ScotHELD winter meeting 2026: LD Winter Wonderland, Thu, 29th January 2026
How would you work with students if you did not have to operate with limited resources? How would you plan your ideal LD unit? What job description would your ideal LD post have?
These questions are, admittedly, hypothetical, but they are not necessarily useless. In times where restrictions, whether they stem from limited resources or existing institutional or sector-wide structures and pressures, seem ubiquitous, attempts to push the boundaries can seem pointless. In an environment where having or getting a job means someone is comparatively lucky, there might be little reason to imagine a dream job.
But how do we keep motivation alive when we focus mainly on restrictions? How can we maintain resilience if we focus so much on the barriers that we forget why it is worth resisting the headwinds?
Daydreaming of what we can do can be an important reminder of what we would like to see and an inspiration to tease out a little more than initially seems possible from what we are given. (Or to emphasise the evidence-based nature of this call: ‘mental representations of a desirable future state have strong[…] motivational consequence’ at least for individuals high in achievement motivation, see Langens. 2002, 112).
That is why ScotHELD would like to invite colleagues from across Scotland and our ICALLD partner countries to a day of collective daydreaming:
Programme
| Time (all GMT) | Daydreamer | Dream |
| 9.50-10am | ScotHELD Committee | Virtual Room open for general chat and welcome (around 5 min) |
| 10-10.45 | Martin McMorrow (Notre Dame, Australia) and students (Al-Aqsa and Islamic University of Gaza) | Students’ Imaginary University |
| 10.50 – 11.20 | Joshua Thorpe (Royal Conservatoire of Scotland) | Soundcheck: Using Audio in Education |
| 11.30 – 12pm | Rachel Horrocks-Birss (QAA) | Dreaming within Reality: LD’s role in turbulent times |
| LUNCH BREAK | ||
| 1.30- 2pm | ScotHELD committee | Info session for potential ScotHELD members |
| 2-2.30pm | Alexander Cuthbert and Derek Keenan (University of Strathclyde) | Tomorrow’s LDs: A Vision Thing |
| 2.30-3pm | Ursula Canton (Glasgow Caledonian University) | Dream-builder: Reminiscences of 2025 in the 2050 ScotHELD LD compendium |
Registration
Please register here to receive the links for the meeting: ScotHELD Winter Wonderland Registration – Fill in form
Abstracts
| Martin McMorrow (Notre Dame, Australia) and students (Al-Aqsa and Islamic University of Gaza) | Students’ Imaginary University The session will present comments, podcasts and short videos from students of English and Education at Al-Aqsa University and the Islamic University of Gaza on the theme of “my imaginary university’. Sharing their dreams for university, the students will inspire us while having an opportunity to develop their CV for applications for postgraduate courses overseas. |
| Joshua Thorpe (Royal Conservatoire of Scotland) | Soundcheck: Using Audio in Edu Josh Thorpe wonders about doing more radio shows and podcasts on education. He is looking for suggestions. To check out Josh’s show on experimental music and sound art, see unusualmusicexchange.com. |
| Rachel Horrocks-Birss (QAA) | Dreaming within Reality: LD’s role in turbulent times Where does Enlighten’s report Where next for Scottish Universities and Colleges (McNulty and Morris. 2026) create spaces for LD to thrive? |
| LUNCH BREAK | |
| ScotHELD committee | Info session for potential ScotHELD members The ScotHELD committee would like to invite all colleagues working in Scotland FE and HE to find out more about ScotHELD, the work it does and the opportunities it can offer you. Whether you’d be interested in joining as an institution from the FE or HE sector, or have an institutional membership but have never engaged much with us, we’d love to meet you. |
| Alexander Cuthbert and Derek Keenan (University of Strathclyde) | Tomorrow’s LDs: A Vision Thing To dream the impossible dream…an LDS with staff with hope in their hearts, stars in their eyes, uninhibited by budgetary constraints (funding crisis, what crisis?) and with enough staff and resources to embed LD practice and values in every class…as far as the eye can see… |
| Ursula Canton (Glasgow Caledonian University) | Dream-builder: Reminiscences of 2025 in the 2050 ScotHELD LD compendium How many dreams are not included in this programme because many of you struggled to dream among real-world constraints? To find out what we’re missing and help us capture as many dreams as possible to guide our collective real-life action, please join me for 30 min of dreaming together: what would a 2050 LD utopia look like and how would we look at 2025? Arrived armed with pen, paper and be prepared to capture and share the ideas that come when you dare to dream… |
Please join us on Thu, 29th Jan, (9.50 to start at) 10am-3pm (GMT) to daydream and be inspired to tease out a little more than might initially seem possible. You can register here to receive the links: ScotHELD Winter Wonderland Registration – Fill in form.