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For many students, impairments such as chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis, epilepsy, or diabetes have the potential to vary in intensity, and thus impact, on participation in learning activities and on self-perception/identity. This article considers some of the factors that may be of influence on the ways in which students with such fluctuating or recurring impairments enact identity within higher education in the United Kingdom. In particular, the article highlights the potential role of higher education discourses based on notions of consistency and conformity in constructing disablement in finite ways. It also reviews the potential for reflexive use of communication technologies in offering students ways of promoting or masking selected aspects of identity. The article concludes with some insights into possibilities for the use of online communication modes in offering flexibility and autonomy in managing student identity and challenging institutional discourses of disability as fixed or finite.

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The concepts of ‘graduateness’ and graduate attributes became contested terrain before COVID-19 destabilised even the most assured of shared learning constructions. Indeed, for those of us immersed in the delivery of work-based learning (WBL), this has long been the case. Promotion of reductive notions of ‘skills’ acquisition to comply neatly with an employability agenda holds little relevance for those students already engaged in full time careers, and with a wealth of professional experience. What can hold influence and interest, however, is the opportunity to engage in meaningful, agentic, professionally-aligned reflective practices as a scaffolded route to promoting self-awareness and developing confidence in mapping competences from the professional domain to the academic (and vice versa). This paper shares an account of taking an embedded approach to supporting the development of academic literacies amongst work-based learners in one UK HEI. In particular, it will consider the use of reflective pedagogical tools and values in supporting work-based learners to become confident and adaptable writers. Discussion considers how work-based pedagogies and approaches may have far-reaching relevance in a post-pandemic landscape, where reskilling and professional agility are likely to become more prolific aspects of education and work. Writing itself is framed as an integrated communication practice that encompasses literature retrieval, reading, evaluation, synthesis and articulation of argument. The paper will describe pre-pandemic academic support activities and share qualitative survey data in which students consider their confidence as both professional and academic writers. It concludes with consideration of how some of the approaches outlined may have relevance for the wider academic community.

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