In this post, we share with you the Collegiate Commentary from our latest Teaching Matters newsletter: Five stories from the Being student parents/carers series. In this commentary, Kenny Anderson, Director at Scottish Wider Access Programme (SWAPWest), offers his reflections on the series, and shares how SWAPWest are supporting adult learners is similar situations.
It has always been a great privilege to work with adult students, especially those at the beginning of their return to education, and I am delighted to contribute to the ‘Being student parents/carers’ newsletter. The conversations and blog posts provide a rich introduction to working with a valuable group of students. They encapsulate beautifully the “juggling” required to be a student and a carer. Josephine Foucher’s description of ‘requiring three arms and three legs’ is one that resonates with most student carers. One of my hopefully helpful pieces of guidance to student carers is to enjoy their learning. I hope with the juggling they also have time to daydream, like the “intellectual”, Josephine highlights in her article. I will be using that image in my work from now on.
The series provoked my thinking on how we, as educators, support our students with caring responsibilities, and value their resilience, determination and strength. For Scottish Wider Access Programme (SWAP), we provide education for returning adults throughout Scotland who left school with few or no qualifications. Our students return through college-delivered access programmes. Students benefit from being in a class with like-minded adults. We have about 2000 students starting with us each year on the journey to higher education.
Since the beginning of SWAP, the numbers of students with children have remained at just over half of each cohort – 55%. A significant number are single parents – 29%. From our 35-year history, we can provide assurance to them and their families that the programme will work. At the conclusion of their SWAP years, our university partners benefit from determined and well-organised students. My colleague, Lesley Dunbar at SWAPEast, has evidenced the progression of these students and how valuable they are to the universities they attend – ‘Tracking SWAP students’ report, available by request from swapeast@ed.ac.uk.
This newsletter helps all of us think and learn how we can work better. I enjoyed Neil Spiers’ thoughtful and academic piece on what it means to belong, which is key for student success. It is good to see student carers beginning to be highlighted by other universities, for example, at the University of the West of Scotland. Bespoke arrangements from universities ensure that these highly visible “invisible” students are noticed and valued. As Neil says, “Good educators place students in a position to flourish”. It is a credit to see the University of Edinburgh backing this up with action in creating a beautiful space for children to be welcomed by the university, in the Carer & Child Room in the Main Library.
Reflecting on how students with caring responsibilities think about their identities and how they develop at university, I am often struck on how little issues often matter the most. As Lindsay Jack highlights, “small tweaks make a big difference”, for example, having a timetable in advance to plan childcare, or thinking about how flexibility in teaching can provide students with an inclusive education. Might we need to learn more as educators about how work practices are altering to think more carefully about parents and those who support them?
The team at SWAP have been putting some thought into how we normalise the parent carer experience, and support the development of personal and social competences to tackle the challenges faced by adult students. Ideally, we want these activities to be seen as normal as part of the development of a successful student. Our approach has been to be upfront about the challenges. Our main way to tackle these challenges is to use student voice and peer guidance to normalise the solutions. Josephine and Vania have put together a helpful piece for that delicate dance. I hope many students will consider their wise words, when they follow in their footsteps. Having permission to admit to feeling guilty at times is perfectly normal.
We have shared some of our own parent students stories in our ‘Prep for HE’ activity on preparing to be a successful student – Balance (Please note there is no need to log in to the SWAPWest moodle; materials are available to all guests and please feel free to share. The software we use “rise 360” does require pop ups to be unblocked).
Finally, I enjoyed the piece by Sylvia and Sarah on uniting to thrive, which reminds us all of the benefits that working with student carers brings to developing the universities links with their communities. My final reflection is that policy matters to this group of students. Changes in childcare policy, benefits and finance impact our student carers. It is a good time to try and influence policy. We welcomed providing evidence to the Scottish Parliament on their report, ‘Addressing child poverty through parental employment‘, which allowed us to highlight the importance of education. Let us all continue to use this newsletter, stories and blog posts to keep up the visibility of our student carers.
Kenny Anderson
Kenny Anderson has been Director of SWAPWest since 2008. SWAP is a national organisation which encourages adults to return to education. Prior to working with SWAP, Kenny taught computer programming and worked on a number of guidance projects. As Director of SWAPWest, he has managed a number of projects considering student guidance, use of adult students as role models and Erasmus project work developing the European framework for personal, social and learning to learn framework. He loves talking about adult education and can be contacted by email at swapwest@scottishwideraccess.org.
