Education
Lifelong learning achievements celebrated
THE DESIRE for and the love of learning is a guiding principle for the Lifelong Learning programme at Aberystwyth University.
That was the key message from Professor Judy Broady-Preston, Director of the Institute of Professional Development at Aberystwyth University, at the institution’s annual Lifelong Learning and Learn Welsh Awards Ceremony on Monday,October 23.
The successes and achievements of students of all ages on a range of lifelong courses were recognised at the ceremony hosted at the University’s Medrus conference centre.
These included the Certificate of Continuing Education that acknowledged learners who have completed 120 credits across a broad range of subjects, and the Certificate of Higher Education, which can take between two and six years to complete on a part-time basis.
Successful students were presented with certificates by Professor Elizabeth Treasure, Vice-Chancellor of Aberystwyth University.
Professor Treasure said: “Aberystwyth University has a long and distinguished history of encouraging life-long learning not only among staff and full-time students but the wider community. It is important to recognise the commitment and the many hours of personal study that this involves and the benefits that lifelong learning brings. I’m delighted that many of our students receiving certificates here today will now progress onto higher levels of study, at Undergraduate and Masters. I wish them all well in their endeavours, and thank our tutors for their dedication to learning and for making all of this possible.”
In all,27 students were presented with Certificates of Higher Education in Art and Design, Creative Writing, Genealogy, Languages, Psychology, Field Ecology, and the Diploma of Higher Education in Field and Conservation Ecology.
Individual awards were presented to both students and staff during the ceremony in recognition of their contributions, successes and achievements.
The Rob Strachan Memorial Prize – named after the renowned mammal ecologist, conservationist and Lifelong Learning tutor who died after a short illness in 2014 – was awarded to Suzanne Ellis for her portfolio of work on the Understanding Mammals courses.
Art students Candy Bedworth and Frances Isaac were presented with the Student of the Year Award. Both were nominated for their award by their tutors and fellow students.
Candy, who lives in Mallwyd, was acknowledge for her work on an educational flyer assessment designed for students with sight impairments which was shared at the University’s Teaching and Learning Conference in July 2017.
Frances Isaacs from Llangorse near Brecon, was described as an “inspiring” artist and “encouraging and modest” as a fellow student, and someone about whom “everyone had something positive to say”.
Three tutors shared the Lifelong Learning Annual Tutor Award.
Ethel Cure, Kaori Oikawa and Patricia Aitchison were nominated for the award by their students.
Spanish tutor Ethel was described as “a gem of a teacher and an example for the language teaching profession.”
Kaori, who teachers Japanese, was described as someone who loves her subject and’encourages students to speak to give them confidence in the language they are learning’.
An ’inspirational tutor who motivates everyone in the class’, French tutor Patricia was acknowledged for teaching with’humour and a light touch’.
Professor Judy Broady-Preston, Director of the Institute for Professional Development at Aberystwyth University said: “Aberystwyth has rightly been designated as a people’s university, founded as it was by ordinary people’s subscriptions. The University was established because a local community had both the desire for and the love of learning, and I am delighted that this remains true today. It is not always easy to find time to learn, but those of us who do attend courses such as these benefit in such a wide variety of ways. I would also like to pay tribute to all the staff who design, deliver and organise the courses and say thank you to them.”
The event also celebrated the work of organisations that have been promoting the use of Welsh and students who have been learning the language.
The Welsh in the Family Award was presented to former Aberystwyth Mayor and performer Sue Jones-Davies.
The Brecon Beacons National Park was presented with the Welsh in the Workplace Award, and Clwb Clonc Caersws was presented with the Welsh Group of the Year.
Certificates were also presented to students who have successfully completed their WJEC ‘Use of Welsh’ Entry, Foundation, Intermediate and Advanced qualifications, and the Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol’s Welsh Language Skills Certificate.
Education
Respite care facilities at Pembrokeshire school approved
PLANS for a respite care facility at Haverfordwest’s Portfield special school have been approved.
An application to Pembrokeshire County Council by Morgan Sindall Group, on behalf of Pembrokeshire County Council, sought permission for a three-bed respite unit for pupils aged between 16 and 19 years old.
Portfield School is an additional learning school for pupils aged three-19, and forms part of a broader network including Y Porth based at Ysgol y Preseli and Haverfordwest High VC School.
Portfield School is currently located in two buildings, one for primary school students, along with a secondary school building for key stages 3 to 4, and pupils aged 16-plus.
The proposed location of the respite care is where the existing lower school currently lies.
Demolition of the lower school was granted as part of a recently approved planning application for the wider site redevelopment, including a masterplan for the campus, the redevelopment of the new primary school building, refurbishment works to existing sixth form block and associated works.
A supporting statement by agent Asbri Planning said: “The proposed location of the respite care was marked out on the approved Site Masterplan as ‘proposed area for future development’. As Pembrokeshire County Council were unsure whether the funding would be available for the respite care, they decided not to include it within the scope of works for the main school application approved earlier this year. The funds have now become available which has allowed the application for a new respite care facility to be submitted to the Local Planning Authority.”
It added: “The respite care aims to conjure up a positive arrival experience for users by introducing an entrance courtyard, whilst enhancing links to nature where key vistas towards nature are considered. The users of the building will have full access to the communal areas and facilities.
“There will be no access for the general public, only the users of the building at that time. The unit will operate 24 hours a day all year round. Full-time care is to be provided and there will be staff available at all times for pupils.”
The application was conditionally approved by county planners.
Education
Stonehenge may have been built to unify the people of ancient Britain
THE RECENT discovery that one of Stonehenge’s stones originated in Scotland supports a theory that the stone circle was built as a monument to unite Britain’s early farmers nearly 5,000 years ago, according to a new study by researchers at UCL and Aberystwyth University.
In a research article published in the journal Archaeology International, academics analyse the significance of the recent discovery of the Scottish origin of the six-tonne Altar Stone, which confirmed that all of the stones that make up Stonehenge were brought to Salisbury Plain from many miles away.
In their new paper, the researchers say that Stonehenge’s long-distance links add weight to the theory that the Neolithic monument may have had some unifying purpose in ancient Britain.
Lead author Professor Mike Parker Pearson from the UCL Institute of Archaeology said: “The fact that all of its stones originated from distant regions, making it unique among over 900 stone circles in Britain, suggests that the stone circle may have had a political as well as a religious purpose – as a monument of unification for the peoples of Britain, celebrating their eternal links with their ancestors and the cosmos.”
Co-author Professor Richard Bevins of Aberystwyth University, said: “It’s really gratifying that our geological investigations can contribute to the archaeological research and the unfolding story as our knowledge has been improving so dramatically in just the last few years.
“Our research is like forensic science. We are a small team of earth scientists, each bringing their own area of expertise; it is this combination of skills that has allowed us to identify the sources of the bluestones, and now the Altar Stone.”
The study has been published (on 20 December) the day before the winter solstice, when the setting sun dips below the horizon over the middle of the Altar Stone and between the two largest upright stones (one of which is now fallen). During this winter period, Neolithic people feasted close to Stonehenge at the great village of Durrington Walls, and the midwinter solstice was probably central to these events.
Stonehenge is famous for these solar alignments on the solstice and even today attracts large crowds to the site on the shortest and longest days of the year. In addition, it was also the largest burial ground of its age. Some archaeologists think it might have been a religious temple, an ancient observatory and a solar calendar, and this new research adds a political dimension.
Professor Parker Pearson, a Professor of British Later Prehistory, added: “We’ve known for a while that people came from many different parts of Britain with their pigs and cattle to feast at Durrington Walls, and nearly half the people buried at Stonehenge had lived somewhere other than Salisbury Plain.
“The similarities in architecture and material culture between the Stonehenge area and northern Scotland now make more sense. It’s helped to solve the puzzle of why these distant places had more in common than we might have once thought.”
Stonehenge’s 43 ‘bluestones’ were brought from the Preseli Hills in west Wales some 140 miles away, while the larger ‘Sarsen’ stones were hauled from their sources at least 15 miles away to the north and east of the stone circle.
Transporting these massive monoliths was an extraordinary feat. Although the wheel had been invented, it had not yet reached Britain so moving these massive stones must have required the efforts of hundreds if not thousands of people.
The researchers point to how Stonehenge’s horizontal Altar Stone is similar in size and placement to the large, horizontal stones of the stone circles of northeast Scotland, where the Altar Stone originated.
These ‘recumbent stone circles’ are found only in that part of Scotland and not in the rest of Britain, so there may have been close ties between the two regions. Megalithic stones had ancestral significance, binding people to place and origins. The Altar Stone may have been brought as a gift from the people of northern Scotland to represent some form of alliance or collaboration.
It is difficult to pin down a precise date when the Scottish Altar Stone was brought to Stonehenge, but it probably arrived around 2500 BCE around the time that Stonehenge was remodelled from its original form.
This is the timeframe when the Neolithic builders erected the large sarsen stones forming an outer circle and the inner horseshoe of trilithons – paired upright stones connected by horizontal ‘lintels’ – that is present today. The Altar Stone lies at the foot of the largest trilithon, which frames the midwinter solstice sunset to the southwest. This was the second stage of construction at Stonehenge, long after the first stage (around 3000 BCE) when it is thought the bluestones from Wales were erected.
This second iteration of Stonehenge was built at a time of increasing contact between the people of Britain and arrivals from Europe, mainly from what are today the Netherlands and Germany. The researchers suggest that this period of contact may have been what spurred this second-stage rebuilding, and the monument was a reaction to these newcomers meant to unite indigenous Britons.
The new arrivals brought with them knowledge of metalworking and the wheel and, over the next four hundred years, their descendants – known as the Beaker people on account of the distinctive pots they buried with their dead – gradually replaced the population of indigenous Britons, and people with this European ancestry became the dominant population across the island.
The geological research was supported by the Leverhulme Trust.
Ends
Picture: The Altar Stone, seen here underneath two bigger Sarsen stones. Credit: Professor Nick Pearce, Aberystwyth University.
Education
Tutor banned after Pembrokeshire College drug incident
A PEMBROKESHIRE COLLEGE tutor has been struck off after admitting to police that he had cocaine on college premises but later denying the offence to authorities.
The Fitness to Practise Committee of the Education Workforce Council (EWC) found Phillip Lewis, a former tutor at Pembrokeshire College, guilty of unacceptable professional conduct. The committee said Lewis provided inconsistent explanations about how he came into possession of the Class A drug.
Lewis accepted a police caution in January 2023, which is considered a full admission of the offence. Despite this, he later challenged the allegations, raising concerns about the police’s handling of the matter.
Maxine Thomas, the safeguarding lead at Pembrokeshire College, told the committee that CCTV footage from November 23, 2022, captured a packet of cocaine left on a counter shortly after Mr Lewis had been in the area. The footage also showed Lewis retracing his steps as if searching for something.
The committee reported that Lewis gave conflicting accounts of the incident, including differing accounts of where and when he claimed to have found the packet. His explanations did not match the evidence from the CCTV footage.
“He provided inconsistent details about the circumstances in which he came to possess the packet, none of which aligned with the CCTV evidence,” the committee’s report stated.
Lewis claimed he had discovered the packet in a corridor but lost it shortly afterward. The panel, however, concluded that he should have reported the find immediately if his account were truthful.
“The committee concluded that Mr Lewis brought the packet onto college premises himself and did not hand it in because of its illegal nature,” the panel’s findings read.
The panel deemed that possessing cocaine on college grounds and accepting a police caution constituted unacceptable professional conduct. While no direct harm to students was noted, the panel highlighted the significant risk posed by such actions during working hours.
In deciding to remove Lewis from the professional register, the committee acknowledged his prior good record and his participation in the EWC process. However, these factors were outweighed by aggravating considerations, including his attempts to cover up the incident, providing contradictory accounts, and failing to demonstrate insight or remorse.
Lewis will be eligible to apply for re-registration in two years.
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