Top two Adult Learners
Wed, 23 May 2012 10:28:00 BST
Despite the setbacks Charlotte and Tina triumph
- Adult Learners Week 2012
Pictured Adult Learners Week winners Charlotte Mallinson (left) and Tina Froggett
TWO women who overcame hardships, domestic pressures and serious illness to make a massive success of their studies at the University of Huddersfield have picked up awards as part of Adult Learning Week 2012.
Charlotte Mallinson left school before she had even taken her GCSEs when she became a teenage mum. But almost 25 years later she scored a First Class Honours degree and could be headed for doctoral studies.
Tina Froggett has battled cancer, held down a demanding job and cared for her family while making a big success of the first phases of a degree course that will qualify her to play a key role in Early Years education.
Both women live in Huddersfield and they were nominated by tutors for the 2012 Kirklees Adult Learners’ Awards. Both were winners in the Most Determined Adult Learners category and attended the prize ceremony at Huddersfield Town Hall.
Charlotte Mallinson
Pictured (left) are the remains of the Lindow Man at the British Museum
Charlotte’s schooling was curtailed at the age of 14 and she then devoted much of her life to caring for her four children and for her ill father, in addition to holding down a succession of jobs such as bar work and cleaning.
But as her marriage crumbled she decided she wanted more out of life and as she had developed a fascination with the heritage industry she enrolled at the University of Huddersfield for a BA course covering English Literature plus heritage
She ended up with a coveted First Class Honours degree and is now embarked on a Masters in History that will include research and a dissertation into a subject that intrigues her.
“I am looking at the societal effects of displaying human remains in museums,” explains Charlotte, who is currently working for the Thackray Museum in Leeds. The remains in question include skeletons, bog bodies and body parts.
“I will be trying to identify what a museum’s role is in this area and its responsibilities to society when it comes to exhibiting human remains. There are no hard and fast rules and there are a lot of contradictions,” added Charlotte, who could be headed for PhD research after completing her MA.
Despite no experience of academic work, she was soon in the groove when she started studying.
“I didn’t expect this, but I slid quite naturally into it. For my very first piece of academic work I got an excellent mark, which astounded me!”
Tina Froggett
Her fellow Kirklees Adult Learners’ Award winner, Tina Froggett, has a varied career background which saw her qualifying and practising as a Chartered Insurance Practitioner and then, after moving to Huddersfield in the 1990s and giving birth to twins, following up her interest in education by working at Cowcliffe Pre-School, an early learning setting in Fixby, where she is Pre-school Leader, running the business and working with the children.
But serious illness has dogged Tina, who has recovered from breast cancer twice and from liver cancer – the latter resulting in major surgery. But despite this she was determined to respond to a Government requirement that all early-years learning settings should have a graduate leader.
Funding was available for study and Tina enrolled at the University of Huddersfield for a foundation degree in Early Years Education. She resumes studies in September, for a final phase of study that will lead to a BA.
“I started to do my degree for my own personal achievement as well as responding to Government policy, because after my illness I wanted to do something I always wanted to do but that I did not feel ready to do at 18,” explained Tina, who has not allowed her harrowing illnesses to divert her.
“I finished my last piece of work a week before I went into hospital for the operation. I haven’t had any time off, I haven’t been late with any of my assignments and I have managed to get about 80 per cent consistently in my marks!” she says.
“We had a lovely evening at the Town Hall for the Kirklees Adult Learners’ Awards and both Charlotte and I felt honoured to be among so many wonderfully talented and determined people,” added Tina.
