SU President Blog

For the average student in our university, the top 10 sounds a little familiar, but you’re not too sure what it is or how to explain it.  I am hoping this little wrap-up will help you understand what the top 10 is, and how it went for the officers in the year just past.  

 

The SU Top 10 is a list of issues that the SU officers produce every year to ask the university for action in the key issues and concerns facing students. The SU and the University work in partnership to address the identified 10 to improve the student experience across a variety of areas. The SU uses several sources of student opinion to inform the selection of the Top Ten including surveys, feedback from students and student representatives via focus groups or existing forums, key trends arising from students accessing the SU’s Advice and Support Service, sector-wide changes, and ongoing changes to university practices and policies. In the past few years, the top 10 has reached such a high level of influence that it is assigned a university executive board (UEB) lead to work on it with the officer lead throughout the year. The Top 10 will be initially presented to council (the university’s governing body) in November, for noting, and will go back to council in May, to talk about progress and future steps. We are the only union in the UK which has a vehicle for influence with this level of formality. In summary, the top 10 is a unique and immensely impactful way of moving the student agenda forward in Bath. 

 

It was only recently that we realised we hadn’t given you a proper update on how the top 10 ended last year. So, below, you can find a list of each of the 10 issues, with a brief overview of what was achieved in the year, and how, if at all, we’re continuing that work this year.  

 

      1. Ensure safer sport through developing match day medic schemes. 

• Short-term wins: Enhancing communications to societies to raise awareness and knowledge; Feedback from students on their experiences and what they would like to see change; Discussions with the Sports department around pressures on a Wednesday afternoon and how developments could help. 

• In progress: Potential hire of ambulance with a paramedic and first responder on Wednesday BUCS days. Abbie investigating if the ambulance can be funded internally from the sports budget; Sports clubs to request funding for first aid qualifications in their handover documents to increase the number of first aid qualified members in clubs. 

• Next steps: SU to assess and review the current protocol with the University’s Sports department ready for the next academic year. 

 

      2. Develop a range of activities to reduce isolation and improve overall experience for PGT students. 

• Short-term wins: Focussed on online/part-time/distance learner PGTs (as PGT Review already underway for on-campus provision): 

  • Evaluated outcomes from last year’s PTES and reached out to other universities using Wiley for online courses. 

  • A new Online MSc Courses Survey launched in 2024 instead of including online students in PTES where many questions are irrelevant. This will help inform future strategies for improving the student experience for this particular cohort. 

  • Online DOS Forum meets monthly and shares best practices, and will ensure community/belonging is considered going forward. The Online Courses Internal Board will also keep community/belonging on their radar going forward. 

• In progress: Further meetings between SU/academic departments about working together to support the experience of online students. 

• Next steps: this has been re-included in the top 10 with a different approach. We’re now asking the university to develop a student experience strsategy for PGTs and PGRs, to make sure students in all different levels of study have a good experience in Bath. 

 

      3. Increase the range of inclusive study spaces that meet the needs of all students. 

• Short-term wins: Sensory space opened in the Library; Careers left their space in Virgil Building; spaces redeployed for students and are now available for booking via LibCal; Polden Commons has been made available for student use during revision/ assessments; Space Management Group have commissioned a feasibility study for alternative computer labs to enable decant from Library; Independent Learning Environment Project undertaken by the Library exploring the relationship between the Library and other independent learning spaces at the University. 

• In progress: Improvements to the management of space by the COO are being introduced, including the separation of operational and strategic into two groups; University Space Policy in development. 

• Next steps: continue to receive student feedback on space usage and direct it to university departments’ as appropriate; promotion of low-sensory hours on different commercial outlets on campus so students can have appropriate study breaks, regardless of their individual needs.  

 

      4. Ensure that all students can easily access recordings of all their lectures throughout the year. 

• Short-term wins: DDaT is convening a user group for learning technologies (to include those used for lecture capture/asynchronous digital learning), to include student representation; Amber collated discrete issues relating to lecture recordings, as well as reports from the SU Academic Council; Associate Deans (Education) have communicated with Heads of Departments regarding implementation of Disability Access Plans throughout the academic year.   

• In progress: Seeking to create and share staff comms on how students benefit from lecture capture, highlighting the existing available training and auto-scheduling. 

• Next steps: re-added on this year’s top 10 as part of our lobby for an inclusive teaching policy which benefits all students and their different needs.  

 

      5. Ensure that students receive constructive assessment feedback that helps them improve. 

• Short-term wins: Incorporated within the Education Annual Review & Enhancement process; All Faculties/the School have recruited Assessment & Feedback leads this academic year. 

• In progress: Ongoing priority with dedicated resources in CLT and the Faculties/the School. 

• Next steps: again, included in this next year’s top 10 under the point for defense of students’ academic rights and the university’s role in informing these to students appropriately. 

 

       6. Develop doctoral professional development through work-based opportunities. 

• Short-term wins: UDSC meeting (January) was themed around skills, development and employability with two reports presented and SU representatives in attendance. The Doctoral Skills programme has been reviewed and strengthened for the next academic year following the meeting and feedback received; Examined PRES and PDES survey outcomes concerning this issue; April’s SU Doctoral Lunch themed around placements and employability. 

• In progress: Planning to pilot a “micro internships” initiative for doctoral students; Considering the use of upcoming research culture periods to see if opportunity for internship/placement sessions. 

• Next steps: included in the new top 10 under professional development for PG students, to make sure we continue to improve the offer for our postgrad students. 

 

      7. Develop a housing strategy covering both University managed and private accommodation. 

• Short-term wins: Research was undertaken by SU with students on the quality of private housing; The University is working with B&NES, Bath Spa and key local stakeholders on a joint agreement for ways to support the development of affordable purpose-built student accommodation through private developers. 

• In progress: the drafting of an accommodation strategy that focuses on the private sector and the university’s role in it.  

• Next steps: re-added on the top 10 as exactly the same point, to highlight that it wasn’t delivered on the requested timelines last year. 

 

      8. Pilot early move in and arrivals week for new international students. 

• Short-term wins: not applicable. The pilot was agreed and it’s moving forward! 

• In progress: the plan to make it happen in the next couple of weeks. 24 students signed up for it in its initial pilot phase and they’ll be coming to Bath for it next week.  

• Next steps: learn from the initial pilot and accordingly propose changes, and hopefully increase the amount of students that benefit from it in 2025. 

 

      9. Ensure all students have access to a financial safety net when needed, through a range of accessible scholarships, bursaries, hardship funds and other support. 

• Short-term wins: RAWG considered a paper regarding a review of scholarships for international students; Student Support led on review of financial package communications with SU/Comms and changes implemented; Implemented clearer signposting to Hardship Funds concerning housing guarantor scheme fee support; Student Living completed a guarantor scheme benchmarking exercise which indicated we offer similar service to majority of HEIs. Could consider an in-house scheme which might be cheaper for students; The Finance Committee agreed on the principle that a proportion of international fee income would go towards student financial support. 

• In progress: the advertisement of the hardship fund under its new name, ‘the financial access fund’. 

• Next steps: continue to review the bursaries and scholarships offer at the university to make sure it responds to student needs.  

 

     10.  Working with First Bus to develop an accurate GPS service and live capacity information to keep students informed. 

• Short-term wins: First Bus confirmed plans for updating all GPS devices by Easter 2024. 

• In progress: conversations to make sure this happened, as student feedback since then continues to show bad GPS services on the bus tracking app and bus stop screens.  

• Next steps: continue to lobby the university and First Bus to fix this issue. 

 

As you can see, your officers were busy pushing the university to get all of these done. I’d be lying if I said there weren’t some frustrating times during it, and even some sub-parr outcomes – which is, unfortunately, part of the top 10 conversations. What I can assure you is that we don’t drop these once the year has passed, and having university council look at these and their relevant progress is significant pressure on university staff to deliver on these even if it’s after the year has finished. As you might’ve also seen, we put those that we weren’t satisfied with in terms of their outcome are back on the top 10 this year.  

Finally, I’ll leave you by saying that we’re always more than happy to receive student feedback on any of these, so please don’t hesitate to reach out to any of the officers if you have something to say! 

In the meantime, enjoy your last summer days and we’ll see you back in the SU (hopefully for weekend warm-up) in a couple of weeks. Stay tanned and be kind to one another! 

 

Much love, 

Jiji x