Oxford Lifelong Learning, part of the University of Oxford, has hosted a mission-critical meeting of The Spinnaker Group which brings together colleagues who lead on Student Experience and Teaching and Learning in institutions across the higher education sector, around the Lifelong Learning Entitlement (LLE).
The group was founded by Professor Harriet Dunbar-Morris – currently Visiting Fellow at Oxford Lifelong Learning, where her research focuses on lifelong learning and the role of universities in supporting flexible, career-long education – during her time at the University of Portsmouth and now has over 80 university members.
Supporting students
In an insightful event, over 20 representatives from The Spinnaker Group as well as guest attendees Dr Alison MacDonald, Toby Martin and Fay Stevens from Oxford Lifelong Learning discussed best practice, ideas and outlook on the LLE.
Sessions included Designing for the Lifelong Learning Entitlement; Modular Matters: Reimagining Quality for the Lifelong Learning Entitlement and Industrial Strategy (a QAA Collaborative Enhancement Project with presentations from colleagues from the University of Chester and St Mary’s University, London); and Lifelong Learning in Context.
The event was sponsored by Explorance, which is also supporting The Spinnaker Group by piloting the Being, Belonging, Becoming survey around designing the “Connected Student Journey” in the forthcoming academic year.
This survey, devised and championed by Professor Dunbar-Morris and colleagues at the University of Portsmouth, is designed to evaluate initiatives that improve student experience across three dimensions: being, belonging and becoming. It captures areas like student-staff relationships, peer connections, learning experience, and personal development. Strong belonging is linked to better engagement, retention and outcomes, according to Unveiling Student Experiences: The Being, Belonging, Becoming Survey.
Using Explorance’s specialist survey platform among participating Spinnaker Group institutions, “Connected Student Journey” will test how students feel connected at every stage of their learning.
Designing sustainable lifelong learning
Professor Dunbar-Morris said: “Many thanks to Oxford Lifelong Learning for hosting this event, and to Explorance for their sponsorship, which enabled us to get down to some serious work around Lifelong Learning and the LLE. In designing for the LLE, academic standards are non-negotiable. We design for variability, not idealised community. Evidence informs design, not anecdote. Lifelong Learning is not adding flexibility. It is redesigning coherence.
“Through a structured design exercise, and a series of mini-charettes, the meeting anchored around testing that proposition against our own practice. We explored what assumptions about lifelong learners appear most common across the sector and surfaced how much of our design across the sector assumes uninterrupted participation. The question is whether we are willing to design coherently, rather than patch episodically, and we went on to discuss what structural redesign would address those assumptions.
“If lifelong learning is to succeed, we need to redesign programmes for the lives people actually live.”
Contributing to Oxford
As a Visiting Fellow, Professor Dunbar-Morris is contributing to Oxford’s academic life through research, lectures and scholarly exchange, and is engaging colleagues to shape collaborative activity that reflects shared interests in lifelong learning and educational practice. During her Visiting Fellowship she is hosting a series titled, Designing Lifelong Learning: Evidence, Belonging and Co-Creation in Practice.
From 1 September 2026, Professor Dunbar-Morris will take up the role of Deputy President and Chief Academic Officer at South East Technological University (SETU) in Ireland.
The Spinnaker Group’s next meeting will be held at Harper Adams University in Autumn 2026.
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