SU Education Officer - Helen

Diary of an Education Officer | Entry 05 | 20 August 2026 | 

Coming back for a second year has made this summer quite a different one. Last year was all introductions, inductions, and trying to figure out how everything worked. This year, instead of starting from scratch, I’ve been able to pick up where I left off, get stuck into some new projects, and spend a lot of time looking ahead to what this year might bring. It’s been a while, so before I get too far into the new term, I thought I’d say hi, and yap a bit about what’s gone on over the summer!

A big part of my summer has been watching the new Officer team settle into their roles. There have been plenty of questions and lots of learning on the go, and they’ve all thrown themselves into their new roles, which has been so amazing to see. There’s something really exciting about being around people who are full of ideas and enthusiasm for the things they want to change, and it’s definitely rubbed off on me a bit. Angus has been no exception; we've known each other for a while, but now that he's stepped into the President role we've been working much more closely together, and it's been lovely seeing him make the role his own. Somehow, though, I think it's only made his ability to mog even stronger?

One of the most significant things we’ve been getting stuck into is choosing our Top 10 priorities for 2026/27. While we haven't finalised the list quite yet, we're all super excited to share it with you soon. As I learned from last year, choosing the Top 10 is a lengthy process with many consultations and deliberations. We’ve been going through surveys, TWST, SUmmit standpoints, all the things you've been telling us over the last year, and, heck, even the things we’ve overheard on the bus, trying to work out what issues really matter to students most.

For education, turning all of that into just two priorities has been a challenge. There’s so much going on, and plenty of things I’d happily spend another year fighting for. A lot of my summer has therefore been spent catching up with university colleagues, finding out where different pieces of work have got to, and going back through your feedback. This has inevitably involved spending a concerning amount of time with far too many tabs open, with our assessment regulations, codes of practice, sector guidance, examples from other universities, committee papers, meeting notes... all while trying to piece together what’s changed over the last year, where the opportunities are now, and how all of those different pieces can connect.

I've found myself coming back to deferred assessment and late submission penalties a lot in the process. They might not have the shiny Top 10 branding anymore, but they certainly haven't lost my attention. Both issues touch so many different parts of University policy and practice that meaningful change was always going to take time. Going back through them over the summer has given me a much clearer sense of how far those projects have come and what still needs to happen next. After a few conversations, I'm feeling more positive about deferred assessment. Late submission penalties, on the other hand, are looking like they'll need a bit more persistence; one positive development, though, has been some academic staff getting in touch following last year's campaign because they want to be part of the conversation. There's still plenty of work to do, but I'm excited to see where we can get both of them this year.

Anyway... education policy might have taken up a fair chunk of my summer, but it hasn't been the whole story. Tash set up an Officer Minecraft server, which has become a surprisingly regular part of our evenings. As someone who spends at least part of every summer playing Minecraft anyway, it wasn't exactly a difficult sell for me. If nothing else, it's been a very literal interpretation of "team-building", and is certainly a welcome change from this time last year, when pretty much all of my free time was dedicated to dissertation writing.

If you want the full DL on what I’m working on this year (on education, not minecraft xoxo), you can have a nose at my priorities page. I’ll be keeping that updated as things develop, and I’ll also be doing some more detailed blogs throughout the year on the bigger bits of work, so I won’t try and cram everything into this one post!

I can’t wait to see what we can get done this year. Thank you for giving me the chance to come back and do it all again <3

With love,
Helen xoxo