Student Led Learning Activities: the students' view

Scale Up classroom. Image: author's own

I asked students to complete a brief questionnaire about their experience of the recent student led learning activities.

Having watched and made an initial assessment of all the performances, my main focus was on the levels of learning engaged in by students through this process - and whether they felt they had acquired any transferable skills. I also wanted to find out whether age, confidence with written/spoken English or the way the groups had come together affected their experiences. Finally, I was interested in the link between group dynamics and experiences of learning.

Out of 59 respondents, 55 were female, 48 were aged 20-25, 3 were aged 25-35 and seven gave their age as over 35 (1 student did not give their age). Nine students said that English was a second or additional language.

Gender did not seem to significantly affect responses which were far more likely to be influenced by group dynamics. Three out of the four men were in "difficult" groups (two in the same one) which they admitted (in additional comments) had coloured their views of their own learning. The fourth was part of a fairly high-functioning group of friends who had worked together previously but he stated that he would prefer to be assessed as an individual and not in a group task. He went on to say that, nonetheless "my outlook on group working has improved as a result of this activity", indicating further that he had developed team working skills and admitting "..it may be that this has an impact in the future".

Most students reported having worked together with at least some of the other members before (47). The majority of these groups had formed spontaneously out of existing friendships (reported by 37). Ten students said that their choice of group had been dictated by other groups being already full (an upper limit of 7 and a lower limit of 4 members had been imposed when groups formed). Three students reported that they had been "put in a group by the tutor" - which is an impression they had formed, even though I quite consciously avoided trying to influence group membership. It may be that they had forgotten how they came to be members of a group, or perhaps equated the lack of choice with the tutor having put the group together.

Six students said they had taken some time to choose a group where they felt they would be happiest - all but one of these went on to have a very positive experience, the remaining student reported it was positive. One cited "convenience" but had a positive outcome despite some initially difficult dynamics. Another did not give a reason for how she ended up in her group (she simply wrote "other"), but nonetheless reported an overall positive experience.

When asked about the group dynamics, most said they had been "really positive, with everyone contributing equally" (30). For 17 students, the dynamics had been generally positive and nine said that they had been occasionally difficult. Of these six, four were in groups of friends and two had ended up in a group because others were full. One person said the dynamics had been often difficult and two people very difficult - each of whom also reported that they had joined a group of people they didn't know simply because the other groups were full. 

These results bear out my gut feeling that self-selecting groups tend to make for the most cooperative and positive of group dynamics, although clearly there are exceptions. Six students indicated that they had formed groups based on friendships but they had experienced occasional difficulties in the dynamics with some people not contributing. This in turn seems to have made the learning experience less positive, five saying they thought they would have learnt just as much on their own. In each case there were some group members they had not worked with previously, despite their being friends (or maybe friends of friends). The best experiences came when students had made a conscious decision about joining a specific group of people and the worst experiences when they felt they had been forced into a group because of lack of choice. These experiences could reflect a self fulfilling prophecy on the part of the student, with a sense of choice (or lack of one) influencing subsequent responses and reactions to group dynamics.

Group formation for learning in Higher Education can be a real mine field and generally it seems to be advocated that tutors do the choosing. To form cooperative learning groups, Johnson (1991) recommends deliberate mixing of abilities. Other writers (see Arkoudis et al 2010) advocate a little social engineering to ensure a mix of culture, linguistic ability and ethnicity. Still others warn that by allowing self selection, some group members may find themselves on the periphery, feeling excluded (Collins and Goyder, 2008) - or as happened here - forced into a group of "misfits" that couldn't join the group of their choice. Self selecting groups, it is warned, may tend to be homogeneous - all the stars in one and the lower ability students clinging together in another. This obviously has disadvantages - the low ability group may persist in their less than stellar performance and get poor grades whilst the higher ability group may not learn anything new about dynamics as they work within the same old comfort zone of their clever, like-minded friends. Nonetheless, I have persisted over the years in trusting the process and allowing students to form groups, being aware as Boud, Cohen and Sampson, (1999) note, that there are still difficulties in forcing together people from different cultures, age groups and backgrounds who are not used to collaborating.

(Interestingly, as an aside, none of the over 35s in my cohort worked together in the same group. One of these mature students told me that her confidence had increased enormously from working with younger people and they in return greatly valued her considerable experience of the health and social care sector which lent an edge of authenticity and relevance to their learning activity. However, in terms of ethnicity, most though not all groups were homogenous. Most of the EAL students, for example, came together in a single group).

97% of all students were positive about their learning from the process. 55% (n=33) felt that their knowledge of their chosen topic had improved "to some extent" whilst a further 42% (n=25) felt they had learnt "a great deal" about their chosen topic through the process of enquiry-based learning. Just one felt their understanding had not increased, although in all other respects this student had found the process very positive and reported that she had also found other groups' presentations interesting and informative. She further indicated that she had developed team working and communication skills.

In 39 instances, students felt that the process of collaborating had been very positive, greatly increasing their learning and a further 17 said this had been a positive experience which had increased their learning to some extent. These figures include every one of the over 35 and EAL students (who all went on to say, in addition, that the task had had a positive or very positive impact on their personal development). Two students responded that collaborative learning had been a distraction (and both had reported difficult dynamics in their groups) -  and one person did not answer this question. 

Thirteen students felt that the task had had a very positive impact on their personal development (resulting in greatly increased skills and confidence) and a further 38 described it as positive. Seven students thought the impact neutral although all but two of these went on to indicate transferable skills they felt they had acquired.  Of the two who said they had developed no skills, one felt that overall her understanding of the topic had increased to some extent, and she found the other groups' presentations informative and interesting. In terms of her own group, she had never worked with any of the other group members previously, found the dynamics occasionally difficult but admitted they were all friends and had chosen to work together. The second student's responses were negative on every aspect of the activity, (including finding others' presentation neither interesting nor informative)  and she reported having ended up in a group that was not of her choosing because others were full.

One student said the experience had had a negative impact on her personal development and confidence. On the other hand she indicated that she had developed problem solving and IT skills. This same student said elsewhere in her responses that she had had a very negative experience of group dynamics and had not chosen the people with whom she had worked.

When asked about transferable skills developed, the top answer was Team Working which 48 students agreed they had developed during the project. Next was Communication (36), followed by IT skills (20), Problem Solving (18) and Leadership (15). Eleven students indicated "all of these". Amongst the over 35s, five (out of seven) said their IT Skills had increased. Although the numbers here are too small to draw any definite conclusions, this also tallies with anecdotal evidence from the over 35s (in individual discussions with me) that they found the technical aspects of the task fairly challenging, but also enjoyed learning about new technology in rising to meet that challenge.

In the "other" comments, students added: confidence (1) speaking in front of an audience (1) working with people who are different from me (1) and patience (2)  as additional skills acquired.

Out of the total of 59 students, 27 volunteered general closing comments in a free text box. Most of these (16) referred to the weighting of the assignment. Having initially voted by a majority to have this set at 20% of the module total, they now felt that this was too low and did not reflect the amount of hard work they had put into the development of the learning activities.

Other comments (2) referred to poor group dynamics having made the experience negative and a third spoke of wanting to be assessed individually rather than as part of a group (the male student whose response has already been discussed above).

Eight students recorded very positive final reflections on the process:

A: Though I encountered difficulty at the beginning, this task allowed me to see that barriers will arise but as professionals we must find ways to overcome this :)

B: Should have been 50%! Other than that the task was great and good experience for students to run a class. Learnt a lot from other groups :)

C: The group worked really well, but maybe if everyone had to speak in front of an audience the marking would be maybe a bit fair for these groups who all did contribute during the speaking

D: Enjoyed taking part - got out of the comfort zone and gained confidence
It was really enjoyable - think other modules ought to do a similar aspect (mature student over 35) 

E: It was interesting and had build students confidence of standing up and presenting their learning activities. (EAL student)

 F: I think the task was agreat idea especially for a new learning technique, however it was A LOT of work for 20% of the module

G: Overall enjoyed the presentation and what I learnt doing it.

H: I really enjoyed this task and learning from peers, however for future maybe two groups should not have the same theme as peers will already have the knowledge

The 59 questionnaire responses represent 63% of the cohort (n=93), it is a considerably better return than is usual in the module evaluation process for example (10-20%) and better than the percentage who voted for the group work weighting (48 returns out of 93 students) in an on line survey in October. Overall I feel this gives a snapshot which fairly reflects comments that students have made to me in passing and confirms my own observations. 

In terms of assessed outcomes, the student led learning activities were graded between 58% and 81% on the formative assessment of the performance element, although groups have the opportunity to improve these grades by submitting revised and additional documentation. They also received informal peer feedback (through surveys which they themselves designed, administered and analysed) which they will now use in a final reflective exercise. All students (but one) responding to the questionnaire said that they had learnt from others' presentations, 44 to some extent and 14 saying these had added greatly to their understanding of the module's themes. 

Compared with previous years when students were required to focus on a popular film and identify leadership characteristics in its protagonists, this year saw both a greater variety of themes (ranging from motivation, gender and emotional intelligence to job design and multi-agency working) as well as a greater application of theory to health and social care settings. Judging by the questionnaire responses, learning from one another played a significant part in the success of the module. 

In previous years, students produced web based artefacts and feedback from other groups was both sparse and generalised, indicating little inter group learning. In those cases most groups focused on the same narrow set of theories and models so there was little incentive to look closely at each others' work. This year students attendence at each others' presentations was mandatory and there was minimal duplication of topics. As can be seen from the free text comment (H) above, one or two groups did choose similar themes: notably motivation and gender, although each group took a different approach to the topic. This appears to have added to the breadth of learning.

Already through informal conversations with the students I am aware that the process has been a challenging but generally positive one. My next step is to follow up the questionnaire with some individual interviews where respondents have indicated their willingness to participate in these. In addition, the final task for the module will be an individual reflection on the learning process (in the form of a digital story) which should hopefully yield even richer qualitative data.

Refs: 

Arkoudis, S., Yu, X., Baik, C., Borland, H., Chang,S.,

Lang,I., Lang,J., Pearce, A., Watty,K. (2010) ‘Finding Common Ground: enhancing interaction between domestic and international students.’ In Report of project supported by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council Ltd, an initiative of the Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations. Available at http://www.cshe.unimelb.edu.au/research/projectsites/enhancing_interact.html 

Boud, D.; Cohen,R.;Sampson, J. (1999) ‘Peer Learning and Assessment.’ In Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, Vol. 24, No. 4, pp413-426 http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.203.1370&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Collins, N.; Goyder, J. (2008) ‘Speed Dating: a Process of Forming Undergraduate Student Groups.’ In ECulture Vol.1 http://ro.ecu.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1075&context=eculture

Johnson, David W. (1991) ‘Cooperative Learning: Increasing College Faculty Instructional Productivity.’ In ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report No. 4. Available at: http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED343465.pdf 

learning-by-doing : some feedback

D. Sharon Pruitt - Flickr: Happy Girl Hopscotch in Strawberry Free CC BY 2.0

I ran a small focus group discussion yesterday with my final year students to get their views about the student led learning activities.

They all agreed they had suffered from nerves before standing up to speak in front of the whole class (the first time many of them had presented to an audience of this size) but they were even more anxious about the interactive elements of the activities - what if their fellow students refused to participate?

For this particular group of students (none of whom had worked together on the task) issues of group cohesion were not highlighted, although I am aware (through other discussions) of three somewhat dysfunctional teams (out of 15).

In two cases the problems revolved around a single member who had never shown up to meetings and who contributed little and late. Other group members were angry that this "loafer" was able to get the same marks as the rest of them with minimal contribution. In situations like this a process of peer evaluation is sometimes used but this cohort voted against such a process at the outset, preferring to deal with things informally. I have mixed views about peer evaluation as I have seen groups where individuals are deliberately marginalised or excluded from a team and I dislike the competitiveness and devisiveness it can encourage. In the real world, teams don't get to vote on the performance related pay of their colleagues ("more's the pity" did I hear you say?) - difficulties have to be dealt with or tolerated in the interests of completing the task - and in some ways I think it is right that these student teams (on a module dedicated to teamwork and leadership) learn how to deal with differences.

The third "dysfunctional" group did just that. The group effectively split into two at one point and discussions became heated - one student left the session and another was in tears. When I inquired if I could help, the unofficial leader said they were planning a final group meeting to sort things out. The following week, they seemed to be back on track and this week they have just emailed me their session plan (the only group to have done so) which looks remarkably well organised and thought through.

I also asked my small focus group about the value of the feedback they had received. They were all immensely glad I had given them a provisional grade and regarded this as useful formative feedback indicating where they could improve. They also valued the feedback they had had from their peers, most of which was generally positive and in some cases very constructive. One or two students had complained to me in class about particularly rude, negative and unconstructive comments they had received, but that was a useful opportunity to talk about how best to receive - and use - feedback (in short - ignore what isn't useful to you!) In a fortnight I'll be facilitating a session about feedback and reflection, so I may just need to go over best practice in GIVING feedback too.

The $64,000 question is: did they think the activity gave them a good understanding of their chosen topics?  All said they thought they had had to work harder and get a deeper understanding of their topics than was normally the case (in writing an essay for example) because they didn't want to be caught out by a question from other students that they couldn't answer.

They also said that they had found other students' sessions very interesting and informative and that they had learned a lot through those too.

OK- so this is just one informal discussion and other students may have different views - something I hope will emerge through their self evaluations and final reflections on the module - but I did find their views very encouraging.

For myself, I also really enjoyed week 3 of the sessions and again found much to admire in the creative learning activities students had devised for their peers - as well as noting the confidence displayed by some in the way they facilitated group discussions. One or two had decided on a formal presentation plus quiz (I am wondering here if this is a delivery model they have become familiar with during their studies?) but one had developed really interesting, health and social care based scenarios and asked groups to decide on an approach to the problem based on one of two specific managerial philosophies. I admit I picked up a couple of tips myself on how to facilitate learning around some quite dry subjects!

So, overall I do feel this has been a  positive learning experience for us all and the students' enthusiasm is still palpable, which is quite something in these cold winter days. It's the final set of sessions next Monday and I will definitely feel some regret to be returning to the more "normal" teaching mode after that. Or maybe, things will never be quite "normal" again.....

Student-led learning

Krissy Venosdale on Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

I decided this year to encourage my final year students to do something a little different for their team work assessment. Instead of me teaching the usual curriculum for the module I asked them to research whatever theories or practices (related to leadership and teamwork) interested them and then design a learning activity which would involve the whole class.

The teams were self selecting and they chose the topics - although I asked teams to negotiate these with me so that we didn't end up with 15 presentations about Tuckman....

I also emphasised that these were very much NOT mean to be presentations at all, but rather active learning experiences that would engage their audience. Some found it hard to break out of old patterns and largely read from notes in front of a Powerpoint, the interactive element of their session generally being a quiz or word search.

The more engaging sessions attempted a different approach: the first one for example divided students into three tables and gave each a relatively simple task to do (completing a jigsaw) but, unbeknown to the participants, facilitators were each using a different management style. Student reflections and feedback were encouraged to try to illustrate the differences and relate these to the theory.

Others incorporated videos of role plays that they had acted and filmed themselves to illustrate different motivational factors and a third asked the audience to role play different professional partners in a multi agency team, reviewing the communication failings in a (real) murder case.

Designing and running a teaching session has many benefits as an inquiry-based learning task. Students are having to learn on a number of levels - how to function as a collaborative team; how to divide up tasks; how to get to grips with technology; thinking about what constitutes an engaging and active learning session; how to control classroom behaviour and get the cooperation of your peers.....oh, and yes, the actual theoretical concepts they are trying to put across.

Some outcomes were unexpected: one or two students commented to me that the exercise had given them a greater insight into the challenges facing their lecturers - such as managing behavour, preparing resources and dealing with stage fright! Others have had to negotiate some very difficult team dynamics and manage differing levels of contribution. One group told me this had been a brilliant experience and they wished they'd done projects like this from the first year.

The next step is about evaluation. I asked each group to design an evaluation questionnaire and seek the feedback of their peers. Based on this - and my provisional assessment - they will now go on to produce a short self-evaluation of their sessions. I am rather wishing that I had held off giving them my feedback until they had done this next task, but hopefully the motivation for them to do a thorough job is that my grade is only provisional and may be improved if they provide more evidence in the form of references, notes and group reflections.

If I did this exercise again next year (and I am tempted to, as generally it has been very successful so far) I think I would place more emphasis on the peer and self evaluation.

What I chiefly hope from all of this is that the sessions do provide genine learning, not just for the teams who have carried out the research, but for those students in the audience. I confess I am a bit anxious about this aspect however.

I came across this interesting quote as I was researching into the idea of student-led teaching

“Becoming a teacher who helps students to search rather than follow is challenging and, in many ways, frightening” (Brooks & Brooks, 1999, p. 102) - cited here: (Kim Bouman, 2012) 

I guess my biggest fear is that, in the end, the students' learning proves to have been fairly superficial and that the module (and by association, me as a teacher) has therefore "failed". Because the quality of the presentations has been variable and some of the "reinforcing" activities a little simplistic, I suspect that understanding of the actual concepts or theories is not particularly deep.

Previous iterations of this module have required students to develop a digital resource focusing on leadership  - usually by analysing the characteristics of various leaders in history, or in popular culture. Again, I couldn't claim that learning about the theoretical concepts in those instances was particularly deep then either, as evidenced in their final reflective essays. Students though necessarily had to develop leadership and team working skills in order to successfully complete the project and they also learned a lot of useful technical skills in creating a web site or blog. This year's task has added the dimension of live presentation and facilitating learning in others - which I would say are also pretty useful skills!

For me it has been an interetsing learning experience too. I have had to let go of controlling the "content delivery" side of the module (I think this is where the "fear" creeps in) but a welcome spin off has been fewer actual "teaching" sessions. I have been able to spend more time in discussion with groups as a result -  facilitating their understanding of some concepts, challenging them to also let go of didactic approaches and be more creative in the design of their learning experiences. I have also done quite a bit of counselling when relationships have threatened to break down, with some cajoling of anxious performers along the way.

At the end of the year students will be reflecting on the module through a digital storytelling exercise. It will be interesting to see and hear what they have made of the experience and in particular of having the curriculum taught by their peers - and I guess that is the point at which I will be able to gather any evidence about the depth and breadth of their learning.

Professional values and attitudes

http://hee.nhs.uk/wp-content/blogs.dir/321/files/2014/10/VBR-Framework.pdf

I have now begun a bit of work comparing the first year and final year responses to the professional values exercise  (I have so far analysed 10 presentations in each year, representing the work of around 70 students. I am about 1/3 of the way through) and there are some interesting differences emerging.

It appears for instance that the mentions of Social Justice are considerably more frequent in the final year students' work than in that of the first years' - 61 mentions in this category as opposed to 26. The other categories are noticeably more evenly balanced, although the "attitudes" section gets around 50% more mentions overall amongst the final year students.

For the final year students, the order in which categories feature is: social justice, attitudes of the care giver, skills of the care giver, outcomes for the service user, management and teamwork. The first years' focus, in order, is on skills then attitudes of the care giver, followed by the outcomes for the service user, social justice and finally management and teamwork.

The most frequently mentioned values out of all the categories in the first year are (in order of number of times referred to) Equality and Diversity, Respect, Supportiveness, Teamwork and Relationships. For the final year students these are: Equality and Diversity, Respect, Person Centredness, respecting the service user's  individuality and Empowerment. Although Equality and Diversity are top in each year, this aspect is mentioned twice as many times by the final year students as it is by the first years.

In terms of the care giver's personal attitudes, the top five in each year are remarkably similar :
Respectful, Compassionate, Enthusiastic and Committed and Approachable, are in the top five for each year. The final year students then have Genuineness and Honesty whilst the first years have Supportiveness.

There were however some interesting issues raised by the first year students which did not appear on the final year students' agenda at all. An awareness of isolation and loneliness, particularly amongst the elderly, and of the need for service users (again mainly the elderly) to be cared for within their own communities, stood out for me. The other main difference is that the first year students seem to emphasise the building of a trusting and supportive relationship where the care giver is enriching lives whilst final year students celebrate the individuality of the service user, aim to empower them and encourage independence whist identifying the care giver's most important qualities as empathy, committment and genuineness.

So how do these emerging attitudes and values compare with what health and social care organisations require of their staff? The link below explains the NHS' Values Based Recruitment programme:
http://hee.nhs.uk/wp-content/blogs.dir/321/files/2014/10/VBR-Framework.pdf with its emphasis on compassion, respect and dignity and improving lives.

Here also is BASWs values and ethics code http://cdn.basw.co.uk/upload/basw_112315-7.pdf focusing on human rights and social justice.

There is a greater overlap between the BASW values and the final year students' whilst the NHS values are wholly embraced by both years. Those BASW values which appear very little in either groups' work are the more political goals of redistribution of resources and working in solidarity.

One way of looking at the students' values statements is to assume they reflect their growing knowledge and experience and in particular their developing understanding of professional practice and the evidence base for effective interventions.

They may, for example, represent the difference between an understandable naivety (in a good sense) on the part of the first year students who, lacking both work experience and knowledge base, enter the course with an as yet undefined urge to help, care for and support others. This was noticeable in an unembarrassed use of the words love and passion in some groups' work as well as the expression of a desire to serve others and to make a change in the world. 

After three years of study, having had opportunities to work in the health and social care field, and with a more nuanced understanding of the needs of service users, values around empowerment, personal responsibility, advocacy and removing stigma are foregrounded by final year students.

Another interpretation is that the values expressed echo the social and psychological stage of the students themselves - from a more dependent, relationship-based perspective which perhaps reflects the first year student's need for belonging, to a more self-confident, independent and individual identity, which mirrors the final year undergraduate's readiness to "fly the nest" and embark on their career. Obvioulsy that is a bit of a generalisation especially as we have a number of mature students with existing health and social care careers behind them - but it's certainly worth considering.

Clearly there is more to be done - firstly to finish the analysis to see if the differences really are as marked as they currently appear and then perhaps to follow up on this through further dialogue with the students themselves and a review of their final reflective assessments.

Professional Identities - analysing the data

The values held by future health and social care professionals are something about which we should all care deeply. We may one day be very grateful if we or our partners, parents, or children find ourselves in the hands of people who have a keen sense of social justice and a compassionate nature.

Values are certainly at the heart of current  NHS quality improvement programmes  - see this interesting project involving "values based interviewing": The Health Foundation.

When I started on the Photopeach project I had some preconceptions about the sort of values our health and social care students would portray in their videos.... even after assessing them, I tended to have the impression that the number of different categories of values was very few and had been often repeated. If pressed I would have said Respect, Dignity, Caring would come out on top as key values (as ones we had actually discussed in class). Respect did indeed come joint top (along with with tolerance) but second was valuing the uniqueness of the individual.

Half way through the analysis of the videos, I have been surprised at the diversity of values, skills, professional attitudes and knowledge that the students have selected.

There are over 70 individual values mentioned and I have grouped these into five main categories: Social Justice, Personal Qualities, Professional Skills, Teamwork and Management, and the Desired state of the Service User.

Under Social Justice, such issues as anti-discriminatory practice, promotion of human rights, liberation from oppression and promoting the service user's voice are prominent (this category actually comes top with 47 mentions) whilst the desired state of the service user (comfort, happiness, dignity, independence etc) gets 30 mentions. Leadership and Teamwork gets 22 mentions (fulfilling goals, multidisciplinary working, accountability, leadership, co-ordination etc) which given that the module is called Leading Teams is unsurprising (in fact I'd have been disappointed if these had not materialised).

The two biggest categories (most values mentioned) are Personal Qualities and Professional Skills.
Qualities include attitudes such as altruism, compassion, responsibility and sensitivity, which I would have expected. Surprises included creativity, optimism, honesty and loyalty.

The inclusion of these values or qualities leads me to conclude that students had given this exercise quite a bit of thought and were not simply replicating what they could find on the NHS or SCIE websites that we looked at.

Professional Skills included safeguarding, problem-solving, being an advocate, ethical and reflective practice and managing relationships with service users. Confidentiality was actually the most mentioned attitude in this category.

I guess this demonstrates on one level that we have been doing something right as teachers for the past three years if our soon-to-be graduates are able to articulate these values and qualities so clearly. I think though it also highlights the type of student who comes on the course. I did the exact same exercise with first year students just a few weeks into their studies and the results are not a million miles away from these - a little less diverse perhaps but certainly demonstrating that students come on to the course already espousing beliefs in social justice and the importance of respect and dignity in the care of vulnerable people.

This in turn reflects the diversity of our student body - one third of our incoming students are over 21, 20% over 25. A number of these have already worked in the care sector. Around 10% of our students originate from outside Europe - some of these are refugees. Over half have not come to University straight from school but through a mixture of FE/access routes. We don't have the exact figures but I know anecdotally that a good number of our students are carers already - for children, parents and other family members - or themselves have a disability or chronic illness.

Concern for social justice and compassion appear to be well formed in our students even before they arrive. Developing knowledge of the subject area, engagement with the sociological and philosophical arguments presented on the course  - and of course, work experience - do the rest. Its good to know we'll be safe in their hands.