Over the past year, we have launched the School Links Project and we wanted to tell you what we have been up to.
What is the School Links Project?
The School Links Project is all about working closer with each of the schools at City, in regular meetings between our Sabbatical Officers, School Representative Officers and the Deans of each school. This way, we can keep the schools up to date on our campaigns, student feedback and most importantly – the issues that matter to you.
This project has also allowed us to collaborate with schools on their projects and support each other in partnership.
Holding over 15+ meetings so far this year, we have now met with all schools at least once each term, and often following a good meeting, the Schools and SU have taken the opportunity to meet more regularly. All of these meetings have taken place online this year, during the ongoing pandemic via Microsoft Teams.
For each school we discussed a range of topics based on your feedback from Reps and Officers:
School of Health Sciences
We have met with the School of Health Sciences for 2 School Links Meetings.
The key topic we have discussed across both meetings has been how we can support our students taking part in placement. In term 1 we discussed the timeline for students to be communicated to about placements whilst in term 2, on the topic of placement students, we discussed how we could support students on placement with our Study Well Activity.
We have also discussed the SHS Common Room, which was submitted to and voted on our Big Ideas Platform. The school and SU discussed who would need to be involved in taking this project forward and the potential uses for the space once one is identified. It is positive that there will be collaboration on this project and the School and SU are looking forward to working towards creating an SHS Common Room.
Finally, we have also discussed how to make students aware of Hardship funds and access to the Digital Hardship Fund. This was something raised by Programme Reps at their committees.
School of Arts and Social Sciences
We have had lots of positive meetings as part of the School Links Project, meeting regularly to discuss a range of matters.
We have covered feedback that was received from Programme Reps through our Student Voice Report, in particular how group work could be assessed, access to support services and academic skills support and careers support for SASS Students.
We have discussed how we can support students to share their voice further in SASS committees and meetings, how committees in the school work for Reps and students concerns about scaling of examinations and results.
To promote greater collaboration, the School of Arts and Social Sciences and Students’ Union have agreed to meet every 2 weeks between the Dean and our Officers to work on projects.
City Law School
We have had 2 successful meetings with the Dean and Associate Deans of the Law School.
In term 2 we discussed a range of topics, especially feedback from your current and newly elected School Representative Officer.
One of the topics discussed was students’ access to the core texts needed for modules and student feedback about this raised by Reps. Other topics included graduation plans, exam timings and students being able to contact lecturers during assessment periods.
In term 2 we also covered feedback from the Student Voice Report. This included 24-hour assessments, an increase in learning resources and opportunities for peer to peer learning in the Law School.
The Law School discussed students turning their cameras on/off in the meeting and for the Union’s thoughts, this topic is currently live on our Big Ideas Platform where you can share your thoughts.
City Business School
We have also met with the Dean of the Business School twice this academic year.
At the beginning of the Academic year, we covered plans to host a ‘Town Hall’ with 3rd year students and the results from the 2019/20 National Students Survey and actions that could be undertaken as a result of student feedback.
We then met with the school in early term 2 to discuss the plans for return to campus in the future, how Zoom can be used to enhance learning further and the plans for the name change of the Business School.
The Business School and Students’ Union agreed to collaborate and progress discussions about decolonizing the curriculum and were eager to see the result of the Crest Redesign Big Idea.
School of Maths, Computer Science and Engineering
And last but not least, SMCSE. We have had multiple meetings with SMCSE and have been able to collaborate on a number of pieces of feedback and projects.
The school have supported our Academic Communities work, discussing how we can better support societies and socializing in the school, something which students have fed back is missing in the online environment.
Regarding the duration of examinations, the School discussed with the SU the plans for online examinations which were then communicated to students via email following the meeting.
As with other schools we have also raised feedback from Reps in the Student Voice Report, which in the school related to the timetabling of sessions and which platform for teaching would be used and the duration of examinations.
The School of Maths, Computer Science and Engineering have written a response to our Student Voice Report a win for the School Links project.
What is next for this project?
Do you have something you would like to feedback to your school, or for our officers to mention in the next round of meetings this term?
There are lots of ways to share your feedback:
We have enjoyed the collaborative and open meetings we’ve held in term 1 and 2 and will continue to work with schools on projects, campaigns and feedback. We will be meeting with your school’s again in term 3 and our new sabbatical officers will be continuing the School Links Project too.
If you would like to know more, email us at studentrep@city.ac.uk.