Student Success and Progression. The University will continue to ensure positive outcomes for learners across the student lifecycle by investing £1.1m of institutional spend from fee income above the basic fee on Student success and Progression. Key elements with particular relevance to the 2016/17 Access Agreement include: • Continuing to use Student Success Advisors in academic areas with remits to provide additional support and guidance to primarily foundation and first year students from WP backgrounds. The posts will assist in the academic transition, support social integration, and will focus on the critical stages and non-completion risk factors related to the student lifecycle. • The design and delivery of a number of activities and interventions targeted at full and part- time learners from under-represented backgrounds (including all those eligible for University bursaries) across the student lifecycle. These include; • Contacting students pre-arrival • Online support pre and post arrival via social media/forums • Student Generated Induction • Induction Toolkit in partnership with the Induction Implementation Group • Engagement activities (e.g. The Student Parent Forum) • Early warning systems for poor attendance • Survival Guide • Peer Mentoring pilot in partnership with Skills Team It is intended that these activities will build the confidence of these learners in addition to identifying any support issues, leading to their improved retention and completion. • The development of a ‘Student Life Partnership’ which will replace the University’s current Warden-based pastoral provision in University residences, and which will be based on a proactive comprehensive student support framework. The partnership will engage a range of professional services such as Student Accommodation, Careers and Employability, the Study Skills team, Hull University Union, academic partners in departments and the university solicitor. It will draw on planned developments from the key University strategic plans such as the Employability and the Retention Strategies. The basic principle is to combine a number of ‘best practice’ approaches to support students in respect of retention and progression, with a particular remit to support WP and the diverse student population. • Improving the resource and expertise dedicated to capturing data associated with our intervention activities with targeted groups. All interventions with students from all target groups will be recorded systematically in order that the...
Student Success and Progression. New Student Welcome: The first few weeks at University are one of the highest risk points for students deciding to leave for a number of reasons. The key ones being, homesickness, poor organisation, limited opportunities to make friends or lack of money to participate. At the university of Bedfordshire, it is our belief students are more likely to succeed if given the best possible start to their student journey. • The scheme, developed in partnership with Beds Students’ Union ,will provide a series of events both academic and just for fun at no cost to students to enable them to participate fully in the university experience. The events focus on student and staff integration with daily themes. Examples include, International, well-being, clubs and societies, non-academic special interest classes and course base zones to enable networking with course teams, support staff and other students. • The investment in the new student welcome will also include a ‘refreshers’ week, about six weeks in to the first term. This will provide opportunity for students to further engage with support functions and other areas of the university. This is aimed to provide further opportunities for students who may be at risk of withdrawing to further engage enhance their chances of success whilst further enhancing and improving the student experience for the wider university community. The new student welcome is designed to encompass all parts of the university community including mature students and other non-traditional learners to maximise student success opportunities for all elements of the university community • Peer-mentoring and peer-assisted learning: Initiatives to enhance retention by raising levels of student progression, improve resilience and help to maintain academic momentum towards their target award. To do this we focus on students’ preparedness for success, their ambition and recognition of their own potential, and the visibility and accessibility of academic support services. We provide a peer mentoring scheme, part of the Access Partnership Associate Scheme, working with fellow students providing frequent contact and support for progression and success. • We make a significant investment in the quality of the student experience by means of, for example, improved forms of “coaching”, personal tutoring, and support networks and expanded and enhanced arrangements for peer-assisted learning.
Student Success and Progression. The School has an integrated strategy which provides a holistic student support package from first application to award completion. Those elements supported by this Access Agreement in 2018/19 will be: • the Student Funding Officer (50% of fte funded through the Access Agreement). Based in the Registry, the role holder provides higher education funding advice, and an information service to applicants and students, to facilitate students taking responsibility for their own finances and being proactive in seeking funding from alternative sources before and during their studies. An individualised service is available on request and is particularly offered to care leaver applicants and students. The Funding Officer works closely with the Widening Participation Officer. • Study skills support tutor – in view of the significant proportion of students within the School declaring a disability and the changes to the Disabled Student Allowances from 2015/16 onwards (where the government will only fund the most specialist non- medical help), the School has embedded an element of the previous DSA support into the Access Agreement to assure continued high retention and achievement rates among this group of students. All the School’s support is aimed at encouraging personal responsibility, independence and autonomy and goes above and beyond the reasonable adjustments required under the Equality Act.
Student Success and Progression. Through its Access Agreement, the University of Manchester will invest £2,482,362 in 2018/19 to deliver student success and progression activities. In particular, this will make available resource for staff appointments providing a range of support including: financial advice and guidance to students; support for disabled students; 28 xxxx://xxx.xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxxxxxxxxx.xx.xx/finances/money-matters/money-skills/ careers support for widening participation students; data management information. Our activities will aim to address the specific challenges which students from widening participation backgrounds can face in making the transition to university study and subsequent progression into employment or further study.
Student Success and Progression. 34. Our work on student retention and success builds on our outreach and access work through the provision of support and skills training which maximises students’ potential to complete their degrees successfully. A summary is provided in Table 4 below: Table 4. Summary of Student Success Activities Main Focus Programme or Activity Academic support and skills development Study Skills Workshops Personal Academic Tutelage system Peer support Learning Resources Centre Library Reading Strategy Pastoral support Personal Academic Tutelage system College internal support system Higher Education Support Team (HEST) Services Student Welfare and Wellbeing Workshops Peer support Counselling services to improve student mental health Financial support Bursaries and access to financial assistance funds throughout programme Employability Employability strategy Internships Careers Advice and Guidance Volunteering College internal support system
Student Success and Progression. In total, the University of Suffolk plans to spend £971,000 on student progression and success measures in 2018-19. The University has identified that retention and achievement rates have shown negative performance over the past three Monitoring Returns24 and we are therefore working on the development of a Progression Strategy based on the findings in the HEFCE ‘Delivering opportunities for students and maximising their success’ report 25. We acknowledge that mature students, male students, students who applied through Clearing, and those with a disability (other than a specific learning difficulty) have been historically most likely to withdraw. However, we also know that the majority of our students could be considered as ‘under-represented’ students on the basis of specific characteristics or their progression from low-participation areas or schools. The Progression Strategy therefore aims to work across the student population, and with specific target groups, to improve the factors that can lead to differential outcomes in higher education, including engagement with teaching and learning; academic and independent learning skills; expectations and self-confidence; and cultural and social capital. The initial actions from this new Progression Strategy will be in place for new entrants in academic year 2017/18, and will roll out across all year groups.
Student Success and Progression. Non continuation rate UEA Benchmark England All entrants 4.8% 4.8% 7% Low participation neighbourhood (LPN) 4.6% 5.3% 7.7% Other neighbourhood 3.3% 3.5% 5.4% Mature previous HE 6.8% 9% 10.4% Mature no previous HE 16.7% 11.3% 12.8% Table 3: non-continuation performance indicators for 2012/3 entrants POLAR3. Source: HESA Performance measures relating to student success are outlined in Table 3. Overall for all entrants the University performs well against our benchmark, and this is also seen for students from both low participation and other neighbourhoods and mature students with previous HE experience. However, for one group of more disadvantaged students, mature students with no previous HE experience, the University does not achieve our benchmarks. Of particular concern is the difference in performance between LPN and other neighbourhoods, and between mature students with and without previous HE experience. Understanding and addressing these differences in performance remains a key focus with the creation of additional resource within our Business Intelligence Unit dedicated to exploring the available data to help us understand this and other themes relevant to widening participation. These performance gaps informed the decision in our 2015/16 Access Agreement to rebalance spend proportionally from financial support to student success. This balance will continue to be informed by evidence as it becomes available.
Student Success and Progression. The University recognises the importance of widening participation across the whole student lifecycle and our commitment to student success is outlined in our WPSA, interim statements and through our approach in section 2.1. Current key priorities include employability, retention and an evidenced based approach. Our HEFCE Student Opportunity allocation will support these priorities as well as supporting our collaborative and equality and diversity objectives. To ensure that all groups are able to realise their full academic potential, the University invests in a support infrastructure for students and regularly reviews processes to ensure effectiveness. We have recently begun an institutional review of our induction and transition support. Throughout this, widening participation considerations will be a key focus with Faculty Outreach Academics included in the working group membership. In conjunction with the Higher Education Academy, we are also working to promote a sense of belonging using the student voice and separately to consolidate our knowledge of retention initiatives across the University. This work will be supported by a new post within the Business Intelligence Unit and will help to inform our understanding of the disparity in retention as outlined in section 2.2.2 and identify any gaps in attainment. As noted in our 2013-14 Access Agreement, additional staffing within our Xxxx of Students’ Office continues to ensure that applicants with disabilities, including in particular those on the autism spectrum, are appropriately supported throughout the admissions process and their student career. Additional provision of academic skills support (including maths and statistics) to enable students to achieve their full potential experiences significant demand from WP groups, for example Foundation Year and mature students. The University will continue to monitor the spend attributed to the Xxxx of Students office, recognising that additional investment may need to be made following the proposed changes to Disabled Students’ Allowance. Progression to employment and postgraduate study is a key area of focus. We have actively engaged with the new Postgraduate Support Scheme for 2015/16 academic year and are continuing to develop and pilot activities designed to support the employability of under- represented groups, recognising the potential for disparity in graduate destinations. New reporting systems allow us to monitor the engagement with the central ca...
Student Success and Progression. In total, UCS plans to spend £542,000 on student progression and success measures in 2016-17.
Student Success and Progression. In total, the University of Suffolk plans to spend £802,000 on student progression and success measures in 2017-18.
