Hello lovely people! Yet another wrap up blog post – this is to cover the final update on this years Top 10 items, and to give you a plain explanation of each point.
Inclusive Teaching Policy
- ‘Inclusive teaching & assessment’ workstream established under the Inclusive Education Steering Group
The “Inclusive Education Steering Group” is a large group setting up different projects to help ensure education as bath is inclusive and accessible for all students. It has a specific focus on disabled and neurodiverse students, and what the University needs to do under the 2010 Equality Act, as well what is general good practice, informed by students wants and needs.
Part of this steering group is “Inclusive Teaching & Assessment”. This covers the development of inclusive assessment principles and guidance (especially for group work and oral assessment), as well as the development of inclusive teaching principles, policy, and guidance (including toolkits, training, and good practice/monitoring).
- The workstream is developing a Framework for Anticipatory Approach, a Reasonable Adjustments Policy, & Case studies and support for staff, to be completed by the end of AY25-26
“Anticipatory approach” means that inclusive practice becomes standard practice, so students should be able to access some general help without having to declare or evidence disability.
- CLT creation of a new resource for staff to enhance the consistency of approaches to Group Work, including guidance on inclusivity in this context
The “CLT” is the Centre for Learning and Teaching – they’re basically the people who teach lecturers how to teach and other skills – kinda like how we have the Skills Centre as students
We know that group work can be especially problematic for students as you need your reasonable adjustments, but these need to fit in with people who may not have your adjustments, and you may not feel confident explaining to them what your adjustments are.
Therefore, the CLT is determining how to put these reasonable adjustments in place for group work, as well as helping identify which ones may be useful in different contexts.
- Student DAP survey will be implemented from this summer to monitor the effectiveness of DAP implementation
Way back, I took a paper on DAPs (Disability Access Plans) to Education Advisory Board. Students told us a lot of useful data, and one of them is that implementation of DAPs can be super varied – both across and within faculties.
This summer, the disability service is putting out a survey to all students with DAPs. This survey will be to check in how your DAPs are being adhered to (or not) and will help the disability team identify where there are issues. This could be, for example, if there are more issues in one faculty/department. From this, they can then make interventions to tackle this directly.
Academic Rights
- ‘Additional considerations’ and ‘DAP Enhancement’ workstreams established under the Inclusive Education Steering Group
As mentioned above, (but repeating in case you skipped to this bit!) - The Inclusive Education Steering Group is a large group setting up different projects to help ensure education at bath is inclusive and accessible for all students. It has a specific focus on disabled and neurodiverse students, and what the University needs to do under the 2010 Equality Act, as well what is general good practice, informed by students wants and needs.
“Additional Considerations” covers “the development of additional considerations support framework” – basically, this means reviewing things for when stuff goes wrong, like the IMC process. This isn’t the same as reasonable adjustments – as it usually covers things that happen post-assessment, rather than pre-assessment.
“DAP Enhancement” covers a whole range of projects around disability action plans (DAPs) both long and short term. This includes how to report when things go wrong, better guidance for lecturers about putting adjustments in place, and making sure that this work can continue long term.
- SU Academic Rights webpages created and promoted
On the SU website, there is a webpage that covers your rights, alongside the documentation they are related to – such as reasonable adjustments being part of the 2010 Equality Act, or being able to appeal your grades as part of University Regulation 17.
- Academic Rep resources published in SU blog posts
These sat on the Academic Rep Teams for a hot minute, but there are a whole host of resources on the Education Officer blog in plain English, including
- SUmmit standpoint on IMCs and extensions discussed and approved
This standpoint stated that “The SU believes that the University should amend its IMC and extension policies and processes and standardise these across departments in accordance with its EDI Commitments.”
This provides student voice to back up the current work of the Inclusive Teaching Steering Group, and a full update is on the standpoint update blog.
- Agreement to the creation of a new University signposting page
This point means that the University website would have a ‘landing page’ of a whole host of signposting resources to make sure you know where to go when you have an issues. This is currently in the scoping stage to make sure any and every issue is covered, as well as determining who is responsible for keeping it up to date.
Until then, I have my own DIY ones! One specific to assessment issues, and a more general one
- Creation of a new Visio resource to support staff with student signposting regarding 'Additional Considerations' (IMCs etc)
A visio is like a flowchart software, and this is currently being reviewed so it is as easy to follow as possible. It shows the paths both staff and students can take when students come to you with issues, and has an amazing level of nuance. It is currently super tangled and intricate, so is not yet set to be for students.
Ideally, an interactive version of this will be set up so that it is clearer to follow for all – including one in more plain language for students.