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Priority one: Portfolio

We are shaping a balanced, research-informed portfolio of programmes, which serves the needs of students and develops graduates with the knowledge and skills for successful careers.

To help strengthen our teaching, research and innovation, and improve experiences for staff and students, last October we announced plans to create a new school structure across our five faculties. By bringing together some existing departments to create more evenly sized schools, we will be able to provide a more consistent and high-quality student experience.

We’ve revised our policy and approach to academic tutoring to ensure a consistent experience for all taught students across the University. Academic tutoring is a key element of the package of support we provide to taught students, and is personalised to respond to students’ individual circumstances.

Student voice continues to be at the heart of everything we do, and we were delighted to welcome a panel of students to our Education Conference 2024, where students played a fundamental role in working with us to explore how we make assessment and feedback work for everyone. This was extremely valuable and provided us with an opportunity to reflect on assessment from the students’ point of view. It worked so well, we’re going to involve students in our conference again next year.

We have a dedicated and enthusiastic community of staff and students who care deeply about our students’ learning and educational experience. Our Education Awards recognise and celebrate their excellent practice in learning and teaching.

The Specific Learning Difficulty (SpLD) Service and the English Language Teaching Centre (ELTC) Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) team were recognised for demonstrating excellence in their adoption of cutting-edge technology, including Generative AI, virtual reality and gamification to provide innovative learning opportunities for students with specific learning difficulties.

Our students are using their skills to make meaningful contributions to society, from creating real-world impact for patients with rare cancers, to developing video games that are raising vital funds for UK charities, as well as building record-breaking rockets.

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Priority two: Employability

We are delivering a sector-leading vision for employability which captures the value of learning and development experiences in and beyond the curriculum. Our Graduate Outcomes will reflect the experiential opportunities allowed to students, and the high quality support for skills development.

We continue to enhance our placement year offer and our aim is that high quality work experience will become part of all our undergraduate programmes.

For the first time, all undergraduate students beginning courses in 2024 had the option to undertake a placement year as part of their degree, and, on-entry, eighty-five per cent of them indicated an interest in doing so. Five-hundred-and-sixty-four students completed year-long placements this year, an eight per cent increase on 2022–23, and the level of interest from new first-years suggests numbers could rise significantly in the future, contributing to positive graduate outcomes.

Under the 91Ö±²¥ Graduate Attributes initiative, students have the opportunity to build attributes and skills from their academic modules, work experience and other extra-curricular experiences.

The Faculty of Arts and Humanities is focused on embedding employability and work-based learning throughout the curriculum, from placement years and work-based learning modules, to helping increase our students’ confidence in articulating their skills. The value of an Arts and Humanities degree campaign is setting the tone for this work and showcasing some of the amazing careers that our students go on to do. We hope to replicate this throughout the university and incorporate it into every programme.

The 91Ö±²¥ Connect mentoring and networking platform was launched in 2023–24, enabling students to identify and connect with alumni mentors more easily. Since the platform launched, 278 mentoring partnerships have been hosted and it is expected to enable many more career-enhancing connections in the coming years.

Use of MySkills, a unique portfolio tool which helps our students reflect on the attributes they are gaining, increased in all faculties, with seventy-eight per cent of first year undergraduate students engaging (fifty-two per cent in 2022–23), and work to identify good practice in embedded work-related learning also progressed well.

In 2024, we launched ‘Emerge: Be enterprising;’ a new enterprise service which provides a community for budding entrepreneurs – staff, students, and recent graduates alike. The service has supported numerous students in turning their innovative ideas into business solutions and 14 successful startup projects have received financial incentives to launch their business.

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Priority three: Digital experience

We are designing a rich and inclusive digital environment that will support excellent and inspiring teaching, enabling all students to engage effectively in their learning.

A number of University departments have volunteered to be early adopters for the new Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) platform, Blackboard Ultra, before it’s rolled out University-wide next year. Our VLE is key to how we deliver education. It provides the infrastructure behind our programmes and enables us to give our students a consistent and coherent learning experience. The new platform will provide a better student user experience, allow students to connect information and knowledge in an inclusive, personalised digital space, and support a programme-level approach.

The Bring Your Own Device pilot continues, which seeks to ensure all students have equal access to a device and the digital technologies they need for their studies, and adapting spaces to meet the evolving needs of our students. Building on a successful pilot in Computer Science, we are now extending the initiative to the Schools of English, and Architecture and Landscape. Alongside this, we are exploring the infrastructure implications of the initiative and we’ve also built a digitally-enabled teaching space where, with a comprehensive and flexible provision at their disposal, staff can develop the most appropriate ways to advance digital skills within their subject.

My Digital Induction is the University’s new induction guide for students, covering the key digital technologies they will use whilst studying with us. The guide offers students a user-centred orientation to the University’s core digital technologies, develops basic digital skills, and articulates how these skills relate to their employability.

The development of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) continues to move at pace. Our response to GenAI in learning and teaching is guided by a set of principles that supports a positive approach to AI, supports staff and students in understanding the limitations and challenges of using such tools, and enables staff and students to use GenAI tools appropriately, responsibly and ethically. We’re now seeing the inclusion of GenAI within University programmes in an appropriate and subject-relevant way

Read more about our Education pillar and explore related case studies