Personal and Professional Development Programme launches at The Henley College

The Henley College have announced a brand new programme for all their students. Officially titled the PPD (Personal and Professional Development) Programme, it will aim to provide skills to enhance wellbeing, offer students insights into themselves and optimise their performance within their studies and beyond.

A significant part of this development programme is the ‘Psychology for Flourishing’ sessions which focuses on helping students understand themselves and develop skills such as resilience, decision-making, and self-organisation, to effectively navigate the challenges that they face. These skills will be developed through six themed workshops across the year and aim to help students improve their performance and enhance their well-being. The programme will be delivered by a team of postgraduate Psychologists, led by Chartered Psychologist James Mackenzie, and supervised by Dr Misia Gervis, of Brunel University London. They will also be offering an enrichment programme to some of the college sports teams.

Ty Sterry, Head of Careers and Enterprise said

“I have had the pleasure of working with James and Misia in previous environments, where I have seen the effect of the work that they do. In helping students to develop their thinking around their next steps, the support of psychologists who can scaffold student performance adds enormous value to what the college can offer”

Dr Jervis, who was a founder member of the British Olympic Association Psychology Advisory Group, says

“We’re aiming to enable students to flourish and navigate challenging situations, by creating this unique partnership between Brunel University postgraduate students and The Henley College.”

James Mackenzie added “I am very excited about starting this programme. It is a wonderful opportunity to be able to help students excel in what they want to do and give them the skills to develop a growth mindset whilst meeting challenges along the way.”

Principal and Chief Executive, Satwant Deol said

“We recognise that the impact of the pandemic, coupled with the challenges of a digital world, have had a considerable impact on the wellbeing of young people. We are delighted that we have developed and invested in this comprehensive programme to help our students excel in their studies. We believe this unique programme offers our students enhanced opportunities that will benefit them in both their personal and professional lives long into the future, and would like to thank our partners at Brunel University for their support and expertise”

After his initial session about the teenage brain, student Nicholas Vitty said

“I really enjoyed the session. It was really useful and helped massively.”