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Responding to your Student Voice: Spring 2025

Thank you to all students who took the time to complete one of our surveys last term. Your Student Voice is incredibly important to us as an institution and we appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts and have your say.

Check out some of examples below of actions we’re taking or changes we’re making across the University in response to your feedback.

Professional Academic Skills 

  • We’ll work across the Centre for Foundation Studies and faculties to continue to raise awareness of the ASk team, particularly for foundation and first year students who had less awareness of our services. 
  • We are currently working to gain more visibility for our face-to-face services on all sites with more prominent locations and better advertising.  
  • We will also be working with student partners to improve our social media reach and impact.  

Student Services 

Induction/Welcome

Following an unexpectedly high number of students attending our International Welcome Event on 1 October which led to long queues, we have made the following changes for future events:  

  • We have streamlined the enrolment/visa process. 
  • We recruit more staff volunteers and student ambassadors for every International Welcome event to support with answering questions and preparing students for each step of the process.  
  • The times of subsequent events were also extended (with last entry at 3pm to ensure all students could be seen on the day).  
  • Targeted communications to students are now sent based on their course start date to help spread attendance more evenly.  

To enhance awareness, accessibility, and engagement with induction/Welcome Week, we propose: 

  • Engaging earlier with applicants at applicant day events, providing details about Welcome Week, events, and key information sources. 
  • Refining the timetable by distinguishing between essential and non-essential events while emphasising their importance for networking, meeting staff, and obtaining essential university information. 
  • Providing earlier access to a separate timetable of “essential” events alongside the Student Shout Out programme, to help students plan further in advance and accommodate other commitments. 
  • Reviewing the event offering to encourage attendance, particularly for students with families, other commitments, or commuting challenges. 
  • Offering mini refreshers or catch-up events later in the term, including materials and recordings for those who missed key activities 
  • Develop Best Practice Guides for academic divisions, focussing on student demographics and suggesting appropriate activities, for example, in response to feedback from mature students who felt some activities were immature.  
  • Consider reintroducing a Commuting Student Welcome prior to Welcome Week to support commuting students with a ‘practice run’ for their commute, introduce them to key support available and meet fellow students in a similar position to them.  

Careers and Employability  

  • We are now in discussions with Student Services and CSU regarding holding a part-time jobs fair in Welcome Week and Induction in response to your feedback.  
  • We are currently reviewing efficient processes as part of a Unijob review and we have been discussing proposing to move the restriction of 15 hours to up to 20 hours which many universities have done for their on-campus jobs. This may help to ease the cost-of-living for many students.  
  • Following requests for additional CV support, we have introduced CareerSet – a free CV support tool which is available 24/7, 365 days a year. This is available in addition to our Career Consultant CV appointments.   

Sport and Active Lifestyle 

  • Interdepartmental tournaments is something we will look at holding over the next few years based on student feedback. 
  • We will continue to encourage teams/clubs to run early evening training sessions to ensure commuting students can attend.  
  • Every year we review our Welcome Week programme to ensure we’re running a range of sessions for all students. The number/type of sessions we can hold is restricted due to other activities already taking place in facilities, ie the Sports Hall. 
  • We will continue to raise awareness of all SAL sessions and the Athletics’ Union, emphasising that all sessions and clubs/teams are open to students studying at all levels.  
  • We are currently looking at what partnerships can be formed with students studying on our sports coaching programme. 
  • We will continue to encourage clubs/teams to run sober socials so all students can attend.  

Chaplaincy  

  • This year we will continue to hold a variety of social events to give students the opportunity to make new connections 
  • We will continue to raise awareness of the Chaplaincy team through increased promotion across a range of channels, including Student Shout Out.  
Posted in Your Student VoiceTagged , ,

SAL Inclusion Champion Group – Join now!

Sport and Active Lifestyle are looking for student volunteers to join their SAL Inclusion Champion Group: 

  • Want to share your ideas to help shape the future of sport and physical activity on campus?  
  • Passionate about making sport more inclusive, especially underrepresented students? 

We’re creating this group to: 

  • Ensure the voices of underrepresented students are heard 
  • Gather feedback and suggestions to help improve inclusivity 
  • Help us better understand student needs and experiences 
  • Explore how sport and physical activity can be welcoming and accessible for all students  

Why join? 

  • Make a difference by sharing your voice and ideas 
  • Enhance your CV with valuable advisory experience 
  • Work with others to support inclusion 

Who can join? 

We welcome all students, and we’re especially keen to hear from those with lived experiences or perspectives that can help make sport and physical activity more inclusive for underrepresented groups. You would need to be able to attend individual and collective meetings once per term. 

How to get involved: 

Email: sportinclusionandwellbeing@chester.ac.uk to express your interest 

Deadline: 14 February 

Posted in News/Features

Refugee Awareness event 

Start Date: 12 February 2025 11:00 am

End Date: 12 February 2025 1:00 pm

Location: CCU014, Churchill House, Queen’s Park 

Join us at Queen’s Park for an event filled with education, awareness, and a celebration of refugee communities: 

  • Wednesday 12 February 
  • 11am-1pm 
  • CCU014, Churchill House, Queen’s Park 

Learn about the challenges faced by refugees, their stories of resilience, and how we can support them. This event aims to promote understanding and empathy towards refugees and create a more inclusive environment on campus. Don’t miss this opportunity to broaden your perspective and make a positive impact! Book your place here. 

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Nutrition Fair

Start Date: 5 February 2025 11:00 am

End Date: 5 February 2025 1:00 pm

Location: Small Hall, Exton Park

From boosting sleep to balanced, budget-friendly bites, Nutrition and Dietetics students will present talks, offer advice, interactive games and top tips to encourage people to think about differences they can make to lead a healthier lifestyle. 

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Library Skills session: Literature searching: where do I begin? (Part of the Breakfast club series)

Start Date: 26 February 2025 9:15 am

End Date: 26 February 2025 9:45 am

Location: Online or in-person, Seaborne 010

This session will help you to plan your searches and use time saving search techniques to find the most relevant academic sources. Gain an awareness of how to use subject specific databases to find high quality academic journals and research papers.

This session will enable you to:

  • Develop an awareness of different search techniques
  • Discover some subject specific resources

Online or in-person, Seaborne Library 010, Exton Park

Any questions please contact Caitlyn Hallman c.hallmanlewis@chester.ac.uk

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Library Skills session: Literature searching for your systematic review

Start Date: 27 February 2025 10:00 am

End Date: 27 February 2025 11:00 am

Location: Online

This session will enable you to:

  • Think strategically and critically about your literature search
  • Create a search strategy for a systematic literature search
  • Identify key relevant resources for your search
  • Apply advanced search techniques and retrieve relevant literature

Join the meeting

Any questions please contact Eva Seddon e.seddon@chester.ac.uk

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Library Skills session: Dissertation literature: where do I begin?

Start Date: 26 February 2025 10:00 am

End Date: 26 February 2025 11:00 am

Location: Online

Are you starting your literature review and don’t know where to start?

This session is aimed at final year undergraduate and postgraduate students. Learn how to use subject specific databases to find high quality academic journals and research papers.

This session will enable you to:

  • Develop an awareness of different search techniques
  • Discover some subject specific resources

Join the meeting now

Any questions please contact Jo Winchcombe j.winchcombe@chester.ac.uk

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Library Skills session: EndNote drop-in (online)

Start Date: 25 February 2025 12:30 pm

End Date: 25 February 2025 1:30 pm

Location: Online

This session is an open session for you to join us online to ask any questions, or ask advice about using EndNote.

A member of the team will be on hand to help with your questions, or advise where to get further help if the issue is technical.

Join the meeting now

Any questions please contact endnote@chester.ac.uk

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Library Skills session: Advanced session using EndNote 21

Start Date: 20 February 2025 10:00 am

End Date: 20 February 2025 11:00 am

Location: Online

This session is aimed at staff and students who have already attended an introduction session. It aims to help you personalise your EndNote library further by:

  • Creating groups to organise your references, use PDF notes and keyword searching
  • Import extra styles and adapt templates
  • Import references from wider sources not compatible with EndNote via direct export – eg. Google Scholar

Join the meeting now

Any questions please contact endnote@chester.ac.uk

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Need help finding education journal articles? Session for School of Education students

Start Date: 19 February 2025 5:00 pm

End Date: 19 February 2025 6:00 pm

Location: Online

This session will focus on advanced search strategies using the Education databases. It is also an opportunity for you to pop along with any library related questions that you might have.

Join the meeting now

Any questions please contact Anne Williams a.williams@chester.ac.uk

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