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Raising the quality and profile of teaching and student learning is something universities across the UK are aspiring to achieve in order to maintain reputations.Currently, the UK Professional Standards Framework (UKPSF) provides a standard by which academic staff can gain professional recognition for their academic practice and many UK universities are now offering professional development opportunities via inhouse recognition schemes, based on retrospection and reflection, to enable staff to achieve an HEA Fellowship. This paper provides a case study of one such institutional recognition scheme and discusses the impact it is beginning to have on experienced academics. The findings suggest that recognition schemes contribute to participants' staff development, provide opportunities for the enhancement of practice and that those who participate in the scheme identify value in the reflective process for reconciliation, confirmation of achievements and reinforcing commitment to teaching and/or supporting learning.

This systematic review includes a search of the literature covering the period 2005-2021 to understand what preventative teaching approaches and interventions have been developed in higher education to reduce music performance anxiety (MPA). The focus here is on identifying interventions that are applicable to higher education teaching practice, in an attempt to support music educators to reduce the negative effects of MPA, and, by so doing, support better learning outcomes. A systematic review of the literature on MPA (2005-2021) was undertaken to explore the teaching strategies that are used to help students in higher education. The researchers performed independent assessments of the literature based on the inclusion criteria. Discrepancies between the two reviewers were resolved through discussion. Each of the articles that met the research conditions was classified using four treatment modalities: cognitive interventions, behavioural interventions, pharmacological treatment and complementary. The initial scoping resulted in a total of 116 research articles. This was reduced to 18 articles that fully met the inclusion criteria. There is a wealth of literature exploring MPA; however, very few teaching approaches or interventions have been found that can easily be embedded in music education. The findings indicate that interventions deriving from promising reactive treatment have been developed, but that these are rarely generalisable to typical teaching practice.

The United Kingdom Professional Standards Framework (UKPSF) is a national framework that aims to enhance and raise the status of teaching and supporting learning in Higher Education (HE). This paper provides an overview of the adoption and an indication of the impact of Higher Education Academy (HEA) Fellowships through a document review and a qualitative study. The document review suggests that the adoption of HEA Fellowships has grown substantially, to half of the academics and related staff in the UK but shows no positive or negative relationship with the perceived quality of teaching in the National Student Survey (NSS) over the same period (2011-12 to 2017-18). The relationship between HEA Fellowships and the enhancement of teaching practice is the focus of the qualitative study.The analysis of in-depth interviews (n=11) conducted with senior academics who have obtained Senior Fellowship, at a post-1992 and a research-intensive university, reveals a complex relationship between the recognition schemes and the enhancement of practice. This needs to be understood against the managerial realities underpinning engagement, the limitations of the recognition schemes, and standards for the enhancement of teaching practices. The discussion explores the implications for academic developers, leaders, and policymakers involved in HEA Fellowships.

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