WELS news

From 8 – 14 February, The Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies will be shining a spotlight on our apprenticeships to mark the 14th annual National Apprenticeship Week. For over 50 years, it has been the OU’s mission to open up education for all.  Since our first degree apprenticeships launched in 2016, our apprenticeship offer has continued to expand.

Up to two million out-of-school learners will benefit from new learning materials now approved by the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education in Zimbabwe.

A team from the OU's Faculty of WELS and FIFA have today announced the launch of the FIFA Guardians Safeguarding in Sport Diploma – a major new global education programme designed to strengthen and professionalise safeguarding standards across football.

Citizen science researchers at The Open University's Institute of Educational Technology (IET) have made recommendations to National History Museums to improve how young people can be supported to engage in structured learning when at field-based events and in remote, home settings.

Senior Research Fellow Dr Alison Buckler spoke to Times Higher Education on how the pandemic has forced researchers to consider alternative research methods.

Project 17, a new radio series from the BBC World Service and The Open University, hears from seventeen 17-year-olds on whether the United Nations' 17 Sustainable Development Goals are making progress in addressing the issues relevant to them and their communities.

‘Enriched realities’ and ‘Using chatbots in learning’ are two of the top ten new approaches to learning and teaching, according to this year’s Innovating Pedagogy 2021 report, co-authored by colleagues in The Open University’s Institute of Educational Technology (IET).

A homeschooling project, lead by WELS academics and geared towards inspiring hope and celebrating Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) diversity, has been awarded funding from the OU’s COVID-19 Rapid Response fund.

Dr Verina Waights, in collaboration with Willen Hospice, has received funding to enhance the use of technologies in a hospice; piloting and evaluating the use of digital technologies to enhance communications for service users and their families during the pandemic.

Joe Hanley, Social Work Lecturer, is leading a project to support social workers during the pandemic, piloting free online CPD to rapidly upskill social workers.