Enda McBrien found himself in the worst-performing department at Reading College. It was 2014, he had left his native Northern Ireland with hopes of making a difference as a plumbing lecturer, and the college was supporting him through a part-time PGCE to help him towards that goal. But the reality was a shock.
“I didn’t want to be part of the worst team,” he says. “That really got me down.”
But rather than accepting the situation, McBrien decided to act. “After a year in the job, I thought, ‘I’m not having this anymore’.”
Soon after, his quest for change became his PGCE action research project: why were the outcomes for the course so poor compared with the other departments and, more importantly, what could he do about it?
McBrien’s first step was to work out exactly what the problem was. So, at the end of each course’s first year, he conducted in-depth exit interviews with all students to get a sense of their experience.
Students stated that the courses at both level 1 and level 2 were “boring” and did not seem professionally relevant; there was a lot of work on principles of the building industry, as well as health and safety requirements, but the students weren’t actually plumbing.
On reflection, McBrien found he shared their concerns. “We taught health and safety for the first three months in every theory lesson. It was really tough on me as a teacher and even more so for the students.
“We had them bored stiff within the first six weeks. And those first six weeks of the course are crucial for engagement.”
He patched this problem right away. The schedule of the curriculum was overhauled to immerse the students in hands-on plumbing right at the start of the course, teaching the essential health and safety elements in smaller chunks throughout.
Making the link
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