Trying to imagine what the reaction would have been if the Govt had casually announced they were replacing A-levels with no details, as they have done with post-16 vocational qualifcations today.

Probably not total indifference.

“I hope other young people see a person who was in the same boat but is now doing loads of cool stuff."

Ahead of #GCSEResultsDay Sarah from the Students' Union and our Pro Vice Chancellor, @aewilby.bsky.social, talk about why it's not a time to worry.

northampton.ac.uk/news/what-to...

It's a proud day for our Learning Development Team as they are announced as winners of a Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence by @AdvanceHE after demonstrating a dedicated and innovative approach to improving student outcomes - bit.ly/4fpaZhI

🧠🧍‍♂️ Mild face blindness, major impact

A new study shows even mild prosopagnosia can make daily life difficult – including recognising close friends or family.

Calls are growing to recognise it as a form of neurodivergence.

🔗 theconversation.com/even-mild-fa...

#SciComm 🧪 #FaceBlindness

Today is National Biscuit Day, and it’s about time that I populated this account with biscuit (cookie) sets from the past few years. Here are some of my favourites. 🧵

First up, a set inspired by the delicious designs of William Morris and John Henry Dearle.

There are new degree apprenticeships coming up at #UON, planned to start soon.

See our website for more about apprenticeships in #Accounting and #Finance, Digital #Marketing and #Podiatry.

northampton.ac.uk/apprenticesh...

#apprenticeships

"The role of the civic university agenda is not to extend the university into the world but to extend the world into the university." - spot on.

There's been a bit of bandwagon jumping on the 'civic agenda' in the last year - as a sector we need to look a bit less self-interested to do it well.

I'm all in favour of the idea of offering more HE provision in my hometown, but amused that Wakefield's only selling point remains how easy it is to escape by road

This is astonishing (though also not surprising). A strong signal that some of the financial challenges in the sector are getting harder to manage without external support.

What universities do now is more important than how they came to be wonkhe.com/blogs/what-u...

Any article that compares universities to crustaceans is always going to be a good one, and this is really excellent.

New post just out:

"The definition of madness"

Why governments keep making the same incredibly expensive mistake over and over again.

And what they should be doing instead.

(£/free trial)

open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/t...

🚨 Are we seeing regional cold spots in social sciences, humanities & arts provision emerge across UK HE? 🚨

Today our team @britishacademy.bsky.social launches the first new mapping tool on our SHAPE Observatory. Our maps track changes in SHAPE subject provision in UK universities since 2011 🗺️ ⤵️

One thing that I didn’t have the space to put into yesterday’s article on mergers and student numbers distribution was the potential impact on housing.

Charlie wants me to believe he's had a hard day. Oh to be a cat.

“updated research has revealed that professionals from working-class backgrounds are paid an average of £6,287 – or 12% – less per year than their more privileged counterparts in the same occupations”
#SocialMobility

www.socialmobility.org.uk/campaign/the...

I've been quietly watching on here - time to post something...

I'm Alice, in my day job I'm a consultant working with universities on all kinds of projects relating to transformation, curriculum development, tertiary education and regulation.