Hello
CDN Update

I hope this update finds you well.

Last Friday, we enjoyed an incredible evening celebrating the talent, innovation and achievement demonstrated by our colleges, their staff and their learners at CDN's College Awards - we hope you enjoyed the evening too.

At the start of the month, we launched the Professional Learning Mini Bites - a series of short six-minute training videos and resources, to help college staff further develop their skills. We're now delighted to launch the Digital Capability Hub - offering a wide bank of practical digital resources. This great work stemmed from the CDN Workforce Survey, which highlighted the need for a clearer structure and offering. The resources are free and available to use now - find out more below.

We continue to offer a wide range of impactful Courses, Events and Research to support your professional development. Take a moment and have a look at what's on offer below and on CDN’s website.
  
As ever, please don’t hesitate to contact me if you’d like to talk about any aspect of our work, if you'd like to suggest new ways that we can support you, or share experiences and great practice that colleagues in the sector would find useful. You can email me at: jim.metcalfe@cdn.ac.uk
Jim Metcalfe, Chief Executive, CDN
CDN College Awards 2022
Celebrating the College Sector

The CDN College Awards took place last Friday, at Radisson Blu in Glasgow with over 280 guests - the biggest Scottish College Awards ever - celebrating the talent, innovation and success demonstrated by our colleges, their staff and their students.

The ambition and excellence of this sector was reflected in the record-breaking number of entries this year - 160 submissions, from every part of the country. All the inspirational submissions and testimonials can be viewed in the interactive guide here.

This year we warmly welcomed back the wonderful Amy Irons to take the mic as our host for the evening. We were also delighted to hear from guest speaker Jamie Hepburn MSP, Minister for Higher Education and Further Education, Youth Employment and Training.

As well as presentation of 13 prestigious prizes, the awards ceremony also included radio presenter Edith Bowman being inducted into the CDN College Hall of Fame.
Sparking your Professional Conversations
CDN’s recent Workforce Survey revealed that college staff want more subject-specific professional learning opportunities, as well as pedagogy-based learning such as behaviour management. They also highlighted a need around their digital capabilities, and support for equality, diversity and mental health and wellbeing.

In response, CDN is working closely with college staff to produce a series of 20 videos that tackle the topics identified by the survey. The first three of these ‘Mini bite’ videos include ‘Education for sustainable development: delivering a green curriculum’, ‘Principles and strategies for behaviour management’, and ‘Supporting neurodiverse learners’.

In addition, a ‘Digital Capabilities’ area of the CDN website has been developed, which is packed full of resources.

“Now, more than ever, it is essential that individuals are at the centre of professional learning planning and this needs to be owned by the practitioner,” says Jonny Rees, Head of Professional Development at CDN

To make it easy for college staff to find relevant learning opportunities, the CDN website features a new ‘Professional Learning’ area, with clearly-labelled sections for Support and Professional Services Staff; Academic and Teaching Staff; and Leadership and Management. 
New Blog Post: Collaboration is Imperative
In latest blog post 'Collaboration is Imperative', Willie Mackie of CDN's Economic Recovery Group shares the group's latest phase of work supporting the critical role of colleges as enablers of cross-tertiary collaboration.
CDN Leadership Programmes
Next Cohort Starts January
The next cohort of the highly-sought after CMI Leadership Programmes kick starts in January 2023, offering you the opportunity to build on your skills and to take the next step in your career. The programmes include:

Emerging Leadership Programme
This course is designed for practising or aspiring managers and leaders. The primary role of a practising or aspiring manager and leader is to lead and manage individuals and teams to deliver aims and objectives in line with organisational strategy.

Strategic Leadership Programme
This course is designed for senior managers and aspiring senior managers who have, or aim to have the authority and personal inspiration to translate organisational strategy into effective operational performance. The qualification requires managers to build on their strategic management and leadership skills and to focus on the requirements of implementing the organisation’s strategy.
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