17 January 2019

Summary from the January Board

You can download this one page summary document here

Digital Story

Rachel Harris who studied Food and Nutrition with Sheffield Business School and is currently a Student Communications intern shared her digital story . Rachel shares her experience of re-joining full time education, researching placements as a 2nd year and making the right decision for her to proceed straight to her final year.

Highly Skilled Employment of our graduates        

Following the update given in December, work has progressed in relation to the Employability plan[1], particularly in relation to the curriculum component. By 30 January a pack will be made available to Departments which will include: outline work experience definitions; graduate attributes; the career readiness plan; and scope and detail of the digital pathway through levels 4, 5 and 6. An audit tool to extract data from courses relating to graduate outcomes is in progress for course teams to assess how far they meet the criteria for the employability strategy.

Kevin Kerrigan, PVC Enterprise and SBS will take cross-University leadership responsibility for this step-change piece of work on Employability to oversee a cultural shift – recognising the value and embedding of employability into all that we do, with clear and consistent accountability at every level[2].

Student Experience and Teaching Quality

Neil McKay, Dean of Students, gave an update on this work stream – ensuring the university has consistent adherence to key recommendations[3] already established within University teaching and learning policies.  Whilst a number of areas are currently meeting the majority, there is work to be done to ensure consistency of all areas meeting all recommendations.  The next steps for implementation are being developed, with ULT leadership from Alison Metcalfe, PVC HWB.  Audit mechanisms will be put in place to provide assurance that baseline standards are consistently met.

Course Leader support

  • Elaine Buckley provided a paper and update on the Hallam Guild project that has been undertaken to enhance support for course leaders, recognising how instrumental they are to student experience.
  • The project identified much good practice with respect to effective course leadership combined with gaps in consistency. Course Leaders Essentials – a resource tool for course leaders in in development and will be shared in a future update as soon as it is available.
  • There is acknowledgement that alongside changes to systems and processes, a significant shift in culture to support course leaders is required. More detail can be found in the paper.
  • The Board endorsed the role outlines for Course Leader, Collaborative Course Leader and Higher and Degree Apprenticeship Course Leader[4]. A HR&OD Leadership and Management Development Manager was requested to work with course leaders to create a course leader development programme to be brought to a future Shaping Futures board for consideration.

Access and Participation

Linda Mason, Director of Strategy, Planning and Insight, updated on the monitoring statement that was reported to the OfS as part of an annual return which details targets and expenditure made against Access and Participation. It was noted that the university is performing generally above sector average.

The University will not be required to complete this return again, as following consultation the OfS is moving to a five year approach for institutions that perform well against the access and participation indicators.

TEF Progress

  • The TEF methodology is changing and all providers will need to submit subject and provider level TEF in January 2020. The weighting of metrics is due to change.
  • The submission for subject TEF includes two page provider summary and a five page narrative at subject level.
  • Subject Leads have now been appointed for the internal TEF subject pilots and will be trained from 31 January.
  • The Board will be updated on the progress of the subject TEF pilots in March, with outcomes being reported in June.

You can download this as a one page summary document here