Help us improve our support
We deliver a range of programmes to help students succeed while they are with us and fulfil their goals for work and further study. We are seeking students’ views on how these programmes could be improved and ensure that our resources are targeted where they are most needed.
You can find out more about what we do already on our Success for All webpages and our most recent Impact report. The box below contains some examples of this activity.
- Exeter Scholars, Realising Opportunities and Pathways to Law programmes providing targeted opportunities for young people to find out about university, develop a passion for a chosen subject, and gain first-hand experience of student life.
- Targeted work with teachers, pupils and schools in the South West and across the country providing information, advice and guidance, application support and curriculum enrichment.
- Developing educational provision, qualifications and progression routes to address skills gaps within the region and help stimulate the economy. An example is the expansion of degree apprenticeships in partnership with the South West Institute of Technology and Civic Agreements.
- Providing enhanced support for mature learners through the Mature Access Pathway, scholarships and peer mentoring.
- Induction and transition framework to support arriving at University, academic readiness and belonging. We also have our Enhanced Induction Programme for under-represented students to ensure they have the best possible start to their uni life.
- Introducing the Transformative Education Framework to promote inclusive education practice and help address awarding gaps.
- Exeter Cares, providing award-winning wrap-around support for students who have overcome significant barriers to take part in higher education such as family estrangement or being in care.
- Targeted financial support through our Access to Exeter Bursary and Success for All Fund to address financial hardship.
- Bespoke wellbeing and employability support for students within priority groups to complement existing programmes.
The consultation is open to home undergraduate students. We are especially interested in hearing from individuals who have faced difficulties accessing higher education, realising their academic potential, or actively engaging in in student-life due to any of these specified characteristics:
- Low-income household
- Ethnicity
- Religion
- First in family to go university.
- Disability
- Mature student
- Commuter student
- Children from Armed Forces families
- LGBTQ+
- Estranged students
- Students with parental responsibility
- Care experienced students
- Young carers
The Office for Students (OfS) has asked us to review our provision and They want us to check that our focus is on those students who need the support the most and that the support we provide addresses the challenges students face. We will use the information to inform our new Access and Participation Plan. This is a link to a summary of our current plan.
Our initiatives are highly regarded across the sector. Last year we were named NEON University of the Year for access and participation, and this support contributed positively to our TEF Gold award. As successful as we have been, however, we recognise that students needs change over time, and that there is always room for improvement. We are seeking your views on:
- The challenges students face in first coming to Exeter, and the factors that prevent them from getting the most of their experience when they are here. We provide more information about this in the section “What challenges should our provision address?” below. What are the greatest challenges students face?
- Our priorities. The OfS wants us to focus on stages of the student journey where data shows we have the greatest gaps in equality of opportunity. We have summarised these gaps in the section “What does our gap analysis suggest we should prioritise” below. Do these gaps align to your understanding of greatest need?
- If you have benefited from our programmes, what has been most helpful in addressing the challenges you faced?
- Finally, and most crucially, what more could we do to support you and/or other students while you are at Exeter?
The OfS has identified "risks to equality of opportunity" that may affect a student’s opportunity to access and succeed in higher education. Our support needs to address these risks.
We are looking for responses that help us to fully understand the challenges students face when they are with us and especially, how these challenges are experienced by students with specific shared characteristics. What are the greatest challenges?
Students’ motivation to come to Exeter, and their ability to progress and achieve whilst they are here is influenced in part, to risks to equality of opportunity. We can see this in our student data: for example, mature students are less likely to achieve a Good Hons than their younger peers.
The OfS wants us to focus our attention on areas where our analysis shows the gap between students with a specific characteristic and those who do not share that characteristic, is greatest. At Exeter, these are summarised below:
- On entry to University, compared to the sector average, Exeter has a smaller share of students who experience socio-economic disadvantage, are from an ethnic minority group, are mature students, or are from areas of low higher education participation.
- The biggest gaps in continuation – that is, students starting Year 2 following successful completion of Year 1 – are for the most socio-economically disadvantaged, as well as those who are mature, care experienced or estranged. These students, as well as those with a mental health condition, are less likely to complete their degree.
- Black and Asian students, mature students, those with a social or communication disability and those who are socio-economically disadvantaged have the biggest gaps in awarding of Good Hons degrees.
- While progression to graduate level jobs or further study is generally high, where gaps do exist these are biggest for students with: a social or communication or mental health disability or multiple disabilities; those from areas with low levels of higher participation; or who are from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds.
Many of these gaps are evident in other institutions within the sector and are therefore not unique to Exeter. Do these gaps align to your understanding of greatest need?
You can contribute to the consultation in three ways:
- Completing this simple consultation form. This contains the open-ended questions mentioned in the earlier “What feedback are we looking for?” as well as an opportunity to provide any other comments. It will not be possible to identify you from your responses.
- For students on our Exeter campuses: Contributing to a student consultation being run by the Students' Guild to further explore these issues. Email voice@exeterguild.com if you are interested in taking part.
- Emailing successforallcomms@exeter.ac.uk
Email successforallcomms@exeter.ac.uk if you need support to take part in the consultation.
The anonymised contributions to the consultation will be reviewed by the WP strategy. Evidence and policy team and contribute to the development of our new Access and Participation Plan. Our new plan will be posted on our website once it has been approved by the Office for Students.