Your Students’ Representative Council meets every two months and brings together elected reps from across the university to make decisions that guide your Students’ Union in how best to support and represent you.
Rep Council’s first meeting in September saw the end of several standing actions from last year, securing access to Adobe Creative Suite for students with disability-related needs, and actioning the Officer Team to organise a campaign to help students reduce housing costs. They also secured a promise of improved timetabling, making sure timetabling sessions are grouped together more effectively and aiming to avoid long periods of downtime. And after raising concerns about assignments in Engineering being bunched too closely together, the Department Rep successfully called for them to be spread out in future.
In November, the Council was asked to review the university’s Fitness to Practice procedure to make sure students are equipped to understand the process and the support available to them. Following a concern raised by one of our parent students, they also secured assurance from Regulations & Compliance that parents can self-certify absences caused by children’s illness, rather than being required to provide a doctor’s note before the absence is authorised.
November also saw the first appearance of two subjects which have dominated Rep Council’s work this year: the university restructure, which was announced shortly after the second meeting, and the university’s disability support process.
Rep Council was provided with a series of reports from the university detailing the nature of the restructure, the anticipated impact, and the measures put in place to ensure interference with the student experience is kept to a minimum. Some concerns were raised around staffing, particularly with regards to specialist staff and project supervision, and with the potential impact on disability support. These were fed back to the university, and we have been keeping an eye on the situation since.
Over the course of the year, the Council reported several instances where staff have refused to implement the reasonable adjustment identified in a student’s Learning Support Statement. As a result, we have been working to spread awareness of the university’s current guidance: where staff feel they are unable to implement the adjustment outlined in an LSS, they are expected to contact both the student and the Student Inclusion Team to find alternative arrangements. Students who find this is not the case should contact the Student Voice Team for support.
The imminent implementation of the restructure in February meant the January meeting was dedicated to discussion of a report from the Board of Governors, and March was mostly given over to a review of the impact over the past few weeks. The Council also worked in this time to investigate reports of room bookings disappearing or being ignored by staff; this should no longer occur.
Rep Council’s most recent meeting in May included a consultation on proposals to turn the Cadman Loft into student space, during which they provided feedback on matters including computer provision and the potential inclusion of a sensory room for neurodivergent students. They also provided feedback on the university’s APP Evaluation Assistant program, part of its ongoing work to ensure inclusive practice, and provided feedback on the controversial change from the name Learning Support Statement to Student Inclusion Recommendations.
As always, the minutes of this year’s meetings and details of any actions Rep Council has requested of the Officer Team can be found on the website.