This page celebrates and publicises exceptional work taking place within the learning development community, highlighted through the LD Team Award nominations. Here you can read about individual and team nominees’ work from the 2026 awards.
2026 Winner: To be announced at the AGM and Awards Ceremony 30 April 2026. Book a ticket via the Events Calendar.
2026 Nominations
Name of nominee: Academic Support, Camberwell, Chelsea, Wimbledon Colleges of Arts (CCW), University of the Arts London (UAL), nominated by Robert Ping-Nan Chang
I am pleased to nominate CCW Academic Support (CCW AS), UAL, for the LD Team Award. Led by Cath Hawes, the multidisciplinary team of academics and practitioners in art, design and English for Academic Purposes prioritise creativity and criticality in their practice. Working in partnership with a very diverse student body (Level 4-8) the team supports students from pre-arrival to post-graduation, covering academic literacies and study skills, resilience and wellbeing, and creative research and practice. Drawing on scholarship in compassionate pedagogy, critical pedagogy, and art and design practice, the team has taken a proactive approach by implementing innovative interventions. These include the OFF Curriculum (off-site visits and off-topic reading sessions), Writers’ Collective, Future Communities, Academic Skills Marathon, Creative Collaboration through Drawing, Superpowers Framework, and Unscripted Podcast. As research-active staff, the team consistently shares research and practice through publications and conferences, while driving excellence through dedicated AS Staff Development days and engagement with ALDinHE.
The team’s influence extends to course curricula through close collaboration with subject lecturers. They actively shape course development by reviewing briefs and revalidation documents and delivering embedded facilitation and co-teaching. Aligning with university priority on climate, social and racial justice (CSRJ), the team has integrated these themes into their teaching and engage in CPD and initiatives like Carbon Literacy Training, CCW Intent Competition, and the ‘Carb your enthusiasm’ project. The impact of CCW AS is evidenced by remarkable engagement, with 11,039 total attendances in 2024/5. The contribution to student success is substantial: attainment, continuation and completion rates increased by 8%, 14% and 13% respectively within the year. These gains are especially pronounced amongst BAME, First Generation and International students, demonstrating the team’s vital role in narrowing the awarding gap and fostering an inclusive creative community.
Name of nominee: Critical Thinking in a Changing World Module Team, Centre for Education and Teaching Innovation, University of Westminster nominated by Dr Moonisah Usman
Critical Thinking in a Changing World Module Team, Centre for Education and Teaching Innovation, University of Westminster
Our Critical Thinking in a Changing World, multidisciplinary team develops learning for foundation students, whilst rejecting the premise that students need fixing. Our work is rooted in awarding gap research that locates the problem in the system, not the student. We actively engage in critical scholarship to dismantle exclusionary structures through democratic and relational student partnerships.
Our university-wide module is grounded in UN SDG-10 ‘Reducing Inequalities’, spanning Business, Law, Architecture, Life Sciences, Computer Sciences, Arts, and Social Sciences. The curriculum, marking criteria and assessments were co-designed with students, leading to innovative and inclusive practices, including a community-engaged podcast assessment. Partnership is also enacted through co-enquiry of ‘big-ideas’ to evoke critical consciousness, co-creation of anti-racist curricula and principled spaces where lived experience is valued.
Inspired by Freire and bell hooks, our education is a practice of freedom. Subject Leads develop discipline-specific case studies such as AI bias, media representation, and social housing injustice, to ensure critical thinking is rooted in students’ own fields. Students prepare not merely to enter their discipline, but to challenge it. Transdisciplinary learning between Architecture and Life Sciences students investigating health and housing, further enriches this.
Running for six-years, reaching 5,000+ students, we delivered compelling outcomes. First-generation students completing the module outperformed our benchmark for first and 2:1 degrees by 4.5% in 2024/25 — while those entering without foundation provision fell 2.9% below benchmark. 7 students published their podcast assessment in a mini-series with the Pedagogies for Social Justice Podcast. Students co-authored a peer-reviewed paper on our anti-racist curriculum in Social Sciences journal, and presented at national conferences including Decolonising DMU. Advocating for effective learning development practices, we disseminated our approach at Warwick’s Cultivate Workshops and internationally at the Critical University Studies Conference, Hong Kong.
Our teamwork is creating a legacy – it’s not just staff that embody the ALDHE values – our students embody them too as critical scholars, co-authors, and agents of change.
Name of nominee: Learning Enhancement Team, University of East Anglia, nominated by Zoe Jones LET
The Learning Enhancement Team at UEA is a small, dedicated and hardworking group of learning development professionals. I feel privileged to work alongside such supportive, wise and committed colleagues, ably led by Head of the team, Jeremy Schildt. His calm demeanour draws on a wealth of experience to expertly guide the different elements of support the team delivers in accordance with the ALDinHE values.
The different strands of our team cover support for academic writing and studying effectively, mathematics and statistics and studying with a Specific Learning Difference. Alongside this, we have tutors who run a Peer Assisted Learning (PAL) Scheme and a tutor and staff who help to develop inclusive practice for teaching staff which aligns with the University’s Inclusive Education Policy. This fairly unique combination of expertise ensure that our evidence-based work empowers students and staff from across the disciplines (Health Sciences and Medicine, Humanities and Social Sciences) and levels of study from Foundation to post-graduate research navigate HE with compassion, self-awareness and purpose. Partnership working with students is most evident in our successful PAL scheme, but also in the co-creation of resources and the non-hierarchical relationships we foster in our tutorial and drop-in work. With staff, the creation of the University’s Inclusivity Network for staff and post-graduate researchers, co-creation of workshops in many disciplines and conference presentations with staff in Schools are testament to our commitment to effective partnerships and contributing to scholarship. We use our position in the University as a springboard to advocate for equity of opportunity for all students. This is evidenced through informal conversations behind the scenes, and more formally through our presence in working groups, boards and committees. Our forthcoming presentation at the ALDinHE conference speaks to the importance of the role of the Learning Developer as an advocate for inclusion.