This blog has been contributed by Prof Debbie Holley, Events Officer on the ANTF Committee, who has organised our roadshow events for aspiring NTF and CATE winners this year. Here she reports from this webinar, in November 2020.

The Association for National Teaching Fellows (ANTF) and AdvanceHE collaborated to run this national webinar for aspiring National Teaching Fellows. Fully booked with 65 participants and a waiting list, this session offered a brief re-cap of the scheme and highlighted updates; the AdvanceHE pages have the forms, links to great videos and lots more.
This time we concentrated on what the evidence can be for the three main criterion; and explored this through the lens of our three panel guests.
A) individual excellence
B) raising the profile of excellence
C) developing excellence
Dr Steve Briggs shared his journey as a Professional Services member of staff at the University of Bedford, and showcased how he set about identifying an issue in the sector, where learning developers are seen as ‘betwixt and between’ and not ‘fitting in’ terms of recognition and reward in terms of University staff recognition pathways. He set about challenging and changing this, through working with the Association for Learning Developer in HE (ALDinHE) by leading change and developing their own national framework for the Certified Practitioner (CeP) and Certified Leading Practitioner (CeLP) awards.
Dr Beatrix Acevedo, Creative Oracle and lecturer in sustainability at Anglia Ruskin University, based in their Business School challenged all of our preconceptions with her journey of seeking more creative ways to communicate her teaching passion! Her main message was to create an individual authentic and personal narrative that reflects across the three areas of ‘excellence’.
And Professor Sally Brown, one of the award co-founders added, in her own wonderful style:
‘shy bairns get nowt’ analogy – for non-Geordies, this means if you don’t write about it, we don’t know you have done it! Key message is to step up, explain what you have done, the impact of this for yourself, for others and say why it matters..
Sally has some excellent resources, including a very detailed powerpoint about what counts as evidence on her blog. We concluded by encouraging participants to think about mentors, teams and collaborations as their way forward.
The full recording is available here (passcode v&&fZw8B)
Thanks as ever to the AdvanceHE team, Leonie, Dan Amin and Karen Hustler
Debbie Holley, on behalf of the Association for National Teaching Fellows (ANTF)
Webinar three: 3rd December 2020 “Institutional/Individual perspectives”
This webinar will briefly re-cap the previous two sessions, and the panel will include a representative from those tasked with staff development in our institutions, to offer the institutional viewpoint about the scheme, as well as NTFs happy to share their experiences. We will record and blog.
3rd December 2020 1-2pm (currently full with a waiting list in operation)