Alexander Wood
During the induction week and the first week of teaching the Student Skills Masterclasses Team delivered our first session to the Foundation, First and Second year Law Students. This talk consisted of the team (Alexander Wood, Barrie Archer, Didier Hawkey and Lia Argyropoulou) giving advice to the students relating to mistakes they had made, general advice, study tips and opportunities that the students could get involved in over the year. This session was the first in a series of sessions that will take place over the year as part of a new student led scheme. The aim of this scheme is for students to help other students share knowledge and skills advice in informal settings. The presenters will vary depending on the topics allowing for each session to be well thought and delivered by those skilled in the area of delivery. This scheme has been in the works since June and it is excellent to see it up and running now. Each session is planned and will be practiced with the assistance of George Ellison, who is working closely with the team to plan and execute the project. This allows us to get feedback about the advice that we will be giving as well as how we performed to create better quality sessions. George has also been a great help with getting the scheme of the ground and with the promotion of the scheme.
The feedback we have received from the Surviving Law talks has been amazing and it has been great to see students already following our advice, for example by signing up to and connecting to us on LinkedIn. Hopefully those who attended the first session found it useful and will want to go to the other sessions that we are doing across the year. We have currently got an additional 5 sessions planned across the year although we are considering adding in an additional session in the second semester and will consult those attending the sessions about what topics we could cover in the second semester in addition to the two currently planned sessions.
The current provisional session dates, locations, times and speakers for the first semester are;
Client Interviewing by Dan Brown, Barrie Archer and Lia Argyropoulou – 31st October 2018 3-4PM in FG301*
Essay Skills (Critical Analysis, Referencing, Research and Writing Strategy) by Alexander Wood, Thomas Brogden, Shannon Townsend and Didier Hawkey – 7th November 2018 3-4PM in FG301*
Hopefully these events will interest other students and are designed to help develop skills in advance of upcoming assessments. The Public Speaking session is designed to be a week before the internal mooting competition and will be led by the students in charge of the competition as a training event for the tournament. The client interviewing event is timetabled before the recruitment for the client interviewing competition begins and is led by Dan Brown who is leading the client interviewing team. This is designed to help students with the client interviewing competition, the mediation and the legal skills triathlon as well as giving students training for a new skill. The essay skills session is designed to be over a week before the first deadline for the first year students and when the second and third year students are thinking of their exams and assignments.
*We are currently awaiting confirmation of room bookings for the Client Interviewing and Essay Skills Sessions and may change the date, time and location if our room booking application is rejected
