Frankly, the last couple of months have been crazy. I've built up an extensive list of things to update and opine (rant...) about - which I will try to drip-feed when I get a chance over the festive break. In the meantime, a few highlights: My research project exploring ESOL in Ireland during the pandemic has an extensive airing in the latest edition of AONTAS's The Adult Learner Journal (see publications for a link to the journal and article). I attended the launch of a gr

You may have noticed the phonetic spelling of my name at the top of each page on this website. It's something I was introduced to a few years ago by the Race Equality Matters #MyNameIs phonetic name-spelling campaign. My first name doesn't seem to present too many difficulties for most of the people I interact with, but I've lost count of the number of times my surname has been mangled into variations of Skee-ney , Screen-ey , Swee-ney , etc. And then there's the mild micro-

I'd like to wish all my followers and contacts a wonderful festive break and a successful 2024. Enjoy whatever downtime you're able to grab. xx

Every so often, I'm going to use this space to share a few thoughts about the adult and community landscape across these islands - and crucially some of the differences in policy discourse and culture between nations/regions/jurisdictions. In my time with City & Guilds, I was always conscious of the organisation struggling to reconcile its desire to help learners wherever they are with the reality that the vast majority of its activity (and income!) is focused on England - wi