Education Officer Blog - Weekly Update 05/02/21


Blog Post

Education Officer Blog

Weekly Update 05/02/21

Hello! The first week of Semester 2 is complete!! 

It's been a busy week as I've had lots of core meetings but there has been some great progress on some of the projects we have been working on, we launched the Academic Rep of the Month award and I got to meet with my lovely Academic Exec!! 

Here are a few quick updates from this week:

Senate

On Wednesday we attended Senate. There were lots of different discussions happening but here are some main headliners.

  • Inspera – Overall the feedback from both staff and students was that the implementation of Inspera had been successful. Over 25000 exams were submitted. We will be looking to work with the University to ensure that any key issues are addressed ahead of semester 2 examinations.
  • No Detriment – Now that Semester 1 exams are completed there will be an analysis of results to ensure that the no detriment measures put in place adequately supported you. We raised that this must be done as a matter of urgency due to possible amendments needing to occur ahead of Semester 2 exams.
  • Senate Effectiveness Review  - There was a lengthy discussion around changes to the Senior Appointment Committee. Discussions were around if there should be a maximum term? How is a member reappointed at the end of term?  Francesco reinforced the importance of having students involved during the appointment process of these roles.  

Academic Exec

Thursday 4 February, I met with Academic Exec. This team is absolutely incredible!! All the faculty reps gave an update of any key issues that were emerging and any major updates from there latest FLTQC/ SLTQCs. We also discussed key issues such as the Academic Rep Review, No Detriment, Top Ten Updates, Augar Review.
We had a lengthy discussion around Semester 1 exams and assessments as well as the Future of the Bath Blend and how we can ensure that students are involved in these discussions as decisions start to be made over what next academic year will look like. There was also a conversation around the planning of Academic Council which will be happening on the 25th February (more details to follow soon!).

Rep of the Month!

This week we launched our new scheme Rep of the Month. Extremely grateful for everyone in the SU who has helped to make this happen!
This scheme is designed to recognise all the fantastic work our Academic Reps are doing and highlight those reps who have gone above and beyond in supporting their peers.

Our first Rep of the Month is Kirsty Carotti (Department of Computer Science) find out more of the fantastic work Kirsty has done this month here. 

SU Top Ten 

On Monday morning we met with Senior Management to check in with the progress made towards our Top Ten priorities. We discussed decolonisation, lecture capture and placement students. It is great to see how much progress has been made in some areas and to discuss the next steps in order to keep the ball rolling. You can find more on the top ten issues I am working on with the Pro-Vice Chancellor of Learning and Teaching here. 

Resilient Curriculum 

Resilient Curriculum is a group of different stakeholders that was put together at the beginning of the pandemic, it continues to meet regularly and we discuss the Future of the Bath Blend, timetabling, software developments and many more emerging issues. This week under Students' Union buisness I raised the feedback from our exam survey (you can find out more here), feedback from academic reps on study space and digital priorities. 

I hope you're all safe and well! Keep being fabulous! 

As always if there are any questions feel free to drop me a message at sueducation@bath.ac.uk.