Reducing Barriers
There are variety of services to ensure your students’ needs are met and universities are constantly striving to reduce barriers so that all students can thrive at university. These include Buddy or Peer Mentoring schemes, Disability and Neurodiversity Support, Mental health services and study skills support.
Buddy Schemes or Peer Mentoring are initiatives that your students can find at university where volunteers in their final or second years are paired with new students to be able to answer any questions about their course or university life. This scheme can be popular for new students as they may feel more comfortable asking another student than a lecturer or student services staff member.
Most Universities will have multi-faith chaplaincies, coupled with student-led societies for different faiths to provide community for those of particular faith and also have Humanist or Atheist societies available for those without a faith. Your students may want to research university provisions in advance of applying.
All institutions want to destigmatize talking about mental health with institution wide campaigns for both staff and students, with people sharing their own personal tips to managing their mental health. Most universities will offer counselling for individuals that are struggling, these are professional counsellors that can be accessed through your students’ time at university.
Universities have specialist teams specifically to support students with disabilities. which offer confidential, practical advice and support including recommendations for reasonable adjustments for disabled students or for those needing additional support. They can also support with, examination adjustments, DSA Application, tutoring, mentoring, assistive technology & accommodation. We tend to advise students to declare disability, SpLD or additional needs on application form so that we have the earliest opportunity to support you and put any arrangements into place. Many universities will have meetings with students before they even start their first year to ensure these arrangements are in place and students are comfortable from the first day they are enrolled.
Neurodiversity support services provide the additional support for those with dyspraxia, dyslexia, dysgraphia, ADHD or the autistic spectrum from the point of view of people with valuable diversity and ensuring how university can make structural changes to support and nurture those with neurodiversity.
Students with caring responsibilities also have support service in place for them at most higher education institutions with specific financial and mental health support.
Academic skills support
When students embark on their university education they may be faced with learning and being assessed in ways they haven’t been before. Lectures can have hundreds of people and they may be expected to spend a large portion of their week conducting independent studies, but when things get difficult there are many ways they can find help.
Student support or student centres can help students with a wide variety of academic skills support, including but not limited to
- Developing effective academic writing skills
- Revision techniques
- Understanding your own learning style
- Understanding tutorial feedback
- Time management
- Preparing oral presentations
- Improving note-taking
- Essay and report writing
- Critical thinking and evaluation
.
Students do not need to be referred for academic skills support most of the time – but this does mean that they will need to ask for help if they need it. If any of your students are concerned about academic skills support at university this is a great thing to ask about at open days, applicant days or they can email universities directly.
Representation
Nearly all universities will have a Students Union or Association which is an organisation separate from the university that represents the students of the university. Your students can get involved in representation and stand for being a course representative; usually a voluntary role in which upon successful election representatives collect feedback from their course mates and then present that feedback at meetings with lecturers and relevant managers and directors. Most Unions or Associations have big university wide elections to elect a President and usually two or three Vice-Presidents sometimes referred to as sabbatical officers. If your students were to win this election you usually secure a full time job for are year that pays you to represent and run campaigns on behalf of the whole student body of your university, this can offer huge experience in a professional role over a variety of different areas.
Union or Association Advice Service
All Unions or Associations offer an Advice Service, whilst advisors are not counsellors, they are people who do not work for the university so whatever issues your students need advice or information on, this information will be confidential. All lecturers will be more than happy to help your students but for whatever reason your students may not want them to know about a particular worry or issue they are going through, an adviser can help you with academic appeals, extensions, employment, housing, motivation, complaints and many more issues confidentially.
Societies
Your students should research the societies at individual institutions, a vibrant range of things to get involved with, the choice can be almost overwhelming, but there is an opportunity to explore a new interest or meet a group of people who share the same interest as your students across sport, art, academic, charity, environmental, cultural.
Your students can lead the climbing society, organising the risk assessments, the travel to the climbing walls. They can lead Debate club, choose the debates and moderate them, organize the video of them, have an engagement team, lead a committee. There are lots of opportunity to build experience with like-minded students.
Your students may only use one of these services or initiatives at their time at university or you may use all of them but all institutions strive to have a diverse array of services to support and develop your students so that they can leave university with a quality degree and diverse range of experience to be able to figure out their futures after university.