February 2025 open day

We were delighted to welcome aspiring postgraduate students to our on-site open day on Saturday 1 February 2025.

Always a highlight of our year, our 2025 in-person open day was held on Saturday 1 February at The Tavistock Centre in London.

Fuelled by hot drinks, fruit and pastries from our own Toza Cafe, the day’s activities began in our Lecture Theatre, with a welcome and introduction from our Chief Education and Training Officer and Dean of Postgraduate Studies, Professor Mark Freestone.

This was followed by a Q&A session, chaired by Paul Dugmore, Director of Education (Learning and Teaching) and Elisa Reyes-Simpson, Director of Education (Governance and Quality), and featuring a number of our current postgraduate students. Topics of discussion were wide-ranging, including reflections on each student’s personal experiences of studying at The Tavistock and Portman, and their aspirations for the future. Our audience were particularly interested in learning more about our student’s journeys and motivations for choosing the Tavistock and Portman, and our panellists were able to outline these as well as answer questions about navigating academic demands alongside work and personal commitments.

We then moved into our course-specific drop-in sessions – allowing prospective applicants to meet with our course leads and facilitators, get a better understanding of our distinctive approach to education and training, and discuss where each of our courses might lead, both academically and professionally.

We ended the day with short presentations from our Admissions, Student Support and Engagement, and Student Finance teams – including guidance on what to expect from the application process, an overview of student life at the Trust, information about our bursaries programme, and more.

Reflecting on the event, Professor Freestone said: “It was a great pleasure to welcome prospective students to the Tavistock Centre on Saturday to talk about our courses and our unique approach to education and training. I was humbled by the articulate and thoughtful responses given to prospective learners by our panel of current students, which covered the challenges and moments of discomfort involved in our trainings, together with the personal growth and changes of perspective that result from those moments. As educators we always hope we encourage those moments but don’t always hear about them, so to hear them in the context of our education it was really encouraging.”

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this year’s on-site open day – we hope to welcome many of you to The Tavistock and Portman student community during Welcome Week 2025!