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When your first year is also your last year

When your first year is also your last year. Retention and completion of Early Childhood Studies students with advanced standing. Mark O'Hara, Principal Lecturer in Early Years Education, Sheffield Hallam University

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When your first year is also your last year

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  1. When your first year is also your last year Retention and completion of Early Childhood Studies students with advanced standing

  2. Mark O'Hara, Principal Lecturer in Early Years Education, Sheffield Hallam University • Rosie Bingham, Senior Lecturer in Curriculum and Professional Development, Sheffield Hallam University

  3. Introduction • Building Pathways and Early Childhood degrees at SHU • Retention good • Attainment comparable • Lessons learned: • Recruitment strategies make a difference • Deficit models of students need to be treated with caution • Student support crucial but contested • Cost / benefit questions remain • Keeping pathways open is an active business

  4. Recruitment data • 2001-2005: 18 recruits in total • 2001-2002: 3 recruits • 2002-2003: 5 recruits • 2003-2004: 5 recruits • 2004-2005: 5 recruits

  5. ECS students graduating by year Building Pathways students in parenthesis

  6. First destination data

  7. Interview data: Theory and practice • An issue (initially) for HE staff. • Not an issue for students at the end: 'I quite enjoyed grappling with the more abstract theories and ideas'. • Practice informing students' efforts to understand theory. • Academic writing a different matter.

  8. Interview data: Student support & assessment • Student concerns over assessment: 'It was like being at sea'. • Differing traditions of student support: 'We had less support.....but perhaps that was better'. • Particular challenges for direct entrants at Level 6 (e.g. dissertations) had a direct impact on the admissions strategy.

  9. Interview data: Preparation & orientation • HE expectations and culture. • Sharp learning curve inevitable. • Mentoring, written guidance & advice, informal peer support networks, L&T strategies. • Rejection of a bridging module. • Students in surplus (e.g. experience, inter-personal skills).

  10. Conclusions • Students with advance standing possess strengths as well as weaknesses; deficit models need to be treated with caution. • Structures and systems matter but so do people and recruitment requires thought. • HE student support may be character-building but the transition needs monitoring and existing practices may struggle in the face of competing policy pressures (i.e. 'working smarter'). • Cost - benefit analysis: are the models and lessons learned transferable? • Keeping pathways open in face of diverse and evolving qualifications.

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