Category: Students

  • With the power of knowledge – for the world

    With the power of knowledge – for the world

    I went along to AHUA conference on Tuesday, and saw a fascinating presentation from Esa Hämäläinen, who’s the Dir­ector of Ad­min­is­tra­tion at the University of Helsinki.

    The university has easily one of my favourite origin stories – it was established by a 13-year-old girl who the world came to know as Queen Christina of Sweden.

    It also has a cracking set of values, some of which appear now to be the sort of thing that’s banned by the Office for Students in England.

    In 2015, under Prime Minister Juha Sipilä’s administration, the government announced a €500 million cut to higher education budgets in Finland.

    That followed a previous €200 million reduction and included freezing the university index, which had adjusted funding based on inflation.

    As a result, universities like the University of Helsinki had to lay off hundreds of staff – about 400 in the case of Helsinki.

    There’s a lot of different ways of calculating staff-student ratios that often make comparisons problematic – but one of the things I was pondering on the train was how they are doing what they’re doing on an academic SSR of 22.2:1 – significantly higher than in the past, and significantly higher than the UK.

    For the avoidance of doubt, I’m not searching for a blueprint on how to shed academic staff. But if cuts are going to rain down anyway, understanding how other systems work beyond “Oh look they have ECTS too” I think (hope) can help.

    I say this partly because a lot of people I talk to are experiencing or implementing plain and simple “reduce the number of optional modules” strategies based on the efficiency of more/large/core – which most research suggests students don’t like, and I suspect is a probable cause of during and post-degree regret.

    What’s fascinating is that rather than just accept the inevitability of a thinner student academic experience as a result of those cuts, the university evolved its Bildung philosophy to make a whole range of scaffolding changes to cope on fewer staff. And I’ve spent a long train journey trying to work out how.

    They call a Twix a Raider

    First some Twix/Raider basics. There’s 180 ECTS for a Bachelor’s degree, designed to be taken over 3 years. No difference to the UK there (unless we count Scotland) other than students can take longer to obtain those 180, supported via the maintenance system to do so – although universities across Europe are variously under government pressure/incentives to speed that up a bit.

    It’s also worth noting that for various reasons, the average entry age for bachelor’s degree programmes in Finland is 24, compared to an OECD average of 22. We have (along with Belgium) the youngest freshers and the fastest completion times in the OECD. That we then beat Belgium on completion rates often causes me to reflect on whether that’s a sign of success or a signal of conveyor-belt trapping, a cause of mental health problems and a driver of lower of academic standards – but I digress.

    What we’d typically call “modules” in the UK are referred to as “courses” in Finland. As for what we’d call a “programme” or “subject pathway”, it varies – but at Helsinki, undergraduate students complete two core “modules”, each comprising a collection of courses, one for “Basic” studies (what we’d think of as a UG first year), and one for “Intermediate” studies (what we’d think of as a second and third year).

    These two modules are each awarded a single grade on a 1–5 scale, and it’s these two grades that appear on the student’s degree transcript.

    So, instead of the UK-style baffling algorithm of final grades weighted in different ways across multiple modules, students in Finland receive just two key grades on their transcript – simple, succinct, and arguably more transparent, along with the pathways taken within them. Additionally, students can receive a separate distinction mark for their dissertation. A nice touch.

    The University of Helsinki is Finland’s flagship institution – huge in size, high in status, and widely seen as the country’s de facto elite public university. And yet, intriguingly, there are only 32 undergraduate degree programmes on offer across its 11 faculties. Within each of these programmes, students have considerable freedom to create their own study path, but the structure is strikingly straightforward – 11 faculties, 32 programmes, no sub-departments, and no sprawling web of hundreds of “course” leaders.

    That also means 32 academic communities, with 32 academic societies that students join to get support from eachother and engage in things – a nice size that avoids having to find 1500 course reps or trying to sustain a meaningful single student community from 40,000 students – all supported by 32 sets of student tutors, of course.

    The mother of all science

    Let’s take Philosophy as an example. To complete the degree, students have to earn 90 ECTS credits in Philosophy-specific study, 75 elective credits, and 15 from general studies. That structure encourages both specialisation and breadth.

    Oh, and a quick technical note – the standard assumption in Finland is that 1 ECTS credit represents 27 hours of student effort. In the UK, by contrast, it’s 20. The reasons are dull and bureaucratic (that didn’t stop me working out why) but worth bearing in mind when comparing intensity.

    First it’s worth digging into the 90 credits earned in Philosophy. These are split into two main “modules” – Basic Studies (30 credits) and Intermediate Studies (60 credits). As I said earlier, the former corresponds to first-year study, and the latter covers second and third year.

    The 15 credits of general studies are interesting. 2 credits are awarded for a reflective planning exercise where students work with an academic to design their personalised study plan – a kind of “choose your own adventure” approach that signals a departure from spoon-feeding from day one. That’s assessed on a pass/fail basis.

    There are also three credits for digital skills training, delivered via self-study – two credits within the Basic Studies and one within Intermediate. Again, this is assessed pass/fail and serves both to build capability and to ensure students are confident in using the university’s largely self-service systems.

    Then there are 10 credits dedicated to communication and language skills. These span both written and oral communication, include components in both Finnish and Swedish, and feature academic writing training – often completed in groups. All of this is, again, pass/fail.

    What I find interesting about these is a recognition that designing a bespoke study programme (that can change over time), along with IT and communication skills, are really about becoming a student – here they are recognised as taking actual time.

    In the Basic Studies module, students take six standard “intro to…” courses worth 5 credits each. These are relatively straightforward in design, delivery, and assessment. Each course is normally assessed via a single exam, although in most cases students can opt to complete coursework instead.

    In each degree programme, 60 subject-based credits – what we’d call second and third year content – then form the Intermediate “module”. Of these, five are allocated to the thesis (dissertation), while the remainder is typically made up of 5-credit courses, offering students considerable choice and customisation.

    To move into intermediate, there’s a 0 credit “maturity” assessment so students aren’t moving there until they’re ready. Then of the 60 Intermediate credits, 30 are structured as follows. 5 credits are awarded for a proseminar, which functions like a structured, small-group academic workshop:

    At the beginning of the course, students are given a review of the basics of academic writing and how to critically review and oppose an academic work. How to formulate a research question is discussed and advice is given on how to obtain source material. The student is then expected to formulate a research question in the form of a short abstract which is then reviewed and discussed by the teacher and other students. Then a period of research and essay writing takes place where the opportunity for supervision is given. At the end of the course, the student must present an essay for review by an opponent and oppose another student’s essay.

    5 credits are for a Candidate intuition seminar, and that looks like this:

    At the beginning of the course, students receive a refresher course in the basics of academic writing and how to critically review and oppose an academic paper. At the beginning of the course, there is also a discussion on how to formulate a research question and participants are given advice on how to obtain source material. The student is then expected to formulate a research question in the form of a short abstract which is then reviewed and discussed by the teacher and other students. This is followed by a period of research and essay writing where opportunities for supervision are provided. At the end of the course, the student must present an essay for review by an opponent and act as an opponent in the processing of another student essay.

    Then as well as the dissertation (thesis) itself there’s 5 credits for a compulsory internship (pass/fail) and 5 credits for preparing to apply what you did on your degree to the world, and that looks like this (also pass/fail):

    This gives the student the opportunity to independently explore the individual, growing competence that the degree provides and the importance of competence in a changing society and working life. The aim is for the student to become familiar with and reflect on the ways in which the unique competence provided by studies in philosophy, in collaboration also with studies in other subjects, which the student has chosen, can be relevant to our lives, to working life, society and the world.

    It can be completed in various different ways, in consultation with the responsible teacher – collaboration, independent studies and observation and reflection tasks related to other modules. An e-portfolio or course diary can also be included.

    And then finally there’s a 5 credit compulsory, and in Philosophy that’s a classic module on History of Philosophy.

    For the other 30 credits of Intermediate there’s then a collection of “classic” academic modules again, often in pathway clusters.

    So via the 60 “subject” ECTS points and the 15 “general studies” ECTS points, that’s 105 ECTS accounted for. And here’s the thing. The 75 left are acquired by picking the sort of stuff I’ve talked about above, but they must be from other degree programmes!

    That means that a Philosophy student that wants to do the basics in statistics or whatever can access what might be regarded as another course’s core modules. That obviously means a large amount of interdisciplinary stuff happening, with quite a lot of interesting student mixing happening too. It also means that the “courses” are highly efficient.

    Oh, and also if you do Erasmus, or learn skills at work, or as a volunteer, or whatever…

    You can receive credit for studies you have completed at higher education institutions either in Finland (universities, the National Defence University, and universities of applied sciences) or abroad. The studies must have been successfully completed.

    You can also get credit for skills you have acquired in working life, positions of trust or hobbies, for example. In this case, we are talking about skills acquired in a way other than formal education.

    A time for reflection

    At this point down the rabbit hole I see small, simple-to-design and simple-to-assess academic modules (without having to cram in 100 agendas), plenty of pass/fail credit (less grading means less pressure for everyone), and lots of focus on choice and independent study. And an actual recognition that skills development matters without it always having to be crammed into optional activity students don’t have time for, or academic modules.

    Just a note on grading. One of the things happening here is that grading itself is less complex (5 is Excellent, 4 is Very good, 3 is Good, 2 is Satisfactory, 1 is Passable and 0 is Fail), there’s less of it to do in general, and the ability to re-take assessments in a funding system that allows for setbacks reduces the need for extenuating circumstances and extensions and so on – so the stakes are less high, less often.

    So broadly what I take from it all is:

    1. The hidden curriculum is less hidden
    2. Academic staff have a simpler life
    3. The credit system overall creates rounded graduates
    4. The design reduces unnecessary pressure on students
    5. Some of the credit prepares students for graded credit instead of it all being graded
    6. There are lots of personalisation options
    7. There’s a much more meaningful degree transcript
    8. There’s more assessment choice
    9. There’s less pressure to get students through at top speed
    10. There’s less high-stakes assessment in general
    11. There are “millions” of potential (what we would call) “programmes” without the coordination overhead, walled gardens and spoonfeeding of (what we would call) programmes
    12. There’s less traditional academic “teaching” going on here, but what there is is more efficient and more straightfoward

    Crucially, lots of the modules I’ve seen are from research-active academics – whose research area probably wouldn’t sustain a whole “programme” in our systems – but whose little chunk of credit sits neatly and sustainably in this system.

    So what could my little GWR trip down that a Finnish rabbit hole all mean?

    First of all, if I was the higher education minister (haha) I’d require there to be no more than the number and titles of QAA’s subjects in its benchmark statements as the degrees on offer as a condition of access to the loan book.

    On the emerging unit of resource, it’s going to end up impossible to innovate if not – getting new programmes approved will always be based on what marketeers think will “sell” – and doing simplifying in this way would force more “choose your own adventure” without the overhead of running and marketing a “programme”. I also take the view that saying to a student on an Open Day that there will be quite a bit of elective choice – when everyone internally knows that a lot of the choice will have gone by the time the VR round is done and that student is in their third year – is pretty immoral (and almost certainly unlawful).

    In addition, I also suspect the “choose your own adventure within some parameters” approach would reduce some of the regret we see in the UK. Even if students enrol with a strong disciplinary orientation (partly because of the ridiculous specialisation we force onto students at Level 1-3), a topline reading of the Bristol “regret” research is that either during or after the degree, students clock how unhelpful the UK’s obsession with narrowing is. (There’s no equivalent “regret” question in the Finnish NSS, but lots of interesting stuff that suggests less regret nonetheless.)

    You’ll have seen that much of the credit is about what we might generically call study skills – via our Belong project, we have unpublished national polling evidence (that will be on the site soon) that suggests that in general, students often regard what is on offer in the UK as too generic, and when it’s optional and non-credit bearing, other demands on their time tend to win out. This appears to be a system that has solved some of that.

    The rattle through above, by the way, was me diving into a Philosophy degree – but even in subjects where we might usually expect to see a more programmatic approach via more compulsory modules, structures and weighting aren’t hugely dissimilar – here’s the generic Bachelor’s in Science, for example.

    Plenty of the “choice” on offer is about both a dissertation and extra credit in the run-up to said dissertation – where there isn’t teaching on the thing the student wants to study per se but students can access academics who might be research-active in that. And some of the other choice options are doubtless constrained by timetable – but that’s eased somewhat by some of the credit being acquired “centrally”, some in self-directed mode, and a maintenance system that allows the average duration to be over 3.5 years. Clash? Take it next semester.

    Ultimately what I’m struck by, though, is the simplicity of the whole thing – which is not obvious on first look. I’m not saying that it’s simple to design the study plan or to even visualise the whole degree (either by diving into the website or reading this account), but I am saying that a lot of the tasks carried out by students or academics are simpler – where the focus is on academic learning and development (with quite sophisticated pedagogical research, innovation and support) rather than endless assessment, complex degree algorithms and multiple agendas.

    To the extent to which you can see a graduate attributes framework here, it’s delivered via multiple types of credit acquisition, rather than every attribute being loaded into every fat module.

    What is, though, absolutely undeniable is that a Chemistry graduate in this system has done less… Chemistry. Maybe the Royal Society of Chemistry (and all of the other PSRBs) would have things to say about that. But they’re nonetheless demonstrably rounded graduates (without a lot of the rounding depending on inaccessible extracurriculars) – and in a mass system, how many Bachelors graduates all need as much Chemistry individually anyway?

    Put another way, if a dwindling number of students want to study just Chemistry, and this system sustains a large number of Chemistry modules that are available both to those who do and those and don’t, isn’t that better for society overall?

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  • Data breach affects 10,000 Western Sydney University students – Campus Review

    Data breach affects 10,000 Western Sydney University students – Campus Review

    Students from Western Sydney University (WSU) have had their data accessed and likely posted to the dark web in a data breach event.

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  • Trusting students and reducing barriers by abolishing penalties for late work

    Trusting students and reducing barriers by abolishing penalties for late work

    Universities, wonderful as they are, can be very complicated.

    The way that we operate can often be confusing for students, not least because some of our expectations and traditions are hidden and unspoken – even more so for students who enter higher education from historically underrepresented backgrounds.

    Indeed, revealing the so-called hidden curriculum in higher education is a common means by which we try to eliminate gaps in access and outcome.

    But there are also times when, as a sector, we should be more critical of the way we do things, whether those practices are hidden or unhidden.

    Here we want to share an example of what happens when you challenge orthodoxy, and why we think we should do this more often.

    Assessment penalties

    If you spend some time reviewing UK university policies on assessment and examination, you will find that it is almost universally the case that there are penalties associated with late or non-submission.

    Typically, this involves a deduction of marks. Sometimes late submissions will be capped at a pass, other times the deduction is linked to the degree of lateness. Similarly, students who fail to submit an assessment or sit an exam will often find that their next attempt at resit will be capped.

    Of course, institutions do recognise that there may be lots of good reasons why students cannot meet deadlines, and so alongside these penalties, we also have Extenuating or Mitigating Circumstances processes. In short, if a student tells us the reason they were late or could not submit, then they may be exempted from those penalties if the reasons meet our established criteria.

    What is far harder to find is any robust explanation, in written form, of why these penalties exist in the first place. There is much received wisdom (as you would expect, for a sector so steeped in tradition) for why we have these penalties, which – in our experience – typically falls into two categories.

    The first justification is about using penalties to disincentivise lateness or non-submission. If students know they will lose marks, that will ensure that most submit on time. The second justification is about fairness. If you submit late, you are getting more time than other students, so you should not receive a higher mark as a result of this presumed advantage. Each of these justifications could be debated endlessly, but we don’t intend to do that here.

    Questioning the received wisdom

    The reason we began to question the wisdom of capping students who submitted their work late, or who needed to use their resit attempt, was prompted by insights which emerged from work led by our SU. Over the past few years, our SU has been supporting students who needed to complete resits by calling them to ensure that they understood what they needed to get done, and had access to the support they needed. In itself, this initiative has been very impactful, and we are seeing year-on-year improvements in student pass rates.

    However, this initiative also gave our students a chance to share their own insights into why they found themselves having to resit assessments. In plain terms, our students were telling us – we are overwhelmed.

    Students who did not submit assignments were not being tactical or lazy, or trying to gain an advantage over others. They were simply not able to get all of the work done that we required in the time given – despite substantial efforts we have already made over the last few years to ensure we are not over-assessing.

    At the same time, we had been aware for some time that our students were using our Extenuating Circumstances (ECs) process extensively. Thousands of valid claims were made by students each year, which we processed and – for the substantial majority – supported.

    This meant that our students who were submitting late or completing resits were not, for the most part, actually being subjected to marking caps. Perhaps we could have stopped there, reflecting that this reflects a system working as it was designed to work: students with valid reasons for late submission should not be capped; we had a system which allowed students to make such claims to avoid penalties; and it seemed the system was well-used.

    What we could not shake, however, was a sense that this all seemed quite unnecessary – layers of bureaucracy needing to exist to ensure that students who did not deserve to have an academic penalty applied to their mark, while the very existence of the possibility of this penalty was entirely our own decision. We asked ourselves what would happen if we simply removed marking penalties for late and non-submissions? If students were awarded a mark based solely on the content of their submission? If we created a late submission window for every deadline, and allowed students to manage their own time?

    We took this idea to a panel of our students, and were intrigued to hear their views. Overwhelmingly, they felt this would be a good idea. The stress of having to apply for extra time, often close to a deadline if some unexpected problem had arisen which threatened their ability to submit on time, was something students felt would be alleviated by this change. They also reflected that, for the most part, students are inherently motivated to try and meet their deadlines, and aren’t simply trying to game the system and find loopholes.

    Yes but

    Concerns about this change came from internal and external consultation with colleagues. While in principle wanting to support the idea, it was difficult to shake the concerns that 1) without a penalty for late submission, students would simply treat the last day of the late submission window as their new deadline, and 2) if resits were not penalised with a cap, many students would choose to not submit at the first attempt and defer their submission to a later date.

    We also had to consider, if these outcomes came to pass, the impact on staff workloads and marking turnaround times. With these concerns in mind, taking a careful approach to how we communicated changes to students and putting in place contingencies for managing impacts on workloads, we ultimately decided to take the plunge, and at the start of the 24/25 academic year we removed marking caps for late and non-submission. Then we kept a close eye on what happened next.

    What happened next is that our students did what we believed and hoped they would.

    Across the first semester this year, we have actually seen a small decline in the percentage of late submissions – with only 12.22% of work submitted being submitted within the 5 working day late submission window.

    All other work was submitted on or before the main deadline. By comparison, in 23/24 12.32% was submitted late, and 12.41% in 22/23, so it is perhaps more accurate to say that there has been no change in late submissions.

    But this was, of course, accompanied by a dramatic reduction in the number of times that students have had to request the option to submit late through our ECs process (and then worry about whether this request would be supported).

    These claims have reduced by 154 per cent, thereby also alleviating a huge administrative burden on our colleagues who have to process these claims. In short, students who in previous years needed extra time have been able to access it without having to ask, and removing the threat of a marking penalty has not increased the proportion of students submitting their work late.

    The concern that if students were not capped for non-submission then they might defer sitting exams has also proven unfounded. In fact, we have seen a 5 per cent increase in the number of students attempting their exam first time. In numerical terms, we had 370 fewer students failing to attend an exam during our January exam period.

    Student success

    While it is reassuring to have found that this change in policy has not led to any significant change in students’ engagement with deadlines and assessments, more importantly we also wanted to know whether our students were more likely to succeed.

    The data quoted above could have masked another issue, whereby students who did submit work were no more likely to submit past the deadline, but perhaps more students were not submitting at the first attempt and instead were deferring to their resit period.

    To explore this issue, we compared first time pass rates for first semester assessments to the previous academic year. This has revealed a 4.3 per cent improvement in pass rates at first attempt, with the biggest improvement of 6 per cent for our first-year undergraduates.

    When looked at by student characteristic, we have also seen the greatest degree of improvement for our ABMO students and our male students, who have historically been more likely to not pass assessments at their first attempt.

    Statistics aside, in human terms, this change in policy (which sits within a wider context of strategic initiatives we have in place to improve student outcomes for all of our students) is associated with us having 604 more students who have passed at their first attempt this year, than we would have had if pass rates had stayed the same as last year.

    With regard to concerns about the impact of this change on staff workloads, having more students passing first time also means a reduction in resit marking later in the academic year.

    Complex challenges

    For those interested in the practicalities of our new approach, we still have an Extenuating Circumstances procedure, but this is now intended as a mechanism for students to let us know about more complex challenges where a few days extra time would be inadequate to help them successfully engage with their assessments.

    We have also made clear to students that late submitted work is still recorded as being late (but with no marking penalty applied), and if students continually submit work late we will – in a supportive manner – reach out to find out if they need more or different support from us.

    We will continue to monitor the impact of these changes, in particular to understand whether there is any overall impact on student outcomes over the full year and beyond – particularly outcome gaps for different groups of students. But so far, our experience has been that making a change which initially seemed quite radical has simply served to make life easier for our students when they are already working so hard to access and participate in education.

    It is also important to recognise that extra time in itself is not a panacea for improving student outcomes, despite it being the most common form of adjustment offered to disabled students.

    By making this change in our approach, we were simply trying to make this very simple accommodation immediately available to any student who needs it, for whatever reason.

    This massively reduces a large administrative burden on the university, and frees us up to focus on more personalised forms of support, for students who need more than a few extra days to complete an assignment.

    The reason we are keen to share this with the sector is that we think it is a good example of how we can better support our students by challenging our own self-imposed orthodoxy. It is great to think that we have been able to reduce the anxiety associated with missing deadlines, without having to worry that our students will cynically use this change to game the system.

    We strongly believe that our students are inherently motivated to engage with their studies and do the best they can, and we think it is our job to make sure we are not getting in the way of them doing that.

    If, in the process, we can cut out unnecessary administration and bureaucracy for ourselves, then so much the better.

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  • Communicate, repeat and compensate – OfS issues principles over industrial action

    Communicate, repeat and compensate – OfS issues principles over industrial action

    University and College Union (UCU) staged a national marking and assessment boycott (MAB) – delaying graduations, job starts, and transitions to postgraduate study.

    UCU members took the action to tackle disputes including headline pay, gender and minority ethnic pay gaps, staff workload and the casualisation across the sector.

    Whenever there’s industrial action, the hope in Carlow St is that students will see the bigger picture – but this time around, at least for some students in some universities, the impact was significant. At the time, UCU estimated that 30,000 students were unable to graduate on time or were affected in some other way.

    In the aftermath, the Commons Education Committee held a mini inquiry to investigate the impact – it wrote to the then Conservative government to raise concerns about the lack of data, the role of the Office for Students (OfS) and the lack of clarity over students’ rights, and the eventual (post election) reply was predictably weak.

    Now, two years on, OfS has published research that was commissioned to develop an understanding of what the impacts were from a student perspective – along with guidance for institutions on protecting the interests of students during industrial action, and a webinar event planned for mid-May on the regulator’s expectations on how providers should support students before, during and after industrial action.

    OfS first ran a text-based focus group via YouGov in July 2024 that discussed short- and long-term impacts, what information they got from their institutions, and how those institutions handled the situation. A quantitative survey followed that gathered 763 responses (279 undergrads, 284 postgrads, and 200 graduates) that had been studying at impacted institutions during the boycott. You’d not be diving into demographic splits on that sample size.

    The polling drilled into how the industrial action affected their academic lives – immediately and over time – along with the comms they received from their universities, and how they viewed their rights as students.

    On the top line

    In a “topline” results report and associated student insights brief, we learn that the industrial action caused delayed or unmarked coursework (53 per cent) and exams (46 per cent), reduced lecture time (68 per cent), and decreased contact with staff.

    Most impacted students reported negative effects on academic work quality (49 per cent) and grades (42 per cent). The MAB’s psychological impact was significant – with 41 per cent reporting increased stress, 32 per cent experiencing poorer mental health, and 15-18 per cent noting negative effects on their social lives.

    One student is quoted as follows:

    I was waiting for the result of a resit that the progression of my masters’ depended upon but it was delayed so much I had to pay for the next module and would not get the results until halfway through.

    International students faced particular challenges, with visa uncertainties arising from delayed results and qualifications. Some students couldn’t attend graduation ceremonies because their results came too late:

    I didn’t manage to get graduation tickets in time due to how late results were, so I didn’t have a graduation ceremony.

    Communication varied considerably across institutions – with most updates coming through emails (65 per cent) rather than during lectures (22 per cent). Students rated information from individual lecturers (78 per cent satisfaction) more highly than university-wide communications (64 per cent satisfaction).

    Many students in the focus group:

    …were not told which of their modules would be affected, or when they would get their marks and feedback.

    OfS says that the institutional response was inconsistent across the higher education sector. Students directly affected by the MAB expressed significantly higher dissatisfaction (54 per cent) with their university’s handling of the situation compared to unaffected students (18 per cent). Just 46 per cent of affected students received alternatives or compensation, primarily through “no detriment” policies adapted from those developed during the Covid era (26 per cent).

    Financial compensation and rights awareness was low – with only 30 per cent knowing they could request it, and a mere 9 per cent successfully receiving any. The boycott also negatively impacted perceptions of education quality (38 per cent reporting a decrease) and value for money (41 per cent reporting a decrease), with one student noting:

    I ended up with a [postgraduate diploma] instead of my MSc, and I came out with a merit instead of a distinction.

    The brief does note that universities employed various mitigation strategies, including awarding interim degree classifications, guaranteeing minimum classifications, improving mental health support, reallocating marking responsibilities, and engaging with employers to request flexibility for affected graduates.

    Were they OK? Some students felt their institutions responded well, others reported that the experience contributed to decisions not to pursue further studies or work in higher education, with 42 per cent reporting decreased trust in their universities.

    Behind the screams

    Much of that won’t come as a surprise – although the sheer scale of the suggested impacts, as well as their depth and breadth on individual students (esp rer mental health and international students) ought to invigorate debates about the morality of the tactic, and how universities handled it to limit legal or financial exposure.

    Arguably of more interest is the letter and “regulatory statement” that accompanies the publication from John Blake, Director for Fair Access and Participation.

    Re-stressing that it’s not OfS’ role to intervene in labour disputes, Blake expresses concern about how strikes and the MAB disrupted students’ academic experiences, notes inconsistencies in institutional responses, sets out an aim to establish clearer expectations for fair treatment for all students in any similar future scenarios.

    And there’s a fascinating section on compensation:

    We want to be clear that we don’t see compensation as a substitute for the holistic experience of intellectual, professional and personal development that a student should expect from their higher education. Institutions should continue to focus their efforts during industrial action on delivering the education that students expect. The inclusion of an expectation in relation to compensation does, though, reflect the rights students have under the Consumer Rights Act 2015.

    Given that many students got neither, the clear implication is that a large number of students should have received both.

    Six principles

    The core of the guidance letter then manifests in six principles:

    1. Providers must remove contractual terms that inappropriately limit liability to students during staff industrial action or other circumstances within the provider’s control, as these breach consumer protection law.
    2. Effective contingency plans must be developed to minimise disruption to students during industrial action, ensuring plans are actionable, timely, and protect qualification integrity.
    3. When implementing contingency plans, providers should prioritise education delivery by: first avoiding impacts on students; if not possible, making minimal changes; and if necessary, providing timely repeat performance of missed teaching or assessment.
    4. Fair compensation must be paid when contingency plans fail to deliver promised aspects of student experience, particularly for missed teaching without timely replacement, delayed assessment marking, or delayed progression decisions affecting jobs or visa status.
    5. Clear communication with students is essential, including transparent information about rescheduled activities or compensation, with proactive identification of eligible students rather than requiring them to submit claims.
    6. Providers must submit reportable events about industrial action to the Office for Students (OfS) in accordance with established regulatory requirements.

    It’s an interesting list. The first one on the inclusion of industrial action in so-called “force majeure” clauses in student contracts – which limit liability for events that are outside of the predictability or control of of providers – is a long-running passive-aggressive row between the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and OfS on one side, and providers on the other.

    OfS has previously published a referral to National Trading Standards involving the University of Manchester’s contract – but my spreadsheet suggests that there’s a large number of providers that either haven’t seen that, or are digging in for a battle over it.

    That may be partly because those sorts of clauses – and CMA’s advice on them (which OfS requires providers to pay “due regard to”) – are a key point of dispute in the ongoing Student Group Claim, the UCL portion of which won’t get to court until early 2026.

    From a student point of view, if those clauses shouldn’t exist, the snail’s pace of enforcement on this is as baffling as it is frustrating.

    There won’t be many providers that weren’t developing contingency plans, notwithstanding that they can always be improved – and the one-two-three-four punch of avoid, adjust, repeat or compensate reflects (and translates) the position under consumer law.

    Of course some will argue that a legal duty to undertake any/all of those steps under consumer law depends on those force majeure clauses not existing or being unlawful – and as it stands there’s a major silent standoff that’s unhelpful.

    Even if you just look at compensation, the survey fails to differentiate between compensation paid for breach of contract, and “goodwill” payments where no such breach has been accepted by providers. As far as I’m aware, the former was vanishingly rare.

    The other issue, of course, is with punch three of four – where university managements satisfy themselves that once a dispute is over, teaching or support is rescheduled “because we told them to”, despite the fact that most heads of department find it hard to actually implement those instructions with UCU members.

    The “proactive identification of eligible students” for “repeat performance” or compensation is interesting too – especially over the latter, providers have long relied on students having to make complaints in order to get redress. This not only depends on the breach of contract or not issue being resolved, it also raises questions for universities’ legal advisors and insurers about the relative risks of doing as John Blake says, or waiting for students to raise concerns.

    But as well as all of that, there’s three things we ought to be surprised not to see.

    What’s missing?

    For a set of documents seeped in the translation of consumer protection to a higher education setting, there’s nothing on the extent to which any alternative arrangements in a MAB – especially alternative arrangements over marking – should still be carried out with reasonable skill and care. Academic judgement can’t be challenged, but only if that judgement has been carried out in the way we might expect it to be by people who know their onions. That was a major issue in the dispute for plenty of students, even if it wasn’t a big issue in the polling.

    The second is the lack of answer to the questions raised both in the polling and by the Commons Education Committee – which concern students’ understanding of what their rights are. If OfS thinks that it can vaguely pressure providers into proactively identifying students entitled to wads of cash, it’s misunderstanding the countervailing pressures on providers in similar ways to those identified by Mills and Reeve over provider collapse. And as I often say on the site, good regulatory design considers how individuals come to understand (or access information) on their rights should they need to use them without having to access a regulator or complaints adjudicator – there’s nothing on any of that here.

    But the third is the lack of a clear link to the regulatory framework, and the lack of any enforcement carried out over what must amount to failings. If the guidance is grounded in OfS’ rules, students might well say “well what action have you taken given that the problems were widespread?”

    If it’s not grounded in OfS’ powers, providers might well say “well notwithstanding that we like to look nice, why would we magnify the efficacy of an industrial action tactic if we don’t really have to”.

    It’s all very well for OfS to be “give them guidance” mode, but over this set of issues the financial impacts of compliance with something that sounds contested, and partly voluntary, could be huge both in an individual dispute and in the long-term. That all (still) needs bringing to a head.

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  • Effective academic support requires good data transparency

    Effective academic support requires good data transparency

    Academic support for students is an essential component of their academic success. At a time when resources are stretched, it is critical that academic support structures operate as a well-oiled machine, where each component has a clearly defined purpose and operates effectively as a whole.

    We previously discussed how personal and pastoral tutoring, provided by academic staff, needs to be supplemented by specialist academic support. A natural next step is to consider what that specialist support could look like.

    A nested model

    We’ve identified four core facets of effective academic support, namely personal tutoring (advising/coaching/mentoring etc), the development of academic skills and graduate competencies, all supported by relevant student engagement data. The nested model below displays this framework.

    We also suggest two prerequisites to the provision of academic support.

    Firstly, a student must have access to information related to what academic support entails and how to access this. Secondly, a student’s wellbeing means that they can physically, mentally, emotionally and financially engage with their studies, including academic support opportunities.

    Figure 1: Academic support aspects within a student success nested model

    Focusing on academic support

    Personal tutoring has a central role to play within the curriculum and within academic provision more broadly in enabling student success.

    That said, “academic support” comprises much more than a personal tutoring system where students go for generic advice and support.

    Rather, academic support is an interconnected system with multiple moving parts tailored within each institution and comprising different academic, professional and third-space stakeholders.

    Yet academics remain fundamental to the provision of academic support given their subject matter expertise, industry knowledge and their proximity to students. This is why academics are traditionally personal tutors and historically, this is where the academic support model would have ended. Changes in student needs means the nature of personal tutoring has needed to be increasingly complemented by other forms of academic support.

    Skills and competencies

    Academic skills practitioners can offer rich insights in terms of how best to shape and deliver academic support.

    A broad conception of academic skills that is inclusive of academic literacies, maths, numeracy and stats, study skills, research and information literacy and digital literacy is a key aspect of student academic success. Student acquisition of these skills is complemented by integrated and purposeful involvement of academic skills practitioners across curriculum design, delivery and evaluation.

    Given regulatory focus on graduate outcomes, universities are increasingly expected to ensure that academic support prepares students for graduate-level employability or further study upon graduation. Much like academic skills practitioners, this emphasises the need to include careers and employability consultants in the design and delivery of integrated academic support aligned to the development of both transferable and subject-specific graduate competencies.

    Engaging data

    Data on how students are participating in their learning provides key insights for personal tutors, academic skills practitioners and colleagues working to support the development of graduate competencies.

    Platforms such as StREAM by Kortext enable a data-informed approach to working with students to optimise the provision of academic support. This holistic approach to the sharing of data alongside actionable insights further enables successful transition between support teams.

    Knowing where the support need is situated means that these limited human and financial resources can be directed to where support is most required – whether delivered on an individual or cohort basis. Moreover, targeted provision can be concentrated at relevant points over the academic year. Using engagement data contributes to efficiency drives through balancing the provision of information and guidance to all students. The evidence shows it’s both required and likely to prove effective.

    Academic support is increasingly complicated in terms of how different aspects overlap and interplay within a university’s student success ecosystem. Therefore, when adopting a systems-thinking approach to the design and delivery of academic support, universities must engage key stakeholders, primarily students, academic skills practitioners and personal tutors themselves.

    A priority should be ensuring varied roles of academic support providers are clearly defined both individually and in relation to each other.

    Similarly, facilitating the sharing of data at the individual student level about the provision of academic support should be prioritised to ensure that communication loops are closed and no students fall between service gaps.

    Given that academic support is evolving, we would welcome readers’ views of what additional aspects of academic support are necessary to student success.

    To find out more about how StREAM by Kortext can enable data-informed academic support at your institution, why not arrange a StREAM demonstration.

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  • It’s students that suffer when those supposed to protect them fail

    It’s students that suffer when those supposed to protect them fail

    24 hours after it published its (“summary”) report into the sudden closure of the Applied Business Academy (ABA), the Office for Students (OfS) published an insight brief on protecting the interests of students when universities and colleges close.

    When the regulator works with a closing provider, it says that it works with that provider and other bodies to try to reduce the impact on students.

    OfS’ report on ABA is notably quiet on the extent to which it has been successful there – we’ve no idea how many students were real, how many of those that were have successfully switched provider, how much (if any compensation) any of the impacted students have had, and so on.

    Nor has it talked about its success or otherwise in reducing the impact on students from the closure of ALRA drama school in 2022 or Schumacher College last Autumn.

    A number of campuses have closed in recent years – no idea on that, and if your course closes (or is cut or merged in a material way) OfS doesn’t even require providers to report that in, so it would neither know nor feature it on its “current closures” webpage (that plenty of students caught up in a closure will nevertheless find if they google “closed course office for students”).

    The other gap in knowledge thus far is the sorts of things that you might assume the regulator has noticed or done or considered in the run up to a closure. The learning is valuable – and so the new brief shares both its experience of closures and “near misses”, and the experiences of some of those directly involved.

    There’s helpful material on the impact on students, communication and record management, and how providers may be affected by the closure of subcontracted or validated delivery partners – and features anonymised quotes shared by senior managers and “a student” involved in institutional closures.

    Unexpected hits you between the eyes

    The note suggests that providers consistently underestimate the challenges and “resource-intensive nature” of closure processes – one contributor says:

    The challenge is underestimating the level of work and planning that are needed in different areas. Planning prior to a crisis developing can help the situation hugely.

    Financial complexities often catch institutions unprepared, with many discovering too late how their legal structure significantly impacts rescue options. OfS says that providers need to thoroughly understand their financial position, contractual obligations, and legal options well before any crisis occurs.

    Student data management are also a problem – incomplete or inadequate student records prove nearly useless when transfers become necessary, and data sharing agreements essential for transferring information to other institutions are often neglected until closure is imminent.

    The human impact on students is underestimated. Students face difficulties processing their options without timely information, and providers fail to recognise how closure disproportionately affects those with caring responsibilities, part-time employment, disabilities, or those on placements – all groups who cannot easily relocate. Accommodation arrangements create more complications, with some students locked into tenancy contracts.

    Communication challenges see providers struggling to balance early transparency against having finalised options – it says that many fail to develop clear, student-focused comms plans, resulting in confusion and poor decision-making among those affected.

    Validated and subcontractual partnerships demand special attention – with one leader admitting:

    Our mechanisms were too slow to identify the risks for those students.

    Many have failed to identify and plan for contingencies despite retaining significant responsibility for these students. And refunds and compensation frameworks are neglected too – the one student observes:

    We were told we could claim compensation for reasonable interim costs from our institution, but without clear or prompt guidance on what this could cover, it was hard to feel confident in making decisions.

    It also says that early stakeholder engagement with agencies like UCAS or the OIA (as well as proactive communication with OfS and any other relevant regulators) is critical – delays in those its seen until crisis is imminent miss valuable opportunities for support in protecting student interests.

    The benefits of hindsight

    Despite focusing on risks to study continuation of study and provider response planning and execution, astonishingly the brief never mentions Condition C3 – the core regulation governing these areas.

    Condition C4 (an enhanced version of C3) appears occasionally, but we learn nothing about its application in the cited cases, preventing assessment of the regulatory framework’s effectiveness.

    This all matters because OfS’s fundamental purpose is to assure those enrolling into the provision it regulates of a level baseline student interest protection – not merely offering advice.

    And the reality is that the evidence it presents reveals systematic failures across C3’s key requirements. Providers here demonstrated profound gaps in risk assessment and awareness. They “were not fully aware of the risks” from delivery partner failures, with early warning mechanisms that “should have kicked in earlier”, and seem to have failed to conduct the comprehensive risk assessments across all provision types that C3 explicitly requires.

    Mitigation planning fell similarly short of regulatory expectations. Institutions underestimated “the level of work and planning needed” while failing to properly identify alternative study options. Practical considerations like accommodation concerns with “third-party landlords” were overlooked entirely. And plans weren’t “produced in collaboration with students” as both C3 and pages like this promise:

    …we expect providers to collaborate with students to review and refresh the plan on a regular basis.

    Implementation and communication failures undermined student protection. When crises occurred, protection measures weren’t activated promptly, with students reporting “it was difficult to decide what to do next without having all the information in a timely manner.”

    Compensation processes generated confusion rather than clarity. Delivery partners neglected to inform lead institutions of closure risks, while information sharing was often restricted to “a smaller group of staff,” reducing planning capacity precisely when broad engagement was needed.

    And C3’s requirements regarding diverse student needs seem to have been unaddressed too. Support for students with additional needs proved inadequate in practice, while international students faced visa vulnerabilities that should have been anticipated.

    C3 also requires plans to be “published in a clear and accessible way” and “revised regularly” – requirements evidently unmet here, with evidence suggesting some providers maintained static protection measures that proved ineffective when actually needed.

    Has anyone been held to account for those failings? And for its own part, if OfS knew that ABA was in trouble (partly via Ofsted and partly via the DfE switching off the loans tap), even if C4 wasn’t applied, was C3 compliance scrutinised? Will other providers be held to account if they fail in similar ways? We are never told.

    The more the world is changing

    The questions pile up the further into the document you get. Given the changed financial circumstances in the sector and the filing cabinet that must be full of “at enhanced risk” of financial problems, why hasn’t OfS issued revised C3 guidance? If anyone’s reading inside the regulator, based on report I’ve had a go at the redraft that former OfS chair Michael Barber promised back in 2018 (and then never delivered) here – providers wishing to sleep at night should take a look too.

    You also have to wonder if OfS has demanded C3 rewrites of providers who have featured on the front of the Sunday Times, or who have announced redundancies. If it has, there’s not much evidence – there’s clearly a wild mismatch between the often years old, “very low risks here” statements in “live” SPPs that I always look for when a redundancy round is threatened, and I have a live list of those featured on Queen Mary UCU’s “HE Shrinking” webpage whose SPPs paint a picture of financial stability and infinitesimally small course closure risk despite many now teaching them out.

    I’ve posted before about the ways in which things like “teach out” sound great in practice, but almost always go wrong – with no attempt by OfS to evaluate, partly because it usually doesn’t know about them. I’m also, to be fair, aware that in multiple cases providers have submitted revised student protection plans to the regulator, only to hear nothing back for months on end.

    Of course in theory the need for a specific and dedicated SPP may disappear in the future – OfS is consulting on replacing them with related comprehensive information. But when that might apply to existing providers is unknown – and so for the time being, OfS’ own protection promises on its own website appear to be going unmet with impunity for those not meeting them:

    Student protection plans set out what students can expect to happen should a course, campus, or institution close. The purpose of a plan is to ensure that students can continue and complete their studies, or can be compensated if this is not possible.

    As such the brief reads like a mixture between a set of case studies and “best practice”, with even less regulatory force than a set of summaries from the OIA. The difference here – as the OIA regularly itself identifies – is that the upholding of a complaint against its “Good Practice Framework” won’t be much use if the provider is in administration.

    So whether it’s holes in the wording of C3, problems in predicting what C3’s requirements might mean, a lack of enforcement over what students are being promised now, a need for C3 to be revised and updated, a need for better guidance in light of cases surrounding it, or a need for all of these lessons to be built into its new proposed C5 (and then implemented across the existing regulated sector), what OfS has done is pretty much reveal that students should have no trust in the protection arrangements currently on offer.

    And for future students, wider lessons – on the nature of what is and isn’t being funded, and whether the risks can ever be meaningfully mitigated – are entirely absent here too.

    Amidst cuts that OfS itself is encouraging, from a course or campus closure point of view, a mixture of OfS consistently failing to define “material component” in the SPP guidance, and a breath of providers either having clauses that give them too much power to vary from what was promised, or pretending their clauses allow them to merge courses or slash options when they don’t, is bad enough – as is the tactic of telling students of changes a couple of weeks before the term starts when the “offer” of “you can always break the contract on your side” is a pretty pointless one.

    But from a provider collapse perspective, it’s unforgivable. Whatever is done in the future on franchising, you’d have to assume that many of the providers already look pretty precarious now – and will be even more so if investigations (either by the government or newspapers) reveal more issues, or if OfS makes them all register (where the fit and proper person test looks interesting), or if the government bans domestic agents.

    And anyone that thinks that it’s only franchised providers that look precarious right now really ought to get their head across the risk statements in this year’s crop of annual accounts.

    Back in 2017 when DfE consulted on the Regulatory Framework on behalf of the emerging OfS back, it promised that were there to be economic changes that dramatically affected the sustainability of many providers, the regulator would work with providers to improve their student protection plans so that they remained “strong” and “deliverable” in service of the student interest.

    So far they’ve proved to be weak and undeliverable. Whether that’s DfE’s fault for not getting the powers right, OfS’ for not using them, or ministers’ fault for freezing fees, taking the cap off recruitment and letting cowboys in to trouser wads of tuition fee loan money is an issue for another day. For now, someone either needs to warn students that promises on protection are nonsense, or providers, DfE and OfS need to act now to make good on the promises of protection that they’ve made.

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  • An end to sticking plaster politics? Why the government needs to use its upcoming white paper to take a different approach to immigration

    An end to sticking plaster politics? Why the government needs to use its upcoming white paper to take a different approach to immigration

    The Labour Party was elected to government last year on a promise to reduce net migration. Their victory in the 2024 General Election followed a period in which net migration to the UK peaked at 906,000 and public concerns over migration began to rise again for the first time since the Brexit referendum.

    Unsurprisingly, Number 10 views progress on this issue as central to their re-election prospects. Precisely how the government will look to do this is still unclear, yet recent weeks have seen growing speculation over an immigration white paper which is expected to land pretty soon.

    White paper

    A new approach to immigration is needed. Too often, immigration policy has been dictated by the release of the latest migration figures and so the development of a white paper on immigration in and of itself is no bad thing. Moreover, it provides the government with an opportunity to take a more strategic approach to migration policy.

    Prior to the election, the Labour Party committed to a different style of governing which would end ‘sticking plaster’ politics. But how to apply this longer-term view to immigration policy? To be judged as successful, any new approach to immigration would need to see net migration reduced given their manifesto commitment. As such, tough choices need to be made about where further reforms could be made to reduce the overall number of people coming to the UK.

    This creates some obvious risks for UK universities given the importance of international students to the financial sustainability of our sector. Universities UK (UUK) has been clear that, over the long-term, international recruitment should not be the answer to the financial sustainability of higher education institutions. Instead, we need to work with government on a long-term plan, secure increased investment, and explore new approaches to efficiency and transformation in the sector.

    In the absence of a long-term plan to address the underfunding of the higher education sector, any new approach to immigration would, at the very least, need to enable universities to continue to attract international students to study in the UK to prevent current financial challenges from deteriorating further.

    Three tests

    This is no easy task, but it is possible. So, what could a different course of action on migration policy actually look like? I think there are three clear things we need:

    1. A joined up, coordinated approach.

    2. Look forward not back, (as the Labour Party once encouraged us to do).

    3. Draw a line between temporary and permanent migration.

     

    The left-hand ought to know what the right-hand is doing

    The starting point of any new immigration policy ought to be based on having a joined-up and co-ordinated approach. This may seem obvious but would be a welcome change.

    The key opportunity for the new government is to use their immigration white paper to finally align migration policy with wider government objectives. Based on what the Home Secretary has outlined, at least part of this would be to create much greater join-up between the UK’s visas and skills systems so that immigration is not used as an alternative to training or tackling workforce problems, thereby reducing overall net migration. This is a good start, but the white paper offers an opportunity to go further.

    Under previous administrations, there was a distinct lack of coordination and coherence in policy and strategy. This can be seen most clearly in the development of an International Education Strategy – which set an explicit aim of government policy to grow the number of international students coming to the UK, but which then came up against a Home Office who had been instructed to curb the growth in international students.

    Don’t use the rear-view mirror

    With a clear joined-up strategy, the government should then look to shift the focus of immigration policy away from retrospective net migration trends, towards focussing on future forecasts, thereby creating a more realistic timeframe to achieve their strategy.

    It is quite clear that reducing net migration is going to continue to be the focus of government policy. Yet as we have seen, annual net migration focuses too much on short-term migration trends – be it the increase of people coming from Ukraine, or Hong Kong – and doesn’t focus enough on the anticipated impact of recent policy – such as changes to dependant’s which has led a dramatic reduction in the UK’s attractiveness as a study destination in certain countries.

    By shifting towards long-term projections (measured over a rolling 5-year average), the government could then create the political space to actually achieve their wider objectives. For example, providing a longer-term timeframe to work with employers to implement skills and training initiatives to support those roles where recruitment is primarily met through immigration.

    Any future forecast would, inevitably, be subject to changes and revisions but it would represent a far better metric than basing government policy on retrospective and highly volatile net migration trends from the previous year.

    Separate the temporary from the permanent

    A final welcome change would be for the government to distinguish more between ‘temporary’ and ‘permanent’ migration. After all, while many migrants do settle in the UK, many others do not and have little intention of doing so.

    This applies to many international students. They may stay for a few years after their studies, but very few end up remaining in the UK for the long-term and get settlement. Rather than taking students out of net migration – which would only serve to highlight the contribution which international students do make to net migration while ignoring the impact which students do have on housing and local services – the government should look to place greater focus on different types of visas being granted to those coming to the UK.

    There are lots of ways this could be done, but focussing more on those visa routes which lead to settlement (or ‘indefinite leave to remain’) would help improve public understanding of migration and better reflect the fact that many migrants included in the net migration stats do not contribute significantly to the long-term population of the UK.

    Concerns about immigration are unlikely to go away anytime soon, but the opportunity for a better approach is there for the taking.

    Many parts of the world – particularly across the Anglosphere – are currently seeing higher levels of net migration, and how countries respond is an issue facing many governments.

    With aging societies, slowing rates of economic growth, not to mention an increasing number of people displaced due to climate change, conflict, and natural disasters, immigration will continue to be high on the political agenda.

    Through their immigration white paper, the new UK government has a clear opportunity to address this challenge head on and take a different approach to previous administrations and, in doing so, demonstrate that well-managed immigration can be – and indeed is – a force for good.

    In developing a more joined-up approach, while focussing on future projections – rather than retrospective trends – and which makes a clearer distinction between temporary and permanent migration, the UK government could go a long way to developing a more sensible approach to immigration policy.

    The opportunity is there, the question is whether the government will take it.

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  • 6 ways to make math more accessible for multilingual learners

    6 ways to make math more accessible for multilingual learners

    Key points:

    Math isn’t just about numbers. It’s about language, too.

    Many math tasks involve reading, writing, speaking, and listening. These language demands can be particularly challenging for students whose primary language is not English.

    There are many ways teachers can bridge language barriers for multilingual learners (MLs) while also making math more accessible and engaging for all learners. Here are a few:

    1. Introduce and reinforce academic language

    Like many disciplines, math has its own language. It has specialized terms–such as numerator, divisor, polynomial, and coefficient–that students may not encounter outside of class. Math also includes everyday words with multiple meanings, such as product, plane, odd, even, square, degree, and mean.

    One way to help students build the vocabulary needed for each lesson is to identify and highlight key terms that might be new to them. Write the terms on a whiteboard. Post the terms on math walls. Ask students to record them in math vocabulary notebooks they can reference throughout the year. Conduct a hands-on activity that provides a context for the vocabulary students are learning. Reinforce the terms by asking students to draw pictures of them in their notebooks or use them in conversations during group work.

    Helping students learn to speak math proficiently today will pay dividends (another word with multiple meanings!) for years to come.

    2. Incorporate visual aids

    Visuals and multimedia improve MLs’ English language acquisition and engagement. Picture cards, for example, are a helpful tool for building students’ vocabulary skills in group, paired, or independent work. Many digital platforms include ready-made online cards as well as resources for creating picture cards and worksheets.

    Visual aids also help MLs comprehend and remember content. Aids such as photographs, videos, animations, drawings, diagrams, charts, and graphs help make abstract ideas concrete. They connect concepts to the everyday world and students’ experiences and prior knowledge, which helps foster understanding.

    Even physical actions such as hand gestures, modeling the use of a tool, or displaying work samples alongside verbal explanations and instructions can give students the clarity needed to tackle math tasks.

    3. Utilize digital tools

    A key benefit of digital math tools is that they make math feel approachable. Many MLs may feel more comfortable with digital math platforms because they can practice independently without worrying about taking extra time or giving the wrong answer in front of their peers.

    Digital platforms also offer embedded language supports and accessibility features for diverse learners. Features like text-to-speech, adjustable speaking rates, digital glossaries, and closed captioning improve math comprehension and strengthen literacy skills.

    4. Encourage hands-on learning

    Hands-on learning makes math come alive. Math manipulatives allow MLs to “touch” math, deepening their understanding. Both physical and digital manipulatives–such as pattern blocks, dice, spinners, base ten blocks, and algebra tiles–enable students to explore and interact with mathematical ideas and discover the wonders of math in the world around them.

    Many lesson models, inquiry-based investigations, hands-on explorations and activities, and simulations also help students connect abstract concepts and real-life scenarios.

    PhET sims, for example, create a game-like environment where students learn math through exploration and discovery. In addition to addressing math concepts and applications, these free simulations offer language translations and inclusive features such as voicing and interactive descriptions.

    Whether students do math by manipulating materials in their hands or on their devices, hands-on explorations encourage students to experiment, make predictions, and find solutions through trial and error. This not only fosters critical thinking but also helps build confidence and perseverance.

    5. Use students’ home language as a support

    Research suggests that students’ home languages can also be educational resources. 

    In U.S. public schools, Spanish is the most commonly reported home language of students learning English. More than 75 percent of English learners speak Spanish at home. To help schools incorporate students’ home language in the classroom, some digital platforms offer curriculum content and supports in both English and Spanish. Some even provide the option to toggle from English to Spanish with the click of a button.

    In addition, artificial intelligence and online translation tools can translate lesson materials into multiple languages.

    6. Create verbal scaffolds

    To respond to math questions, MLs have to figure out the answers and how to phrase their responses in English. Verbal scaffolds such as sentence frames and sentence stems can lighten the cognitive load by giving students a starting point for answering questions or expressing their ideas. This way, students can focus on the lesson content rather than having to spend extra mental energy figuring out how to word their answers.

    Sentence frames are often helpful for students with a beginning level of English proficiency.

    • A square has            sides.  
    • An isosceles triangle has at least             equal angles.

    Sentence stems (a.k.a. sentence starters) help students get their thoughts going so they can give an answer or participate in a discussion. 

    • The pattern I noticed was                               .               
    • My answer is                               . I figured it out by                               .

    Whether online or on paper, these fill-in-the-blank phrases and sentences help students explain their thinking orally or in writing. These scaffolds also support academic language development by showing key terms in context and providing opportunities to use new vocabulary words.

    Making math welcoming for all

    All students are math language learners. Regardless of their home language, every student should feel like their math classroom is a place to learn, participate, contribute, and grow. With the right strategies and tools, teachers can effectively support MLs while maintaining the rigor of grade-level content and making math more accessible and engaging for all.

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  • Building a public transport agenda for commuter students

    Building a public transport agenda for commuter students

    If you have been to Greater Manchester in the last few years, you will have noticed that more and more yellow buses have started to appear.

    The Bee Network fully launched across the region on the 5th January 2025 – the yellow bus takeover is now complete.

    When all buses in the region became a part of the Bee Network – the integrated transport network for Greater Manchester – this was a significant moment for the city’s devolution journey. It became the first place in England, outside of London, to have buses back under public control.

    One of the Greater Manchester Student Partnership’s (GMSP) priorities is to improve students’ experience of transport across the region, the launch of the Bee Network is a key opportunity to make that happen.

    Institutions often define commuters differently and in Greater Manchester we already have a large proportion of students “traditionally” commuting. However traditional residential students are living further away from campus due to rising costs and are more reliant on public transport to get to classes.

    The GMSP has been thinking about how we can use the Greater Manchester Combined Authorities’ powers to support commuter students in their widest of definitions.

    A backdrop of devolution

    Since the coalition government of the early 2010s, devolution has been growing and Greater Manchester and the West Midlands have been the guinea pigs of the plan.

    Putting buses back under public control was a large part of the devolution deals and settlements, with the Bus Service Act 2017 being introduced so regions can take back control of buses.

    For context, in the 1980s bus travel in the UK was deregulated – anyone with a licence and a bus could run any bus service they wanted. The act allows Metro Mayors and in the future local authorities to franchise bus services. In doing so they can set up routes, tickets and costs for bus operators to bid for.

    Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, got the ball rolling on this quickly.

    In the 2024 general election, Labour had promised more devolved powers for regional mayors that have already been elected. In December, the government announced the Better Buses Bill which will give more powers to local authorities to own their own bus companies.

    Students use buses to get around their city but commuter students are not just reliant on buses, they are also reliant on trams and trains and other forms of transport.

    Building a student city

    The new bus fare cap rising will be a further strain on student cost of living and inevitably impact on student engagement on campus – for traditional commuters and residential students. The benefits of a mayor and devolved transport powers mean that isn’t the case here, fares are staying put at £2.

    As of last month, if you “tap in” on the tram and the bus with your contactless card, it all falls under the same ticket.

    This again is welcomed by GMSP, but this does not reduce the price of students who have to travel on both modes of public transport.

    This improves accessibility but not necessarily affordability.

    If they take multiple journeys a week on both a tram and a bus, it will cost £41. There is currently no student rate on trams or on the “tap in” system that is about to be introduced.

    From December 2026 until December 2028, the Bee Network will gain control of eight major commuter train lines. Greater Manchester could then become the best city for student public transport in the country, but only if Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM), universities and student unions work together.

    Busy making promises

    The GMSP has been advocating for cheaper, more reliable transport with the mayor and TfGM.

    In 2022, officers from GMSP wrote to the mayor asking for a £1.50 bus single for all students. The mayor responded by saying that although he wanted to do something like this, until he had full control on the Bee Network, that would not be possible.

    In the mayor’s 2024 mayoral election manifesto, he announced at a mayoral hustings for students that he was to introduce a 18-21 monthly half price bus pass, bringing down the cost from £80 to £40.

    This was welcomed by GMSP to an extent, but we recognised that a lot of students, especially commuter students, do not fall into this category. And termly student tickets that are already on offer would work out cheaper for most students anyway.

    Since the Bee Network fully launched, we have seen no sign of this offer appearing.

    Student transport agenda

    The big question is, how can the universities, student unions and transport authorities work together to make life better for commuter students?

    Whilst we’re lucky in Greater Manchester to have a forum to meet with and discuss things like patronage, pricing and safety, getting all partners into the room is not as easy.

    We have big plans to make Greater Manchester the best place to be a student, and to do that we need to think big with things like creating a student living and staying strategy for the city region.

    This would bring together all these partners to create a long-term strategy for students in the city region, with one of themes being transport. Having these three partners working together is key for the success of any long-term transport strategy in the region.

    TfGM holds a lot of the power, including data on patronage and which routes students are using the most. Universities hold influence and potential financial influence, which could be beneficial for introducing new routes and discounting prices for students.

    Universities have a lot of data about students, especially on where they live, and that information could be used to target key routes for commuter students. And student unions are important as the voice of students.

    One of the mayor’s key aims for students in Greater Manchester is retaining talent. An element of this is making the Greater Manchester universities more attractive for potential students from Greater Manchester. If you want to make local universities more desirable for commuter students, improving the reliability, access and price of transport would go a very long way.

    Whilst Greater Manchester has a unique opportunity to improve the commuter student experience, more devolution is on its way. In the meantime, the more connections and collaborations that exist between local authorities, universities, student unions and transport providers, the better.

    Collaboration is key to making these ideas a reality and in building transport strategies in university towns and cities, commuter students need to be at the heart of decision making.

     

    This blog is part of our series on commuter students. Click here to see the other articles in the series.

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  • Understanding why students cheat and use AI: Insights for meaningful assessments

    Understanding why students cheat and use AI: Insights for meaningful assessments

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    • A new era for teachers as AI disrupts instruction
    • For more news on AI and assessments, visit eSN’s Digital Learning hub

    In recent years, the rise of AI technologies and the increasing pressures placed on students have made academic dishonesty a growing concern. Students, especially in the middle and high school years, have more opportunities than ever to cheat using AI tools, such as writing assistants or even text generators. While AI itself isn’t inherently problematic, its use in cheating can hinder students’ learning and development.

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    Want to share a great resource? Let us know at submissions@eschoolmedia.com.

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