I'm Lynne Watson, and I am a healthcare lecturer at Fife College, and we're part of the Healthcare Academy.
Predominantly, I'm responsible at Kirkcaldy campus for the SWAP Access to Nursing programme that we offer here at Fife College. This is a very successful course that we're very passionate about. We've been running it for a number of years now, and basically it enables people who have been out of education for more than three years, with qualifications lower than an HNC or maybe a few school grades as well, to come back into education and get a year with us in preparation for applying to do nursing.
We've evolved this over the years to be very student-focused. We no longer offer a placement because what we found was that most people who come to do this course are already working, and that's important, working in care. This enables students to go to university, not just for adult nursing, also children's nursing. The last few years, which has been really exciting, we've had a number of students going to do paramedic science at university.
Throughout the course, we offer lots of support. We've got an amazing guidance team, inclusion, employability, which will help with interviews and things for university, and obviously, support with UCAS.
I started my journey when I was 17, and I did my adult nursing first of all, where I became a staff nurse, and then I did a conversion course back in the day to midwifery. So predominantly for most of my career, prior to being here, was being a midwife. And that got me into teaching because you've got your antenatal clinics, your parenthood classes. And I just loved working with the public and empowering them with knowledge and taking it forward with them. So, it was a natural progression for me to, I think, to end up working here at Fife College.
The best thing about working in Fife College? I don't even have to think about that question, it’s the students. The students are everything. And it's an absolute pleasure to see them coming in at the beginning of the academic year, nervous, not knowing what the future is holding, knowing what they want to do, but able to encourage them to get there and empower them to get there and just see them flourish.
One of the most humbling experiences I've had in my career was during COVID. Us old-timer nurses were asked to come back into the front line to support the staff, which I volunteered to do. So, I did a few weekend shifts at the NHS hospitals, and I was very nervous about that. But what was incredible was when I walked into the wards here in Fife, the staff nurses were our ex-SWAP students, and that was such a humbling experience. It just let me see how important Fife College is, not only for our students, but also for our community. That was actually quite a proud moment as well because they were absolutely amazing at the most stressful of times.
Our Courses
Advanced Certificate: SWAP Access to Nursing
This course will allow you to investigate and learn about the broad range of health and social care roles in Scotland and beyond. The course consists of units which will allow exploration of current health and social care topics and opportunities. Completion of the course will allow access to a wide range of HNC courses or swap access courses such as nursing, paramedic science and children's nursing.