National Software Academy awarded for teaching excellence

The National Software Academy has been awarded for its innovative and collaborative approach to teaching.

The team has been recognised at Cardiff University’s recent Celebrating Excellence Awards where they won the Excellence in Teaching Award.

Dr Wendy Ivins, Programme Director for the National Software Academy (NSA), said: "We are pleased and proud to win the Excellence in Teaching Award.  The NSA team has developed an innovative project-based learning approach that embeds realistic work experience throughout the degree to enhance the employability of our students.

“All of our students benefit from collaborating in teams on projects for real clients within a teaching environment that mirrors the work-place. Our collaboration with a wide range of industry partners means that students get frequent and meaningful opportunities to engage with industry, including projects, talks and workshops, support from industry mentors, visits to industry and summer work placements.”

The winners of this year’s Celebrating Excellence Awards were announced at a special awards dinner hosted by Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Karen Holford and Chief Operating Officer, Jayne Sadgrove, at The Great Hall, Students’ Union.

The Awards celebrate staff throughout the University who go the extra mile, across a range of award categories. This year, 195 individual members of staff and groups of staff were nominated across 17 award categories.

Jayne Sadgrove, Chief Operating Officer, said, “Our annual Celebrating Excellence Awards recognise our exceptional people who work tirelessly to improve the student experience, encourage innovation in our learning and teaching and are so creative in their ways of working to improve university life. I’d like to thank everyone that nominated an exceptional colleague and congratulate those nominated, those shortlisted and the overall winners. You help to make Cardiff University a truly inspirational place to work and study.”

Watch a video of the Excellence in Teaching, including Training and Development award finalists.