Group News

Royal Society

Tresham College Art & Design technician Katie Brosnan has been shortlisted for the Royal Society “Young People’s Book Prize”

https://royalsociety.org/grants-schemes-awards/bookprizes/young-peoples-book-prize/

Gut Garden: A Journey into the Wonderful World of Your Microbiome by Katie, is a visual exploration of the universe that exists within human bodies.

Bodies hide an entire world of organisms called microbes. They boost immune systems, digest food, regulate metabolism and even impact on mental health.

Through Katie Brosnan’s personable illustrations, the book follows the digestive process from the moment food enters the mouth to when waste leaves. Along the way the book explains about this fascinating scientific frontier and gives an insight into the vast ecosystem that exists inside the human body.

The shortlist was selected by an adult judging panel, chaired by Professor Mike Kendall FRS, including Cressida Cowell, the Waterstones Children’s Laureate and authorillustrator of the How to Train Your Dragon books, and former Blue Peter presenter and author Konnie Huq.

Judge Cressida Cowell, Waterstones Children’s Laureate, said: “This book was very interesting, the wonderful little characters brought it to life. The field is growing, with scientists only now beginning to comprehend the significance of our microbiome – it helps to educate the future generation about science fields with emergent interest.”

Katie Brosnan is an author and illustrator who has ‘always been a little bit short’ and appreciates the smaller things in life. She has a long-standing fascination with microbes and their superpowers. She loves absorbing information and trying to make it as fun and accessible as possible.

Katie achieved an MA in Children’s Book Illustration from the Cambridge School of Art in 2018. She was one of the UK winners in the ‘Picture This!’ competition and highly commended in the Macmillan prize for Illustration in the same year.

When she isn’t drawing or working on books, she helps to run workshops for children and likes to make her own fermented foods full of microbes in her home in Kettering, Northamptonshire.

Gut Garden is her first non-fiction book, it was long-listed for the School Library Association Information Book Award in 2020.

The Young People’s Book Prize aims to promote literacy in young people and to inspire them to read about science. It also supports the writing of excellent, accessible STEM books for under-14s. The prize is unique in that the winner is selected by judging panels made up of young people at schools across the country from a shortlist curated by an adult judging panel.

Now it’s over to the scrutinising eyes of over 13,000 young judges, drawn from over 500 schools, science centres, and community groups from across the UK, to read and declare their champion. The winner will be announced at a virtual award ceremony taking place midMarch 2021.

ISBN: 978-1908714725

raises awareness of local support services Rapid Testing Goes Live At

Staff from the Production Arts Level 3 at Tresham College in Kettering have been working with local support service, Northamptonshire Domestic Abuse Services (NDAS) to provide good work experience opportunities and create powerful images to be shared on social media pages to raise awareness of the service within the local community.

Last year Zoe, a representative from NDAS, worked with staff and students to provide a brief for students to create images as a live project for a client that provides a support service for victims of domestic abuse and their families in Northamptonshire.

Students set to work on creating the make-up looks on themselves more recently due to COVID-19, however at the end of last year students were able to work with friends/family members of the same household or bubble modelling for them.

NDAS is extremely pleased with the work produced by Tresham College students. Our first rapid testing hub went live at the Kettering campus on 15 January and was quickly followed by our hubs in Bedford and Shuttleworth going live the week after. Additionally, a provision for 7 members of staff at Corby to be tested was also co-ordinated by the Kettering team.

Mel Tew from Human Resources has been leading the Kettering team, with Amanda Riches from BCS leading the Bedford Team and Barrie Baldwin from Health & Safety with Margaret Currie from Central Admin leading the team at Shuttleworth – we could not have achieved setting these hubs up without our team leaders and are extremely grateful for the additional work they have taken on to implement this project.

Our teams have been made up of a mixture of core staff who have volunteered to take on this additional work, BCS staff who have returned from furlough to support us and Associates who have provided valuable hour and we are very appreciative of every single one of them and the efforts they have put in.

In the first month the teams have carried out 410 staff tests and 40 student tests for those currently attending our campuses.

We would like to thank everyone for their hard work in this project.

Is your area on Claiming Tax Relief

CONNECT intranet was introduced in September 2017 following the formation of The Bedford College Group and since then it has become one of the main sources of information, news from across the Group, documents, policies and more.

Since janaury we have been working on improving and developing the Group’s CONNECT intranet to ensure that it is a valuable resource for all staff to use and contribute towards.

Please can all departments check that their areas documents, policies and department information is valid and up to date within your dedicated areas, deleting any documents that are no longer relevant. This is extremely important to ensure that when colleagues search for the documents or news, only the correct information is shown.

When uploading documents or any content, you will also be required to add ‘tags’ for the content so it will appear much more easily in searches made by colleagues.

If you need any assistance in this please email omorton@bedford.ac.uk. How To Guides are also available, including the Q&A section to support the search function which is accessed via the magnifying glass icon in the top right corner of CONNECT homepage.

At the staff meeting earlier in the year it was outlined that whilst working from home, staff will be able to claim tax relief on additional household expenses incurred, such as heating and lighting.

HMRC have now set up a quick and easy online process to make this claim that can be accessed via GOV.UK

This link should take you directly to the page providing guidance on making a claim, but if you encounter any problems it can also be found by typing ‘claim tax relief for your job expenses’ in the search box on the main GOV. UK page.

The College moved to working from home arrangements in full for the majority of its staff on Wednesday 25 March 2020 following closure during Tuesday 24 March 2020.

From 6 April 2020 the tax relief is based on £6 per week or £26 per month and prior to this was £4 per week or £18 per month.

The online process is quick and easy and those eligible will receive their full entitlement by an adjustment to their tax code.

Job

Associate Student Support Assistant

Location: Bedford Salary: £8.72 per hour Application closing date: 28/02/2021

Course Manager in Travel

Location: Bedford Salary: £31,000 - £33,000 per annum, depending on experience Application closing date: 01/03/2021

Course Manager in Uniformed Public Services

Location: Bedford Salary: £31,000 - £33,000 per annum, depending on experience Application closing date: 01/03/2021

Associate Lecturer in Early Years and Health and Social

Location: Bedford Salary: Associate - (Unqualified) £20.50 per hour Associate - (Qualified PGCE/Cert Ed or equivalent) £21.50 per hour Application closing date: 03/03/2021

» View and apply for our full-time and part-time vacancies via The Bedford College Group vacancy portal which can be found on CONNECT staff intranet.

Welcome to

Lee Beaumont

Position: Training Co-ordinator - Electrical Installation

Stephanie Bland

Position: Student Experience Advisor

Robert Gammon

Position: Estates & Facilities Coordinator

Angela Harding

Position: Team Leader - Library & Learning Resources

Jonathan Harrison

Position: Lecturer - Maths

George Harrison

Position: Estates & Facilities Assistant

Swati Kamble Lorraine Marsland

Position: Maths Tutor Abigail Monaghan

Position: Library & Learning Resources Support Assistant

Hannah Northall

Position: Personal Achievement Tutor

Peace Nwafor

Position: Lecturer - Applied Science

Luke Sims

Position: Technician - Fisheries

Helen Smith

Position: Head of Bedford Sixth Form

Angelina Talbot

Position: HR Assistant

Michael Turner

Position: Lecturer - Computing

Rebecca Whitehead

Position: Practical Instructor

Training

Quality Update

Planning has now begun for the Virtual Summer Staff Conference which will be held on Thursday 1 July 2021.

To support this planning we are interested to hear what you would like to see at this year’s Conference.

Please send any ideas you have for the Conference to professionaldevelopment@bedford.ac.uk by Friday 5 March 2021

If you would like to be considered as a member of the Conference Working Group, please email professionaldevelopment@bedford.ac.uk by Friday 5 March 2021

Professional Development Update

Professional Development workshops spaces are still available:

Safeguarding

• 1 March

• 10 March

• 19 April

Safer Recruitment

• 8 March

• 21 April

• 18 May For more information visit the Professional Development pages on the intranet or email

professionaldevelopment@bedford.ac.uk