This award aims to provide students with the knowledge and skills that help students work effectively in a professional support role within a higher education institution; upon successful completion of the course students gain a 30 credit certificate of continuous professional development; students experience a variety of interactive learning and teaching methods, such as group discussions, reflective exercises, analysis of presentations, mini-coaching sessions and skills based practice; students are expected to capitalise on this learning opportunity, for example by preparing appropriate questions based on research and by critically comparing the institutional perspective to working practices in own department; in addition students are required to engage in independent study in order to consolidate and build upon learning from the taught sessions; the independent study may take the form of reading from contemporary journals and articles, or engaging in discussion informed by reading and research.