Since taking on my role as PVC Education at Bath, one of the things that has brought me the most joy at work, is meeting and connecting with members of our community to talk about the key issues in education.
'Let's Talk Education' is my approach to capturing and sharing those conversations with our community.
In this first video of 2024, I chatted with Emily Pollinger, Policy & Programmes Manager, and Ryan Lucas, SU Education Manager, about our recent triple gold Teaching Excellence Framework Award, what we've learned from the process, and what it means for the continuous improvement of our education at Bath.
The Office for Students recognition through the Teaching Excellence Framework, of Bath being one of only six high-tariff universities to receive a triple gold rating, is fantastic to have. But this is really a culmination of the past few years of hard work by staff across the institution, and a validation of what our students tell us, as they will always be our most important critics.
Internally, this was a brilliant exercise to take stock, reflect, and document exactly what it is that we feel makes our education distinctive, not least developing for the first time our definition of 'educational gain'. A huge amount of effort went into the submission itself, but even more so into the excellent educational outcomes that were reflected in our data. And for that I'd like to extend my sincere thanks to all involved, particularly to the SU for continuing to have such a constructive and collaborative approach to representing our students and pushing for ongoing improvement.
We're delighted with the outcome, but we won't be resting on our laurels. Another TEF submission will be along in 2027 and, in the meantime, we have work to do to ensure we can demonstrate year-on-year progress across the time period. A big focus in the immediate term, both for ourselves and the SU, is on our data - ensuring we have comprehensive datasets with insightful analysis, across the institution, to enable those delivering our education to make responsive enhancements.
As Ryan mentions, the SU, with our support, continue to work on ensuring that the student voice input to our education is representative of our whole student body. This is critical to our success. And then, of course, we're also continuing to roll-out our transformed curriculum, so it's a busy time ahead - more on both curriculum transformation and student voice in future videos.
More about TEF here
Read our TEF Submissions and Panel Report here
Read Emily's last HEPI Blog on Educational Gain here
Contact me at pro-vc-edu@bath.ac.uk to ask questions, or request future topics you'd like to hear about.
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