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Azesta Ltd. Azesta Ltd.

National Fitness Day

Here we would like to provide a few inspirational and easy examples of how you could make a positive impact on your fitness in the coming weeks, some of the easiest sporting or fitness hobbies that we have found to start in the near future:

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Azesta Ltd. Azesta Ltd.

5 streamlining strategies for group projects

Analyse the project from start to finish learn everything that needs to be done to achieve the end goal, and breakdown the project into achievable 1-day tasks.

Assign the right person to each task (regardless of department or position)

- if they have the best skills to finish the task efficiently & to the best quality of the group; give the task to them.

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Shirley Gaston Shirley Gaston

Who says you can’t do experiential learning remotely?

Many of us have had to make a switch from working face-to-face with our learners to working remotely and whilst this is reasonably easy with content-based training as long as we make good use of break-out rooms, polls and quizzes, asking learners to bring objects with them and sending surprise items in the post, it can be harder with subjects like team development.

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Shirley Gaston Shirley Gaston

5 ways to maximise learner engagement

Everyone knows me as an experiential learning specialist but not everyone knows what that means. Many people assume that that means that I use games, exercises or tasks in my training programmes and that is true, but it is only a small part of the story. I don’t use games to spice up a boring training session, every aspect of the programme must be designed to maximise learner engagement and that means getting learners as involved as possible…

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Shirley Gaston Shirley Gaston

10 ways to engage the senses in learning

Inspired by a workshop facilitated by the lovely Nicki Davey of Saltbox, I decided to write a short article about the ways I already engage people’s senses in learning for more curiosity, intrigue and to help learning more easily enter the long-term memory. I have also included one or two ideas I stole from the workshop.

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Shirley Gaston Shirley Gaston

apprenticeships – one year on…thoughts, feelings, the future!

As you may be aware, we were successful in our application to be on the Register of Approved Training Providers (RoATP) early last year. We thought it would be helpful to report on how we have found the process thus far. After getting a bit excited and thinking about offering apprenticeships in many areas, we decided to focus on two programmes…

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Shirley Gaston Shirley Gaston

an organisation is like a family… lessons from home

As many of you know, I have a large family. Last night (Sunday), after an afternoon of trampolining, I set up a marble run for my 2-year-old, helped my 11-year-old finish off constructing a hydraulic robot arm, tested my 14-year-old on polygamy, monogamy, pre-marital sex and divorce ready for an RE exam and helped my 9-year-old practise for the eleven plus.

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Shirley Gaston Shirley Gaston

a review of a great book for new managers

I thought I would finally take the time to review my friend and associate’s book, ‘Courageous conversations’. Published by Matador last year, it’s a fairly quick read and I think it’s the perfect introduction to managing people. The only way you can create a high performing team according to Larry is to have good conversations and I agree with him.

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Shirley Gaston Shirley Gaston

5 fun ways to split people into groups (including 20 ideas!)

Once someone has attended one or a series of my workshops, they often come and ask how on earth I have so many ideas for splitting people into groups. Basically, once you’ve done a few you remember them and you just keep adding to your repertoire! Here are a few to get you started….

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Shirley Gaston Shirley Gaston

5 metalog tools that are great to use in assessment centres

I’ve been lucky enough to be part of the revolution in recruitment; finding people that really can live up to what they say in interview so that there’s more chance of them being successful in the job! Part of this means that I design assessment centres, which include candidates doing some or all of the following…

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Shirley Gaston Shirley Gaston

5 steps to help design a great assessment centre

With recruitment and selection costing on average £5,000 to £50,000 per person, it really does pay to select the right person first time round! And with research showing that the predictive validity of an interview is as low as 0.2 even with great questions, it is clearly not the best way to find your perfect recruit.

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