Developing a Tailored Pathway of Birmingham’s Personal
Skills Award for Postgraduate Taught Masters Students
Ellen Shobrook - [email protected]
University of Birmingham
www.birmingham.ac.uk
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Introduction
The Personal Skills Award (PSA) is the University of Birmingham’s extra-curricular award scheme,
currently celebrating its 10th anniversary this academic year. As colleagues will be aware, Skills
Awards – though known by a variety of different names – have emerged as a potential means by
which to provide discrete and optional PDP provision within a Higher Education context, and to
help to “demonstrate to students the long-term value of learning as a lifelong and life-wide activity”
(QAA, 2009). This is in addition to what is a typically an explicit employability focus, which seeks
to “assist students to articulate and evidence their achievements in a way which contributes to their
immediate employability” (QAA, 2013).
I joined the PSA Team in August 2011 as a Project Development Officer, and was initially recruited
to lead on developing a tailored version of the award for postgraduate taught (PGT) students –
those studying for a Masters level degree. In this brief article, I will outline how the new PSA
pathway was designed and structured to meet the needs of a diverse PGT cohort. I will also reflect
on some qualitative data which was gathered from our PSA (PGT) participants, identifying why
they wanted to engage with a Skills Award in addition to completing their Masters Degree
Why did we develop the PSA (PGT)?
The initial idea to develop a pathway of the Personal Skills Award for postgraduate taught students
came from the students themselves. As a result of cross-College feedback from PGT Student Reps
a formal request was received by the PSA Team from the University’s Student Representation
Board. Specifically, this group of engaged Masters students wanted the same kind of recognition
for their extra-curricular commitments as our undergraduates were receiving through the PSA
(Activity); they wanted to receive an additional University of Birmingham certificate to add to and
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