The Restor(y)ing Retirement Course

Jane Watts presents:

The Restor(y)ing Retirement Course – new approaches to learning for  Transitions in Later Life.

The Restor(y)ing Retirement pilot project explores the deliberate use  of narrative as an educational tool in later life learning. The paper  uses a narrative approach to bring alignment between the methodology of the pilot and its evaluation.  Situated in the theory of  story-telling within research, the paper will examine the individual  stories to extract common themes alongside the individual insights.

In addition to looking at the effectiveness of the approach and  methodology, this paper offers an analysis of some of these personal  stories, to examine the educational needs of people making later life  transitions and how we make sense of such transitions.  The paper  reflects on some of the potential contradictions posed by concepts  such as ‘positive ageing’, learning, identity, agency and an  individual’s responsibility for their wellbeing, which are assumed in  the thinking behind the Transitions in Later Life programme  interventions.

The paper offers some lessons and recommendations for re-thinking  retirement education based on the experience of the pilot project.

About Jane

Jane Watts, PhD, works on a range of projects, research and development across the lifelong learning sector, focusing particularly on areas of inclusion including refugees, migrant workers, older learners, later life learning and employability issues.  Although in theory ‘semi-retired’, she is self employed – carrying out research and development, evaluation and facilitation in the lifelong learning sector.  She is a Senior Research Fellow – Learning and Work Institute (LWI, formerly NIACE) and an Associate of the Centre for Policy on Ageing (CPA). In addition to the LWI and CPA, she is currently carrying out work for the Universities of Warwick and Derby, and for Age UK.

Jane is an active member of ESREA’s working group on Education and Learning of Older Adults and the Association of Education and Ageing.

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About Vaughan Open Research Forum

Vaughan Open Research Forum is series of talks, workshops and interactive sessions which are open to anyone who is curious and wants to find out more.

Themes for sessions relate to our core teaching topics, arts, humanities, social sciences and counselling, and also discuss adult education and co-operative issues.  The Forums take place on the second Tuesday of the month.

The Venue for the Open Research Forum is the Satta Hashem Hall in the Leicester Adult Education College, 54 Belvoir Street. Tea and cake will be available from 5.45 pm with the session running 6.15- 7.30 pm.