Student Voice
SoMaS and the University provide a range of opportunities for students to influence teaching, as detailed below. We would love to see you involved in a range of these options to improve our school for all!
Here is the link to SoMaS "suggestion box", where students can raise comments or questions on any aspect of student activity at any time. This includes academic, administrative, IT or general matters. If you would like a response, please be sure fill in your name.
Student Representation
Academic_Rep_Leaflet.pdfIn the Department...
We have a Staff-Student Committee made up of student representatives and relevant academic staff. Getting involved will enable you to join in discussions and decision making ranging across such topics as student feedback on the quality of teaching; inputs to the planning of curriculum changes; departmental/school services (e.g. hand-in arrangements, office opening times, study facilities, availability of personal tutors); or improving channels of communication with students.
Shortly after the start of the academic year, information on the arrangements for Staff-Student Committee is provided.
See here for more information about course representation through the Students' Union, who provide training and support for reps.
In the Faculty of Science...
Student Forum
The student Faculty Forum meets two or three times a year and is an opportunity for Faculty staff and students to discuss faculty-wide issues in a fairly informal way. For example, Faculty staff may wish to ask students their views on a new Faculty initiative or students may wish to raise issues of concern to students across the Faculty such as personal tutoring, work-life balance and environmental initiatives. Representatives for other Faculty Committees will be elected from the Forum.
Faculty Committees
All Faculties have a Learning and Teaching Committee, which has a number of places for student representatives. In addition to this, some Faculties have other committees on which students are represented. The Faculty Learning and Teaching Committee is made up of academic staff from all departments and discusses a range of issues relating to Learning and Teaching, e.g. new University policies, changes to University regulations, new programme proposals, and annual departmental reviews of Learning and Teaching. Being a student representative on a Faculty Committee is your chance to put forward the student view on issues relating to learning and teaching and this is always valued by other committee members.
In the Student's Union...
At the beginning of each academic year, every department elects a representative to sit on the Students' Union Council, the main decision making body at the Students' Union. Councillors are trained to represent the views of students from their department. You can find out more information on what the SU Council does, and how to join if you are interested, here.
Student Evaluations of teaching
Evaluating your programme of study
Whilst you are a student, you will have opportunities to evaluate the quality of your programme of study and its individual units. Student evaluation is an essential part of assuring the quality of the School's provision and provides us with essential feedback on your experiences of your programmes of study. We will inform you of the process of student evaluation, including how and when it will take place and what will be done with the results. We will ask for comments on your experience of each level as a whole in each session, in addition to commenting on individual modules. At the end of your programme, you will also be asked to comment on the programme as a whole.
The results of questionnaires are presented to the Staff-Student Committee, the Departmental Teaching Committee, and the individual staff teaching a particular module. All students receive access to previous questionnaire results and teaching staff responses to this. It is important that we receive as many responses to student evaluation questionnaires as possible, because your feedback is an essential part of helping us to maintain the quality of teaching and learning provision, and may benefit you and future students. Quality reviews of departments’ teaching and learning consistently demonstrate ways in which student feedback often does lead to changes being made to modules and programmes.
The National Student Survey
In addition to the student evaluation operated by the departments, you may also be asked to participate in other surveys throughout your study. Many final year students take part in the National Student Survey (NSS), which seeks views from students on their overall satisfaction with their programme of study. The results of this survey, which has been running since 2005, are published.
Tutorials
Tutorials provide an excellent informal opportunity to give feedback on teaching. It is always helpful to hear of the good things that happen as well as the problems!
Individual
Individual lecturers will always be happy to hear comments from you directly, particularly if you can provide constructive criticism. If you are uncomfortable discussing a comment with your lecturer, you can speak to another member of staff, such as your personal tutor, the student support officers, the senior tutor or the tutor for student engagement. See here for who holds these roles.