Inclusivity and Differentiation

“I Have ADHD Too”: Building Strength-Based Peer Communities in Higher Education By Kelly Goodfellow, Senior Learning Developer (Neurodiversity), UWE Bristol Kelly.Goodfellow@uwe.ac.uk In recent years, the conversation around ADHD in higher education has shifted—from deficit-based narratives to more inclusive, strength-focused approaches. At UWE Bristol, we’ve been exploring what this shift looks like in practice through our ADHD Psychoeducational Peer Programme. This blog post shares our journey, the rationale behind our model, and the impact it’s had on students navigating university life with ADHD. Why a Psychoeducational Peer Programme? ADHD is increasingly recognised in adult populations, with many students receiving diagnoses during […]

Event date and time: 10th December 2025, 13.00 – 14.00 This session will give an overview of the ethos of the neurodiversity community of practice, its guiding principles and neurodiversity-affirming frame. It will outline the ways that these commitments were carried into the submission and reviewer guidance for the community’s resource bank. Finally, it will showcase topics covered in the community of practice meetings and leave space for participant knowledge sharing across our different contexts. Presenters:

This #Take5 blog is written by Katrin Bain, a senior lecturer in social work at London Metropolitan University who shares insights from a literature review and teaching practice of how assessments can be inclusive and meaningful to students to ensure deep learning, student success and satisfaction. While the examples are from the social work courses, the insights are transferable to other subject areas. Introduction A few years ago, I asked myself the questions: ‘What makes higher education assessments inclusive?’ and ‘How to design inclusive assessments in higher education?’ I conducted a literature review and analysed 14 articles. The full review […]

Rewiring Creativity: Returning to Higher Education as a Neurodiverse Artist This blog is brought to you by Magda Olchawska. I’m a London Met alumna currently working for the Centre for Teaching Enhancement (CTE) and the School of Art, Architecture and Design (AAD) at London Metropolitan University. I also run a filmmaking & educational creative studio focused on socially conscious storytelling & inclusive education. During the COVID-19 pandemic, I returned to higher education to complete my BA, followed by an MA.  This blog explores my journey as a mature, neurodiverse student with caring responsibilities, who allowed herself to reconnect with her […]

This Take5 is brought to you by Nikita Bridgeman from Sheffield Hallam University. After being inspired by a gift-giving phrase she kept hearing on TikTok, Nikita has developed an inclusive approach to guided independent study to meet the needs of our diverse student populations and hopefully inspire a love of learning. Introduction: But what should I do – and why? One of the biggest challenges I think we all face as educators is trying to encourage learners to engage with independent study outside of the classroom; whether this is to cement their understanding of class taught concepts, revise for an […]

“We use our understanding then, to resist others’ assumptions: around deficits, deficiencies and barriers. We use it to not only impact the individual but also demand change from the institution.” This #Take5 is brought to you from Jennie Blake, who is writing about student partnership, inclusive practice and making a big difference by keeping an eye on the small things. Jennie embraces change as a constant and ‘community’ as an astonishingly powerful force – and this blog looks at one aspect of what it means to work collectively and in partnership with students. As Jennie says, “There are no answers […]

This blog post is brought to you by Maria King, an educational developer and former academic librarian whose teaching and learning (T&L) practice is underpinned by punk pedagogy. You might be thinking what have the Sex Pistols got to do with education? But punk pedagogy draws its principles from the ethos, values and characteristics of the punk scene such as DIY, challenging dominant hegemonies, and thinking critically. You don’t have to like punk music to be a punk educator! But the spirit of punk certainly speaks to the emergent and liberatory nature of learning development. What is Punk Pedagogy? Punk […]

This #Take5 is brought to you from Nilay Balkan, a lecturer in Marketing at the University of Glasgow. Nilay shares her powerful insights derived from using Charity Case Studies with Business students. This is a powerful and moving piece in itself – and it also reveals the benefit of keeping a reflective diary when we work – to see what emerges from our practice. Compassion front and centre I’ve noticed there are certain attributes and skills that we are particularly interested in within business schools; communication, collaboration, creativity, for example. While undoubtedly important, these are rather project focused in that […]

Join us in the new EDI working group We are establishing a working group to focus on our approach to EDI as an association and a community of practice. We know excellent work is going on within our community and we feel it is important to bring together colleagues to create a vision of how we might embrace EDI work. The Steering Group has been discussing the concept of an EDI working group for a while, but we felt that it is important the community makes these decisions. Therefore, we would like to invite colleagues who are interested to fill in our form so […]

Frantzeska Kolyda provides an overview of her article published in issue 27 of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education which aims to encourage educators and universities to explore interventions and practices that cultivate a growth mindset to reduce inequality in the academic success of students and the central role that learning development plays in achieving this. ‘I am not good at maths’, ‘I am not good at this’, ‘my classmates are smarter than me and get things quicker’, ‘I feel like an imposter’; educators may hear students saying. Students’ beliefs about their competence, intelligence, and skills play an […]