The United Reformed Church (URC) Education and Learning team has created a new home for blended learning programmes in the church - the URC Learning Hub.

Blended programmes mix online preparation study with in-person sessions in order to make the best use of both digital and human resources for learning, while also allowing access from wherever participants may be located geographically.

In this way programmes in the Hub will bring a greater selection of learning options to a wider church audience.

Taking inspiration from the success of the Stepwise blended learning programme, launched in 2018, the larger URC Learning Hub, as reported recently at General Assembly, uses Stepwise’s now familiar design and delivery style.

It incorporates not only all the streams from the previous Stepwise Hub but also the revised Church Leadership Programme, as well as a completely online version of foundation level Safeguarding training.

A revised version of Exploring Eldership is in preparation and, since URCLE has now been retired, training and development officers have a home in the Hub for their learning materials too. EM2 and EM3 ministers training will be coordinated via the new Hub from now on. Further programmes are planned for launch in 2022 and beyond.

Most often users will gain access to the Hub via a specific programme, like Stepwise, but registration is open to anyone in the URC and Education and Learning would encourage anyone who thinks they might be interested in participating in any of the programmes in the Hub to apply for access. This can be done, if you have a specific programme in mind, by contacting one of the individual programme coordinators as follows:

Stepwise:  stepwise@urc.org.uk

Church Leadership Programme: david.salsbury@urc.org.uk

Safeguarding: matthew.baxter@urc.org.uk

All other requests for access can be sent to the Hub co-ordinator: anne.hewling@urc.org.uk.

_{Published: 24 August 2021}