Dear all,

It’s been wonderful to see our students back on campus as the new academic year gets under way. There’s a real energy in the air as they begin or continue their academic journeys and explore everything a life at the University has to offer.

Our goal is to ensure that every student has a rewarding and enriching experience throughout their time with us. Whatever our role, each of us contributes to creating an environment where students can thrive.

One of the key ways we hear directly from students about their experiences is through the National Student Survey (NSS). This UK-wide survey of final-year undergraduates gives essential insights into how we’re doing – not just as a University, but in our Faculty and individual Schools, down to programme level.

Looking back at our NSS 2025 results

The NSS 2025 results showed a welcome improvement for the University and Faculty. Our overall positivity score for the Faculty was 80.8%, a promising 4.4% improvement on the year before. Scores for all seven core NSS themes rose, and we were particularly pleased that our results for ‘assessment and feedback’ (73.2% overall) and ‘student voice’ (74.2% overall) saw some of the greatest increases in positivity, as these are areas which the Faculty and Schools focused on heavily through an NSS action plan.

Our improvements are thanks to the enormous efforts and hard work of academic, PS and technical services colleagues across the Faculty and we should all be proud of our progress.

NSS action plan 2025/26 – A one-university approach

Building on these foundations, Professor Jenn Hallam, Vice-President for Teaching, Learning and Students, and the University’s Teaching, Learning and Students Committee, have developed a new NSS action plan for the 2025/26 academic year.

The plan addresses the core issues influencing the themes of assessment and feedback, student voice, and organisation and management, aiming to make further positive changes to student experience for both undergraduate and postgraduate taught students. In collaboration with our Schools, the Faculty has produced a more detailed set of actions sitting below the main plan, and the Teaching, Learning and Students Committee will be reviewing our progress each month.

Our Faculty plan refines and reinforces current practices and policies, rather than adding many more processes, and aims to improve consistency and quality across our Schools. Directors of Teaching and Learning will be working with Programme Directors and appropriate professional services colleagues to fully implement the action plan across all our programmes.

Early course unit feedback – Course unit leads take action now

One of our most important priorities is improving student voice – not just in terms of giving students opportunities to share their ideas and opinions with us, but also giving us the chance to respond to them in real time, so that the things we do make a difference to their experience, and they know that we have listened to their feedback and responded. Early course unit feedback enables us to ask students how it’s going so far and gives us the potential to make changes to their experience. Sometimes small changes can make a real difference.

We’re asking all course unit leads to find a suitable time in the next two weeks to ‘check in’ with students about how they are doing so far. This should be carried out in class time, and could be in a range of formats, for example a quick online survey, Mentimeter, a suggestions box, or simply questions and Post-it notes. It’s important to let students know the following week what they’ve told us, and any actions we can take now to help them with their learning.

Next steps for the action plan

Heads of School, Heads of Department/Division, Directors of Teaching and Learning and Programme Directors will share more information on the Faculty NSS action plan with colleagues over the coming weeks.

We look forward to collaborating with you as we continue to work on making our students’ time with us as fulfilling and productive as possible, equipping them with the skills, knowledge and confidence they’ll carry forward into their future careers and lives.

Best wishes, 

Fiona and Alec