How to Deliver Student-Led, Impactful Student Success Activities for Underrepresented Students: Insights from the University of Leeds’ Plus Programme

What Is the Plus Programme?

The Plus Programme is a flagship Student Success initiative at the University of Leeds, aiming to enhance outcomes and experiences for students from Widening Participation and under-represented backgrounds. The programme is available to over 5,000 students each year, including students who have progressed from a contextual admissions or foundation year, students in receipt of means tested funding and students who are from postcode areas less likely to progress to university.

Activity offered is linked to a minimum of one theory of change, such as sense of belonging, financial security, academic confidence, employability or wellbeing; and activity ranges from events and workshops, to funding pots, to mentoring programmes with external facilitators. Alongside this, we work closely with academic and professional colleagues across the institution to champion the experiences of our students and campaign for change where needed.

We have recently published our latest Annual Report, which provides a snapshot of our activity and impact from academic year 2022-23. The report offers the opportunity to reflect on things that have gone well, as well as areas for development across our student success activity and more broadly in the sector.

A challenging few years

Pointing out the obvious first, it’s been a tricky few years, hasn’t it? COVID and the subsequent cost of living crisis have impacted heavily on our students and our Student Success work. Taking a flexible and adaptive approach has been essential for us to ensure we meet student need and act with impact.

The financial situation has been a real challenge for students. Over the last year the Plus Programme has offered one off maintenance payments to identified cohorts, including those who were care experienced and/or estranged. We also made the case to increase our Leeds Masters Scholarship from £5,000 to £7,000 to respond to both cost of living and increasing Masters fees. We continue to track hidden course costs for students and establish ways to minimise the impact of these costs where possible. This has included offering direct funding to students as well as raising awareness with the wider university that these costs exist, facilitating discussion around how to prevent them from becoming an ongoing barrier.

Another outcome of COVID has been the need to amend our delivery approaches, initially moving online and then to a more hybrid solution. However, this does seem to have had an impact on student engagement with extracurricular provision so we continue to ask questions of ourselves and to students. How do we showcase students the benefits of what is on offer? How do we cut through “the noise”? What is the best and most useful way for us to communicate?

Getting to students where they are

To respond to some of the above, a focus for us going forward will be to broaden and enhance opportunities to meet students face to face and build meaningful connections. Student and staff feedback continues to show the impact of doing this well.

This includes the continuation of our link to the University’s Student Engagement Caller team, who are seeing positive outcomes from their work in proactively calling students to check in with them as a result of low engagement data. Recently the callers have extended their offer to Plus Programme students, with an optional check-in call to discuss issues and receive information and signposting resulting in a total of 195 requests for a call this year so far.

We will also build on our Student Success Stands model, which currently offers academic support related information via stands across campus, manned by Graduate Interns and Student Ambassadors. The depth of opportunities and resources available to students within the university is great in so many ways, but can feel overwhelming at times. The stands provide the opportunity for students to ask questions in a relaxed environment to well informed staff members and get to the heart of what they need to know.

The opportunity to chat to individual students and truly connect will be a clear priority going into the next academic year. This will include hybrid alternatives to ensure all students can participate within the support available.

Student voice is key

Centring student voices is a core priority of everything that we do. We’ve recently launched our Student Involvement project, co-created with students to create sustained collaborative work with under-represented groups in order to enhance their student experience and, ultimately, their academic outcomes.

The project focuses on building genuine partnerships with students. Often students may feel that they are shouting into the void, asked to provide perspectives that are personal and sometimes challenging to share. We work to ensure that students know their input will be listened to, valued and, crucially, acted upon. Students initially participate in the Listening Rooms approach where they can discuss their experiences in a safe space, and the findings are then taken to both student and staff steering groups, where discussion continues around how to act on the findings in a meaningful and sustained way. Our work is ongoing on this project with findings from the first set of Listening Rooms available by summer 2024.

More broadly within the Plus Programme team, we continue to listen and react to student input via a range of mechanisms including surveys, case studies and focus groups. The previous year has been difficult for many students, but it’s great to see where our approach has been beneficial to individual students, like Joanna:

“The Plus Programme has helped me feel like I belong at Leeds, knowing there’s a dedicated person I can approach and having the opportunity to connect with other students to share advice, like what to do about guarantors. The impact of the Plus Programme on my student experience has been priceless”.

Meaningful and tailored provision

Given the size of our Plus Programme cohort, thought is needed as to how we best engage with students as a collective, whilst also providing a tailored and personalised offering as much as possible.

Our newsletter is one way of doing this. Over the past few years, we have undertaken research and identified that simplifying communications is key to cutting through “the noise”. Our approach is to curate relevant content for students, “the best opportunities on offer” if you will, and we communicate this out using a friendly, informal and non-judgemental tone. Students have fed back that the newsletter helps to build a sense of community and makes them feel a part of something, and engagement levels with the newsletter are typically higher than average. We have also seen real impact in personalising emails to students in terms of increasing engagement with individual activities.

Alongside a broad support offering available to all Plus Programme students, we use APP and Access & Success targets to identify cohorts where we may want to increase and personalise what we have available. An example of this is our Black Student Peer Mentoring programme, run in partnership with Flourished Minds, a local organisation offering coaching and mentoring within Leeds. The activity aims to enhance experiences for students whilst also feeding into our wider approach to reducing awarding gaps within the institution.

“I think it was just really nice to see Black professionals. It sounds so minuscule but I’ve never spoken to professors or tutors who come from a Black/African background in my time in Leeds and even in my time in secondary school.”

Don’t forget about Postgraduate students

One final thing before I round this off – don’t forget about the Postgraduates! Here at Leeds, the Plus Programme has an ongoing commitment to ensuring fair access and opportunity across all levels of study – not just at Undergraduate level.

For Undergraduate Plus Programme students considering a PGT programme, we run information and awareness raising sessions and support with funding options, including through our Leeds Masters Scholarship.

Once enrolled on a Masters programme, eligible students can also become part of the Plus Programme community and receive a targeted range of information and activity to enhance their transition and success. A key priority is ongoing communications during the pre-arrival period, sharing our Prepare for Postgrad transitional resource, and supporting students to understand what to expect and how to prepare. The team also deliver a dedicated Welcome Event and weekly newsletter, ring-fenced careers support and mentoring, and access to our Opportunities Fund for professional development related costs.

“The Plus Programme welcome event I attended for postgraduates made me feel much more at ease about my course and helped me to see how diverse Masters courses are.”

The last year has also allowed us to develop our Postgraduate diversity work further, through the appointment of new, dedicated staff with a focus on Postgraduate Research, where there is a clear need for more to be done to improve access and experiences for under-represented student groups. Key areas are on improving data to inform future practice, reviewing and improving application routes and ensuring student experiences are enhanced through mentoring, information sharing and network building.

Our ongoing membership in the NEON Widening Participation in Postgraduate Study network continues to be beneficial for institutional and sector level innovation, building connections with a range of institutions keen to improve student outcomes within the Postgraduate space.

Participating within collaborative work with the group to better understand Postgraduate data has been an ongoing focus of the last year, with a range of demographic applicant data collected by the participating institutions for analysis. The first batch of data will be analysed and findings available by summer 2024, which will allow for us to better understand who is accessing Postgraduate study, building the evidence base and supporting better informed decisions over the next steps to enhance access and success at Postgraduate level.

Taking pride in our achievements and looking forward

The Plus Programme approach is to focus on innovation, responding to student voice and continuing to adapt to new situations that arise each year. The approach is evaluated both qualitatively and quantitatively, with data collected alongside student voice. The latest data shows that where Undergraduate students have engaged with the Plus Programme, the average continuation rate is 5.5% higher than their peers. This shows the real need for us to ensure student engagement is maximised as much as possible, and this will be a real focus for us going into 2024-25 academic year.

Our recent APP submission has highlighted that ongoing efforts are needed to continue to level the playing field for students and enhance student success. By continuing to innovate and improve existing provision, alongside reviewing data and listening to student voice, we hope to offer impact where needed. This includes further consideration to the outcomes of mature students, working closely with colleagues in our Lifelong Learning Centre.

The year 2024-25 also signifies our 10 year anniversary on the Plus Programme. We have developed a huge amount over this time, from an initial small offering of scholarships and pastoral support to a team of nine staff offering a range of activity and with a wealth of experience. We will be running events and sharing resources with the sector over the year, and would love to see you in attendance. To find out more about our work please do give our Annual Report a read and feel free to get in touch via theplusprogramme@leeds.ac.uk if you would like to connect further.