College tutors share importance of mentoring at Manchester Animation Festival

Tutors from The Manchester College have been selected to speak at the Manchester Animation Festival.

The Manchester College tutors will be speaking about the importance of mentoring at this year’s Educating Animators Conference, held on Monday 11 November at the University of Salford, as part of the Manchester Animation Festival.

Now in its second year, the Educating Animators Conference is a day of talks and presentations on teaching methodologies and gives industry insight into curriculum delivery and addresses diversity and inclusivity.

This year welcomes presentations covering how, across education training and industry, we can best support diversity and inclusivity, how it is built into programmes of study, teaching and learning materials and how we explore representations in our content. 

Katherine Rushton and Ben Elson, media tutors at The Manchester College, are both returning to the conference after previously presenting at the event. This year they will be highlighting the importance of mentors with the Ideas Foundation Employability Bootcamp.

Katherine Rushton said:

Last year I spoke about our employer partnership with Flow Creative, so it’s great to be invited back to further discuss our mentoring programme with Ideas Foundation and how important industry mentors are to improving diversity in the industry.

The conference is an opportunity to share and debate good practice across the education sector and open up conversations with industry to support knowledge transfer and lifelong learning.

Ben Elson said:

Many of our students at The Manchester College and UCEN Manchester don't come from backgrounds where they already know someone in the creative or digital industries and mentors can really help them get a foot in the door. As part of our talk we will be showcasing the work our mentors have done with our students and the brilliant relationships and opportunities this can build.

Find out more information our employer partnerships with Flow Creative and Ideas Foundation.