UNISON Ulearn Northern Ireland

Targeted at: Any member
Duration: 20 weeks but no regular class
Qualification: Open University 10 credits

The Course

This course is for people who are confronted by significant changes, or thinking about making them: perhaps returning to education, or taking a different direction at work. It will help you build up your confidence; develop your key skills; review your personal experience; assess your skills; and explore options for the future. It invites you to explore your own experience of change in the light of ideas and approaches drawn from a number of disciplines including psychology, sociology and business studies. The course looks at facing change; making change; looking ahead; and moving on.

It will help you to become more aware of the skills and abilities you already have, consider the choices open to you, and make plans for the future. You will also have opportunities to develop key skills for learning and work, such as communication and action planning.

The modules look at ‘Facing change, making changes’, ‘Looking ahead’ and ‘Moving on’. You start by reflecting on and valuing the knowledge and skills that you’ve already gained. You’ll look back over your past experience and assess what you’ve learned from it. This can be challenging, sometimes uncomfortable, but also rewarding. The ‘Looking ahead’ module then helps you to explore the options available to you – whether in education, training or employment – and to begin to draw up an action plan. The final stage of the course provides the opportunity to develop some key skills that will help you to make a start on achieving your personal goals.

Tutors are equipped to help you with the academic aspects of your work, but are not trained counsellors. If you feel that reflecting on your past experience may be a challenging process, you may wish to seek further advice by calling the Student Registration & Enquiry Service.

Having decided on a direction for study during this Openings course, you could decide to go on to one of the subject-based courses offered within the Openings Programme.

Courses run from February, June, September & November. You must be registered at least two weeks prior to course starting. If you are interested in this course, please download an expression of interest form.