At Sheffield Hallam University we pride ourselves on ensuring we put students first, whether that’s our Undergraduate and Postgraduate student body, primary school pupils attending community events or school and college students thinking about applying to university.
Within our Team we advise and support young adults through some really significant and sometimes tricky periods of their lives. We know that while giving talks on Higher Education, Finance, the UCAS process and getting students to try out subject specific masterclasses and tasters is a really great way to help them with education and career choices, there are more ways in which we can help.
Back in September we alluded to a new project we were trialling – an affinity scheme to support those students on a level 3 course, thinking about their choices after school or college.
We wanted the affinity scheme to be easily accessible and offer key supportive messages throughout the year and at time critical points, so we created a Facebook page to share this information.
The Uni4U page is suitable for anyone who seeks extra advice and information. The aim is to have an online university application support system, which will help students with their journey to higher education by providing a range of useful resources, videos, deadline reminders and insights to student life. This will improve the students understanding of the application process and higher education through a social atmosphere, allowing them access 24/7.
The Facebook site aims to offer an easily accessible, fun and engaging supportive mechanism – that most importantly has a personal touch.
Below is a screenshot of the page – Please search for ‘SHUNI4U’ on Facebook to access the community*
To ensure the site is relevant, user friendly and utilised, we launched the page to a small control group of Y13 students from a local School during the autumn term. Through regular focus groups, we gained information about the type content they would like to see, when they want this information and posts they would find valuable. This in turn has fed into our engagement plan and ensuring content is fit for purpose.
The Facebook page will now be used as a call to action after any school and college activity, whether that’s at Sheffield Hallam University or out at your school and college institution and we are really keen for the community of level 3 students to start using it.
For information about the project we’ve created an online resource: https://sites.google.com/my.shu.ac.uk/shuuksr-socialmedia-comms/facebook and we’ll be sending out a further email to Teachers and Advisors explaining the project and what it means for them.
Let us know if you have any feedback or questions and please encourage your level 3 students to ‘like’ our page!
*Note: Please feel free to have a look at the Facebook group to get a good idea of the content and how it works. We are mindful of managing the number of staff members using the Facebook page to make sure it has the right feel for the target group.
This post was written by Belle Fletcher – Senior School and Colleges Engagement Offer – UK Student Recruitment.
