On 8 May, over 100 colleagues from across the university attended the fourth Sussex Education Festival. This year’s festival was our biggest yet- with more applications to present, and more colleagues attending than any previous year. The content of the talks and discussions highlighted just how much incredible work goes into teaching and learning here at Sussex.

We tried out new formats such as roundtables with student respondents, panel discussions on new university initiatives, and a lunchtime walk and tour of the university’s Forest Food Garden. We also ran a showcase, advertising opportunities to get involved in education and scholarship, alongside projects and resources highlighted in talks during the day

After morning pastries and a welcome from Kate O’Riordan, the convenors of the new Progressive Futures flagship electives formed the first session, in a panel discussion also hosted by Kate. We were reminded of Sussex’s rich interdisciplinary history and heard about how rewarding the convenors have found working together to design the new electives. The new modules, based on the three Sussex transformational themes, will be taken by the majority of all new first year undergraduates in the autumn.

We spent the rest of the morning enjoying rich presentations in parallel sessions, on topics such as experiential, creative and playful learning, inclusive pedagogy and using AI in the classroom. The lightning talks offered snapshots of projects, classroom interventions and research, all aimed at improving student experience and the way we teach at Sussex. The full programme can be found here.

At lunch, Perpetua Kirby offered a lunchtime walk. Colleagues took their packed lunch to the Forest Food Garden, to hear more about the opportunities available to use the garden in their own teaching. The team are currently looking for volunteers to help out in the garden- the next volunteering day is on Thursday 30 July.

The last two parallel sessions of the day focused on building student wellbeing and supporting student transitions into higher education.

We closed the packed day with a roundtable: ‘Build it and students will come? Insights from staff and students on attendance’. The session brought together staff working on student engagement and participation with student connectors, who have received training on curriculum design and worked with fellow students to understand barriers to engaging in teaching sessions. The format wove together staff presentations with rich discussion and insights from student connectors. Our discussions took the outcomes of a recent report by Estelle Marks and Jenny Chanfreau as a starting point. The report uses survey and qualitative data to explore the reasons behind declining student attendance in our classrooms.

Lara McMurtry, chair of the Education Festival Steering Group, reflected on the day:

It was lovely to see so many colleagues across the institution, sharing ideas, celebrating great practice and engaging in thoughtful conversations about education and student experience. Bringing staff and students together for the closing roundtable discussion felt like a really positive way to end the day. There was a real sense of energy, openness and community throughout, which made this year’s Festival such a big success.

We’ll leave you with Kate O’Riordan’s final reflections:

The Education Festival is a core event in the academic year at Sussex, and has gone from strength to strength. This is thanks to the excellent support from the Educational Enhancement team and the Education and Scholarship Committee. My thanks to everyone involved in this. Highlights this year included:

• the panel on the progressive futures transformation theme electives, with reflections from the convenors of these modules;
• and the panel on attendance and belonging which brought together students and staff to reflect on their experiences, and to show case and discuss the really important research at Sussex on this theme.

Also, the badges were great. We’ll be back next year and look forward to welcoming more staff and students from Sussex, and partner organisations to the event.