Expectations for higher education providers to produce graduates ready for the workplace have shaped provision, with the introduction of the Foundation Degree, and expectations of an employability component within higher education programmes. This paper reports on an intervention for three groups of foundation degree students, which introduces them to ideas of skills for employability. An initial evaluation was followed up two months later exploring the longer-term impact and connections within students' programmes of study and data were captured from employers and tutors supporting this intervention. In agreement with similar studies, benefits for students were identified. However, this research reinforces the challenging nature of the employability agenda, particularly within the context of Foundation Degrees and their dual vocationalacademic remit. This paper suggests there is a case to be made for a social constructivist approach within programmes and institutions for promoting awareness and consistency in developing student employability skills. IntroductionThe skills agenda and the evolution of it within Higher Education (HE) policy in the UK are well documented, from the Dearing Report (Dearing 1997) through to a review, The Future of Higher Education, by the Department for Education and Skills (2003) and, later, the Leitch Review of Skills (2006). Relatedly, in this time Foundation Degrees (FDs) were launched with a view to promoting vocational HE delivered by HE institutions but also further education (FE) colleges. With one of the main aims of the FD being to improve the level of skilled labour entering the UK workforce (Stanton 2009), it is appropriate to examine how this is played out within the curriculum, and this paper provides focus on one case study where FE college-based FD entrants were introduced to the idea of skills for employment. Despite the emphasis within the policy discourse on skills for employment, research has identified that some students still finish such courses of study without a clear understanding of the value that their course has for their employability (Dismore, Hicks, and Lintern 2010). Twelve years on from the launch of the FD and the meeting of the ambitious FD recruitment targets (Longhurst 2010) it is timely to review practice in relation to the skills and employability remit attached to the award. As

This paper reports on a study of teachers’ perceptions of teaching and learning in Scotland during the COVID-19 pandemic through the lens of engaged pedagogy and the ideas of bell hooks. It aimed to explore the different ways that teachers experienced teaching and learning during this time and the impact this may have had on teacher identity. Sixty teachers and head teachers were interviewed using MS Teams in the period April-June, 2020. For this paper, 18 transcripts were analyzed by members of the research team. Four key themes emerged from the interview data: Working from home, parental engagement, teacher identity, and changes in pedagogy. Each of these themes were discussed in terms of concepts such as engaged pedagogy, agency, self-actualization, recognition and boundary transgression situated in the work of bell hooks. The idea of boundaries wove itself throughout our data as teachers expressed how the transgression of boundaries was occurring in multiple, and often contradictory, ways in pedagogical, professional, institutional and personal spaces and systems. We see in our data evidence of a shift in practice not just in the way teachers are ‘doing’ education but also, perhaps, in the way that teachers are ‘being’ as educators as they adapt to different ways of knowing. This study provides a unique exploration of a time and space in Scotland during 2020. However, the themes and understandings that emerged are of relevance to educators internationally. Schools across the world were impacted by various lockdowns imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic and teachers faced a common set of challenges that were resolved via re-negotiation and recognition of individual and collective agency to create new pedagogies.

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