better understand and tackle racism at the University.

The University is leading the way in the sector by launching its “Challenging Racism” campaign, which includes a blended programme of learning and development for staff. The programme will be delivered by Inclusive Employers over a period of six months. It aims to open channels of discussion and reflection around racism, as well as awareness and understanding of challenges associated with ethnicity and race.

Tuesday 2 February 2021 sees the first of three 90-minute Live Webinars on the topic of “The history of race in the UK”. The University will be partnering with Liverpool John Moores University and City, University of London, to deliver a series of live webinars, followed by an Inclusive Allyship programme for a cohort of 40 people across all 3 institutions.  Staff at Kent will also be invited to participate in two closed Inclusion Circles designed to enable BAME staff to share their experiences on the topics of ‘BAME wellbeing’ and ‘Taking action on race inequality and inclusion’.

Race & Racism  Webinar Series

Webinar 1: The History of Race in the UK – Tuesday 2 February 2021 at 10.00

 Join us for this webinar looking at the history of race in the UK, including the UKs role in enslavement, the British Empire, and the impact this legacy has had on the present day.  

We will be looking at:

• A brief history of how and when Black people came to the UK, their experiences, and rights
• The effect of Britain’s history on today’s inequality
• Why it’s important to understand Black British history

The guest speaker at the first webinar is Chantelle Lunt, a final-year student at Liverpool John Moore’s University (LJMU) studying Criminology and Sociology. During lockdown Chantelle founded the Facebook group Merseyside BLM Alliance which was formed with the goal to address the issue of racism and to create a space where people can safely channel their passion for fighting racial injustices. You can find out more about the group from this LJMU news article. 

Chantelle Lunt

Here’s two other webinars to look out for:

Webinar 2: White Privilege – What is it and how does it affect society?  – 18 March 2021 at 12.00

Webinar 3: Let’s Talk About Race  –  19 April 2021 at 13.00

Look out for more info on upcoming events!

Please scan the QR code

or click this Eventbrite link to register.

The Talent and Organisational Development Team are happy to share details of our upcoming Pathways Career Development Programme.

Next cohort is starting in March 2021

Pathways provides colleagues within professional services departments the opportunity to increase their self-awareness, learn and develop new skills and create knowledge so that they can define their career pathways. The next session of the Pathways programme will be delivered through a blended approach using staff training Moodle for the eLearning modules and MS Teams sessions for face to face sessions.

Programme aims & benefits

The programme aims to prepare individuals who wish to define their career aspirations by helping them to:

Identify strengths and development opportunities Understand what they want from their career Identify opportunities to assist in achieving the identified career pathway Provide practical skills in CV writing, applying for roles and attending interviews The programme will also bring benefit to the wider university by providing attendees greater connections from other areas.

The programme will run from Mid March to early June

More information can be found on our blog

Next Steps

If you feel this programme would support your current career situation, please send an email to ldev@kent.ac.uk outlining the reasons why this would benefit you, please ensure that your line manager supports your request to join the next cohort.

Closing date for applications is Friday 19 February 2021

Oli Prior, Head of Physical Activities at Kent Sport gives us his top 10 tips on how to stay active during lockdown…

1. Start Lightly

Whilst it is always tempting to start the new year with high intensity activity this is a sure fire way of making it unsustainable as you will likely give up in a few weeks or worse – injure yourself.  Whatever you start doing, start lightly, if you’re doing Joe Wicks’ morning PE for the first time, just do half of it or take the low intensity options, don’t go straight out for a run, start with a fast walk or walk up-hill.

2. Find an Exercise Buddy

Training on your own is hard, stay motivated by finding a like-minded friend or colleague who can train at the same level as you. Current government guidelines permit you to exercise with either other members of your household or support bubble or one other person (so long as you keep your distance and stay local) so rope in your partner or children or your like-mined neighbour or colleague in your new exercise routine

3. Lounge ‘Hi Lo’

Since the first lockdown there’s been plenty of online content available bringing the gym studio to the nations’ living rooms, with so much choice where do you start? Why not ease yourself in with a familiar face on screen and check out Kent Sports ‘Stay Well at Home’

4. Walk This Way!

Walking is one of the most accessible forms of physical activity and has great wellbeing benefits as well as the obvious physical ones. Just getting up from your desk and doing a lap of the office/house once every hour will aid circulation and engage muscles. We are permitted to go out once a day so make sure you are walking, getting some fresh air and enjoying local surroundings.

5. I want to Ride my Bicycle

This is the last music pun I promise! If you prefer to get out on two wheels instead of two feet then cycling offers many training benefits. If you’re already a regular cyclist then virtual platforms like Peloton or Zwift bring the pro-cycling world to your living room but if you’re not quite ready for the Lycra, you can follow online workouts at home with any stationary bike or invest in a turbo trainer (device that attaches to your real bikes back wheel).

6. Get a ‘Virtual Pet’

This is not an invitation to go online and buy a Tamagotchi, but rather imagine you have a dog to walk every day. It’s easy to look at the drizzle on the window and stay inside, but by donning your rain-mac and going out regardless of rain or shine to walk that ‘Virtual Pet’ you will establish that habit mentioned previously and reap the benefits of daily activity.

7. Create a Power Playlist

We all have our own taste in music, but my next tip is to use this, as it is proven that music makes a difference when you exercise. Nowadays, you can build by voice command on your smart speaker or explore one of the many digital radio stations available on your smart phone.

8. Chill

For low intensity or holistic workouts a podcast can help provide structure to a training session or great company on a brisk walk – again it is so easy to download these to your device – many sports stars have turned their hand to these in lockdown with fresh episodes every week.

9. Park & Ramble

While many of you remain working from home, if you are still commuting to campus I challenge you to ‘Park & Ramble’ as you did before the pandemic. Why not allow an extra 15-20 minutes on your morning commute and park as far away as possible on campus and walk to your desk. Our campuses are great for walking all year round so explore a new route each day if you can.

 10. Stay Well at Home

The final tip is a reminder to access Kent Sports Stay Well @ Home platform, there is a breadth of content to help you stay active and engaged whilst facilities are closed or you are working from home. We look forward to seeing you all again soon, but for now from all at Kent Sport, stay well and stay active.

Congratulations to Iain Fraser, a Professor in the School of Economics, who has been appointed as the inaugural editor in chief of a new journal called Q Open.

Published by the Oxford University Press (OUP), this economic journal covers agriculture, environment, food, development and climate, and in many aspects covers one of the newly identified university research themes.

This joint venture between OUP and the European Association of Agricultural Economics is an open access journal, with Iain recruiting a high-profile team of journal editors and associate editors to run it.

To take a look at it’s first issue, published on Thursday 14 January and to discover more about the journal, please take a look at the Q Open webpage.

More information about the editorial content included in the first issue can also be found on this Issues webpage.

Canterbury City Council is currently consulting on its draft Climate Change Action Plan.  We are aware many colleges and universities are not seeing students in person at the moment, but we’d be grateful if you could please share this opportunity to comment with your students and staff who may be interested in responding.

The draft Climate Change Action Plan explains the importance of climate action as part of the council’s work, as well as why we need to act and our planned approach over the next five years.

It shows the scale of activity needed to achieve carbon reduction goals and explains the council will seek money from outside organisations to help pay for any work it needs to, as well as take the opportunity to learn from others.

The draft plan sets out our climate change vision, aims, goals, actions, targets and timescales.

You can read the full draft action plan and respond to the consultation on the Canterbury Council website, consultation is open until 5pm on Thursday 4 March 2021.

From Brenda Brunsdon, Occupational Health and Wellbeing Team Manager

One of the biggest pressures arising out of the lockdown phases is that on parents to organise home schooling for their children. This is even greater where one or both parents are working from home. It is a difficult balancing act, giving your offspring the time they need with school work assistance and fulfilling your own work commitments. There is additional pressure from sharing the internet for computer usage and for Teams/Zoom meetings. On top of that there is a need to undertake preparation, for example, printing off work sheets, and producing feedback to the school on the work your child/children have completed.

Colleagues and friends have voiced how they are finding this element of the lockdown experience very difficult. Below is information on what is available to help, and articles by experts advocating different tips and approaches in relation to this area.

A lot of the influencers recommend building a structure to the home-schooling day. This is because it provides the children with an expectation of what is going to happen and that is supposed to help. However, there is an opposite viewpoint, perhaps rooted in an approach called ‘unschooling’. This recommends a more grassroots way of doing things. The belief is that children will gain the knowledge that they need from any activity; instructional, creative, or leisure.

However, there is a general consensus that parents who are home-schooling need to cut themselves some slack. ‘Be patient and don’t be too hard on yourself’. Perhaps read the article by Jan Barton Packer, below; her experiences will resonate with many: ‘I felt wretched, like a failure in every role I was meant to be doing.’ Her resolution for Lockdown 3 is to do it differently: ‘More detrimental than missing out on some worksheets would be for my kids to see their mother, anxious and irritable, at the end of her tether, unable to be there to support them through a very stressful time. ‘

Resources are available to support home-schooling. Many experts recommend utilising the BBC resources available for Learning at Home. Many recommend the benefits of getting your children to watch other TV based material like documentaries or crafts-based programmes. The Joe Wicks PE classes have been reinstated. The Employee Assistance Programme has a webinar scheduled for Friday, 22 January: ‘Tips for Home Schooling & Keeping Children Occupied at Home’; 12:00-12:30; follow the link to register to attend. If you can’t attend on the day, the webinars are available later on the Care first website and on the University’s Staff Health and Wellbeing webpages.

If you are finding the conflicting pressures of home working and home schooling becoming too much, do speak to your manager to discuss any adjustments that can be put in place. This is what the University’s COPE framework for staff support is for. If the stress of juggling the various responsibilities in your life becomes overwhelming, contact the Employee Assistance Programme, freephone telephone 0808 168 2143; someone is there to speak to you any time of the day or night.

‘Supporting your child’s education through coronavirus (Covid 19)’: guidance on gov.uk

How to balance working from home with childcare’ on Benenden Health website

’11 Essential Home Schooling Tips’: on mumsnet.com

‘Parents and teachers share their top tips for home schooling’ by Charlotte Dobson on Manchester Evening News website

’ Home school help: How to keep children focussed and stress down during lockdown 3’ by Liam Doyle on the Express online

‘How to Reduce the Stress of Homeschooling on Everyone’ by school psychologist Rebecca Branstetter on the Greater Good Magazine online, part of Berkeley Educational Science

‘Home schooling expert urges parents to ignore ‘outdated advice after classrooms shut across country’ by Ian Hughes on Stoke Sentinel website, (expert is Dr Harriet Pattison of Liverpool Hope University)

‘I’ve nothing left to give’: parents on home schooling in lockdown’ by Molly Blackall on the Guardian online

‘Why I won’t be homeschooling my kids this lockdown’ by Jen Barton Packer on Metro online

‘What is unschooling?’ on theschoolrun.com

‘Coronavirus and homeschooling in Great Britain: April to June 2020’: Office for National Statistics website

Canterbury campus facilities

From 11 January 2021, due to current national restrictions, all catering outlets, except for Rutherford Dining Hall, are closed until further notice.

You can find the opening hours for Rutherford here.

The Library Café is closed until further notice.

All sport and fitness facilities (with the exception of our Physiotherapy Clinic) will be temporarily closed until further notice.

The main Kent Union Plaza Co-op will stay closed until further notice, with the Park Wood Co-op remaining open to serve those still on site. You can see the availability of all the Kent Union services on their website.

Templeman Library opening hours

From Monday 11 January, Templeman Library’s new opening hours will be:

Mon – Fri 10.00 – 16.00
Sat -Sun closed

Please note that you now don’t need to renew or return any books, including document deliveries, till Friday 26 February inclusive.

See library and IT services COVID-19 updates.

Medway campus facilities 

Drill Hall library will be open at the following hours:

Monday to Friday – 9:00 to 19:00
Saturday and Sunday – 9:00 to 17:00

The sports facilities are closed until further notice.

Pilkington is open between 8:00 to 16:00 for food and drink.

Calling all PDRAs, Research Associates and Research Assistants: Apply for the Summer Vacation Research Competition 2021.

The Summer Vacation Research Competition is a fantastic opportunity to develop and/or strengthen non-academic skills such as people, project and financial management, all of which are essential for career progression within or beyond the world of research.

Now open for applications, the competition enables you to apply for funding worth up to £2500 to work with an undergraduate intern for 4-7 weeks on a research project of your choice.

Nine different summer vacation research projects will be funded in 2021, each of which will be associated with a particular Division and/or Signature Research Theme.

The closing date for applications is 15 February 2021.

For more details, please read the competition post, join us at the Q&A session on Thursday, 21 January 2021 from 1300-1400 or email svrc@kent.ac.uk.