NSS 2025: how we encouraged our students to take part

18 Jul 2025

There’s a lot that goes into promoting the National Student Survey (NSS) over a three-month period. Here we round up some of the great work from professional services and academic colleagues across the Faculty which helped encourage our final-year undergraduate students finalists to click ‘complete.’

Our Faculty achieved a 72.6% response rate for the 2025 National Student Survey (NSS) according to the final results released by the Office for Students (OfS) on 9 July.

From the end of January to the end of April, we promote the NSS across our Faculty and University, giving finalists opportunity to honestly and anonymously feedback about their university experience.

Here are just some examples of the media, methods and messages we use to prompt students to share their thoughts about their time with us.

Events

School-level events were held to celebrate students’ achievements with rewards, games and free pizza (along with other treats!)

Targeted support events, e.g. those relating to dissertations and careers, helped give final-year students the resources and reminders to complete the survey.

NSS was also brought up at community events that were already planned with students in mind, such as class photos.

From dissertation showcases to annual lectures, wider academic events also offered the opportunity to shout out about the survey, as did the social events organised for student wellbeing and community bonding.

Academic routines

Final-year students are busy. Pointing them to the NSS website through shout-outs at some of the largest lectures helped to target them efficiently.

NSS was also part of dissertation, academic advising and course unit-related conversations, embedded into the everyday rhythm of our students’ routines.

Student voice

Student voice matters well beyond the NSS. We told our finalists about the improvements brought in as a result of their feedback and how we close the feedback loop, whether it’s locally in programmes or more widely in Schools.

Students involved in academic representation through the Students’ Union were also equipped with the tools for highlighting the survey as a key contact point with their fellow students.

Peer-to-peer messaging

NSS messaging can be entertaining, too! Student ambassadors helped to reflect on the survey’s importance in short social media videos that made the NSS feel relatable.

Student societies joined in on our NSS mission, resharing the survey content with their final-year members through regular channels.

Familiarity

Despite our size, we aim to build a sense of community in Humanities. Whether it was through emails or lectures, students heard about the survey and why it matters from the people and teams they knew.

Finalists are often overwhelmed with things to tick off their to-do lists as it is. So, timing was key, and messages were spread across the months as the countdown to the end of the NSS progressed.

And finally…

Last but not least, leaflets, flyers, banners, posters and many materials in between kept the NSS in our final-year students’ mind in our buildings as winter turned to spring.

Thank you to everyone who helped promote the NSS to our finalists!