School of Languages Linguistics and Cultures
Retention Funding Report
July 2009
In November/December 2008, SLLC advertised to recruit a part-time Student
Retention Coordinator, following a successful bid to Faculty to fund the post. Laura
Thomas (née Green) was appointed on 16 February 2009 to work on this year-long
project. Laura has provided regular updates on her work at monthly meetings held
with the Undergraduate Manager, Director of UG Studies, Head of School and Head
of School Administration. Please find below an outline of the work that has been
undertaken with regards to the improvement of student retention within SLLC as well
as planned actions to be achieved within the next 6 months.
Research
Data analysis
All withdrawal information has been accumulated and analysed from 2006-date to
build a ‘real time’ picture of retention in the school to enable tangible solutions to be
developed and utilised within the School. From a University year by year cycle we are
now able to see our withdrawal rates broken by;
o Year of study
o Month of withdrawal
o Gender
o Reasons for withdrawal
o ‘Touch points’ (due to the complexity of degree choice this looks at
which discipline area was ‘touched’ by withdrawing students rather
than the complete degree studied i.e. French & German degree would
have one touch point for French and one for German)
o Degree
o ‘A’ level results
Focus group work
A focus group of 10 LLC students has been undertaken. Students were a mix of first
and second years across a number of discipline areas. The questions focused on issues
that had been raised through the data analysis as well as general research completed
around the area of retention. Furthermore, the Student Retention Coordinator attended
nine meetings organised by the Head of School before and after the Easter vacation
with different cohorts/programmes of students to discuss student desires for the
curriculum and the Academic Advisor role (replacement for Personal Tutor role).
This research has enabled us to;
o Build a data capture spreadsheet to be used within the school to ensure
this research and analysis is ongoing and outcomes are actioned where
possible to be built into the annual monitoring and review process
o Highlight our ‘at risk’ students based on common factors appearing
through the analysed data
o Develop actions towards improving our retention within the School –
more detail is outlined further in the report.
o Develop ideas for the curriculum and how best to encapsulate the role
of Academic Advisor (pilot schemes set up in LEL, ESML and
Japanese).
Peer Mentoring
The School now has trained peer mentors within the following disciplines;
o Italian
o French
o German
o LEL
o Russian
o EAS
o Middle Eastern Studies
o Spanish and Portuguese
o European Studies
There are 40 trained mentors in total with 17 students to be trained in September
(these are currently Year Abroad students). The Middle Eastern Studies scheme will
also be incorporating a PASS element to it supported by the faculty sabbatical.
Online
Development of www.Ning.com
This site has been created (FOC) primarily for students who will be receiving offers
from SLLC in January 2010 (and beyond). Between May and September the site will
be used as a communication tool by the peer mentors within the School. As soon as
the mentoring schemes go live in September, the site will be populated by the peer
mentors with information about the peer mentoring scheme, life and study at the
University. In January, offered students will be sent an invitation to join the site and
will be able to engage with the current peer mentors directly through message boards
and discussion forums giving them the opportunity to find out about life at the
University and the peer mentoring scheme before they arrive. It will also enable
offered students to engage with fellow ‘offered students’ – in theory allowing them to
make connections and potential friendships prior to arrival at the University.
Induction
Through the research completed we have recognised that our Induction process for
new students to the School could be improved and as such we are building a much
more robust induction to begin in September 2009. This will include;
o Structured induction meeting* to include;
 Formal welcome
 Overview of the University
 Overview of the School
 Expectations of students (and staff)
 Orientation
 Introduction to course unit selection and registration
 Student support
 Peer mentoring scheme
 Library introduction
 IT introduction


Careers service (part time working focus)
Meeting the support team
*Students will also be asked to fill in an ‘at risk’ questionnaire during this meeting.
This is a basic questionnaire, the results of which should highlight to us those students
that are potentially at a higher risk of withdrawing;
Improving the awareness of support
As well as introducing the support services within the induction meeting we are also
undertaking the following to ensure students are more aware of the support available.
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There will be a poster outside the lifts on the 3rd floor, South Wing, Samuel
Alexander building featuring all of the support staff within the SLLC
undergraduate team, where they are based and their contact details, to ensure
that students are familiar with the people that are here to support them,
particularly during the first few months.
During induction week there will be a power point presentation of
photographs and details of the support team running on the plasma screen
within the foyer of the South Wing Foyer Samuel Alexander building.
Photographs will appear on the intranet site so that students know who to look
for when they need support when they arrive at the University.
Improving induction communication
- On achieving a confirmed place at the School (post results) students will
receive an email from the support team to congratulate them on their results
and welcome them to the school. Within this email there will be an email
address for the students to use if they have specific concerns or questions
during the time between receiving their results (and acceptance to the
University) and fresher’s week (a dedicated email newllcstudent@manchester.ac.uk has been set up). This will be facilitated by
the Student Retention Coordinator and dealt with by relevant individuals
dependent on the question. There will be a caveat on this around timescales as,
due to this being a new service offering, we don’t know the amount of
contact/queries etc we may receive.
- All of the induction letters have been re-vamped to improve the layout and
tone, to make the information more accessible and to increase the personal
nature of the information (i.e. naming the student, adding photographs of
support staff, and making the tone more familiar)
Networking
We have recognised that there are good practices and retention projects
occurring around the University and therefore we have increased our contact outside
of the School to ensure we are accessing best practice where possible. Our Student
Retention Coordinator has met with Karen Badat from Student Support Services,
Laura Cameron from SAHC, Will Carey from TLSO and Matt Valentine our
dedicated Faculty Sabbatical (Mentoring).
Work in development
There are quite a number of areas that the School is looking at developing across the
next 6 months with regards to retention and improving the student experience within
our school. An outline of these can be found below;
Improving course unit selection process
- Ensure that the course unit information gives a true idea of what the course
will entail – consider using student ‘sound bites’ to achieve this.
- Consider allowing offered students (Jan onwards) to see course units currently
available to enable them to prepare themselves for the choices they will be
asked to make (with a clear caveat that those may not be available when they
are eligible to choose). This work coincides with discussions held at the
Student Administration Management Group Registration/Start of Year Sub
Group, where it was identified that offered students are frequently requesting
such information.
- Build a grid/tree to show which modules are required to take later modules so
students understand the impact of their course unit selection.
Improve communication
- Via the Academic Advisor role directly sense check with students around
week 5 and before exams to ensure they feel like ‘we care’ and to remind them
of the support systems available to them. Also send an email from the relevant
support staff member reminding them who they are and what they do.
- As soon as possible inform all relevant students when an Academic leaves the
University/goes on sabbatical, and explain the impact where appropriate.
- Consider developing a ‘re-fresher’s’ week in early semester 2 after exams
(potential a Wednesday afternoon – reminder of some of the key elements
from the first meeting. (possible link up with SAHC to create a ‘buzz’ and link
in with students union)
- Look at ways to improve the filling in of withdrawal questionnaires so that the
withdrawal information is more robust. Consider refusal of ‘leaving
confirmation’ unless withdrawal questionnaire returned – potentially build and
deliver questionnaire online.
Strengthening student relationships and individual learning experience
- Where relevant, academics to encourage groups to develop (particularly)
within language degrees in order for students to practice language and
grammar together. Academics/support staff to book rooms for hour post
seminar/lecture for students to stay and discuss work.
Further Improvement of induction
Consider running group sessions within the first 5 weeks of first term to include
o What do you think your degree is about?
o Plagiarism
o How to write an essay
o Difference between 2.1 and 1st
o How to write references/bibliographies
Peer Mentoring
- Develop peer mentor marketing material on behalf of the school to be used on
the notice board and within the induction pack sent to incoming students
- To ensure consistency year on year and build a strong peer mentoring scheme,
develop staff handbook for peer mentoring to include;
o What peer mentoring means
o Why we do it
o Who is involved
o How to recruit effectively
o Process to develop successful scheme
- Develop student handbook for peer mentoring to include
o Why we do it
o Who is involved
o Examples of success
o Admin (how to book a room, who to speak to etc)
o Explanations around funding and what to do
Research
- Develop research along with TLSO to assess new induction process, as well as
reviewing overall student experience in early semester 1.
Report written by: Laura Thomas, Student Retention Coordinator
Endorsed by: Liz Nolan, Undergraduate Manager, SLLC