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So Halloween is over for another year, but here's something really frightening: the UK grows 10 million pumpkins for Halloween each year—and 95% of them end up in landfills. Right now—even as you read this—thousands of carved-out pumpkins are heading straight to landfill sites across the country...
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Can we just stop and think about that for a second? There's something absurd about this yearly tradition—and not just because of its environmental impact. It shows how ritual and repetition can transform something genuinely valuable into a throwaway display.
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"I can't read another report about 'the skills gap'. I can't sit across from another group of well-intentioned HE professionals, nodding along earnestly about 'closing the employability gap' - while they talk about whatever bolt-on careers workshop they've added into the mix to assuage the OfS or NSS or whatever—and all the while privately feeling that any too-meaningful engagement with employability would somehow grubby the loftier pedagogies of the whole HE project."
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Phil's hitting on something important here.
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In education, we can quickly fall into the same trap—letting knowledge become just another ritual. Even with the best intentions, we risk turning meaningful insights into empty buzzwords through endless repetition and routine.
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Take "employability" as a perfect example. You'll find it plastered across mission statements and institutional strategies everywhere. But just like our Halloween pumpkins, we've developed a habit of hollowing it out through overuse—and pushing it to the margins of academic life.
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Look at what happens: we tuck employability into side programmes—a careers workshop here, a LinkedIn clinic there, perhaps a mock interview. Without meaning to, we're sending a clear message: this stuff lives outside your "real" studies.
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The statistics are like Halloween spooks—they should disturb us: only 52% of graduates feel ready for their careers. Employers keep telling us about skills gaps. The World Economic Forum's prediction that AI and technology will reshape 23% of jobs in five years looms like a spectre.
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But like trick-or-treaters who've seen the same decorations year after year, we've grown oddly comfortable with what should be some very unsettling numbers.
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But what if we stopped this separation of employability from core learning altogether? What if we reimagined our approach—one that starts at Level 4 and fundamentally transforms how we develop the core attributes today's learners need?
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The beauty lies in its simplicity: learners engage with real challenges immediately, building sophistication with each cycle. No more pushing out "the employability stuff" to Level 7. Instead, we've identified four core professional attributes that develop naturally through repeated cycles of engagement.
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Our solution isn't another bolt-on fix or 'puncture repair kit'—it's structural. Starting at Level 4, we embed professional development directly into learning outcomes and assessment design. Every module becomes a dual-purpose space where professional capabilities grow naturally alongside subject expertise.
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Ready to see this spiral curriculum model in action? Watch the full webinar recording to discover how we're up for transforming higher education—one module at a time.
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Oh, and speaking of structural change...
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This isn't just another box-ticking exercise in educational theory. We've designed this programme for practitioners who want to radically rethink learning—whether you're working in higher education or corporate environments.
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It's for the change-makers. The ones who see past the limitations of our current approaches. The people who aren't just interested in tweaking the system, but in building something more meaningful, more substantial, more transformative.
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Our MA embodies our commitment to genuine change in how we think about learning. We're done with the superficial. We're exploring what real transformation in teaching and learning actually looks like.
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Whether you're considering joining us for the MA Open Day, or your institution is ready to move beyond surface-level solutions right now, we're here to start those meaningful conversations.
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Our programme review service helps institutions dig deeper than the superficial shell of current approaches, uncovering opportunities for genuine transformation. It's time to shift from reactive responses to leadership through learning design.
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Ready to carve out some time (haha!) to explore how we might work together? Book a call with us here to put the substance back at the heart of your learning experiences.
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Let's get to the core of the matter.
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