What do we do?
The Student Experience Team has an overarching remit to ensure our students have the best possible experience at St George’s. We achieve this by capturing the student voice and supporting programmes and university business areas to act on this feedback. Action planning is a collaborative venture with St George’s Students’ Union (SGSU) and partnership working with, for example, Student Advisors. We also support a broad range of student enrichment opportunities.
Student Voice
Our work includes the coordination of annual student voice surveys such as the Student Experience Survey (SES), National Student Survey (NSS), Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey (PTES), Postgraduate Research Experience Survey (PRES), and the Student Online Teaching Surveys (SOLTS) of modules and teachers. More details about the surveys may be found here.
St George’s has several diverse ways for students to use their voice. We manage the Unitu Student Voice platform which allows students to post feedback online and staff can provide responses. Students, Year Reps, SGSU officers and University staff all work together to act on feedback and keep students informed. New Student-Staff Committees will allow Year Reps to discuss with their programme team common feedback themes that have arisen over the term and agree appropriate action. These committees will be chaired by a student to ensure that students are at the heart of decision-making on their programmes.
We champion efforts to improve “closing of the feedback loop” so that student hear more about the impact of their voice. We lead on university campaigns to assist with this such as “Did You Know?” (and previous “You Said, We Did”), and work closely with the university’s communications teams to improve communication with students.
The Did You Know? Campaign is designed to showcase the broad range of support services and opportunities that are in place, to raise awareness of the rich teaching and learning environment and resources that are available for students to utilise throughout their studies, to encourage them to engage with student experience and engagement activities that they might not be aware of, and to celebrate the amazing achievements of the St George’s community.
Student Enrichment Opportunities
The student enrichment opportunities include Open Spaces an extra-curricular programme bringing science, medicine, and healthcare into dialogue with the arts, humanities, and enterprise. It aims to stimulate interdisciplinary encounters between staff and students, students on different programmes, and between the University and the local community.
Student-Staff Partnership Grants (SSPGs) facilitate students and staff collaborative projects. In doing so they harness the creativity of working together to build transformative education with a meaningful and lasting impact on St George’s community.
Education Ideas Hub is an arena in which St George’s students and staff share perspectives on teaching, learning and life in higher education. They provide a space for networking and sharing ideas.
The Big Read aims to create a sense of belonging among students and staff alike through shared reading - one book that gathers St George's community to share ideas about thought-provoking topics or experiences of getting lost in spellbinding narratives. In particular, the Big Read aims to help incoming students feel welcome and settle into the university environment. The book selected for 2022/23 is the Gravity of Us. Details of the planned events will be shared shortly.
Coordinating and monitoring improvement
A key part of our work is to analyse and curate feedback from students, disseminate it to staff groups (both programme teams and university directorates) and provide frameworks for reflection and action. We manage Workshops convened to address problem areas identified in student surveys, helping staff teams come to a shared understanding with students about what the problem is, what good would look like and agreeing action needed. We convene a Student Experience Hub that oversees this work and presents it to Education & Students Strategy Committee for progress monitoring.
Education and Students Strategy and the Teaching Excellence Framework
The team is line managed by the Education Strategy Manager, whomanages the implementation of the Education and Students Strategy and project manages Teaching Excellence Framework submissions, both of which have a strong focus on strengthening the quality of the student experience.
We want to hear from you!
If you would like to be involved or have suggestions or ideas to offer, please contact us via experience@sgul.ac.uk.
The Team
Click here to view a organisational chart of the Student Experience Team (PDF), and find out more about each member below.
Deputy Vice-Chancellor Education
Professor Jane Saffell
Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education)
Email: jsaffell@sgul.ac.uk
My leadership role involves university oversight of teaching & learning, student experience, careers & employability, access & participation and the size and shape of St George’s programme portfolio.
I work most closely with excellent colleagues in the Student Experience team, the Centres for “Technology in Education” and “Innovation and Development in Education”, plus five Associate Deans and the Students’ Union sabbatical officers. Leading creative change projects with students and staff is the most satisfying part of my role.
From chatting with students, I’ve learned lots about working in healthcare (better than Holby City!). I appreciate warm conversations, the creativity of Student-Staff Partnership projects and insightful work by Student Advisors.
Advice I would pass on to students is:
“The things you think are the disasters in your life are not disasters really. Almost anything can be turned around. From every ditch, a path, if only you can find it”. [“Bring up the Bodies” by Hilary Mantel]
Associate Dean Student Experience
Marcus Jackson
Associate Dean Student Experience
Email: mjackson@sgul.ac.uk
My role is to lead on student enrichment and engagement for all students at St George’s. I work with the Student Experience Team to support initiatives to continuously improve the student experience, monitor student feedback and support staff to create and deliver action plans. I am the students advocate at a range of strategic meetings ensuring that their voice is heard, and appropriate resources are provided.
I am always happy to hear from students and staff about ideas and areas for improvement.
Reading fiction is how I relax …. how do you de-stress?
I never cease to be amazed and impressed with St George’s students’ willingness to work collaboratively toward a better student experience. Their resilience over the extraordinary period of the Covid pandemic has been commendable.
My tip: try to keep an open mind. Disasters often turn out to be wonderful opportunities for growth and change. People are inherently decent and kind – find out the back story before passing judgement.
Education Strategy Manager
Meg Walton
Education Strategy Manager
Email: mwalton@sgul.ac.uk
My role focuses on managing and monitoring the implementation of St George’s Education & Students Strategy, managing key projects that are central to the delivery of the Strategy (particularly related to student experience, student outcomes and portfolio growth) and project management of the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF). I also line manage the Student Experience Team.
I can help with your queries about the Education & Students Strategy, TEF, student experience/engagement/ outcomes and portfolio growth. I am very interested in travel, books and food, so am always happy to talk about these too!
During my time at St George’s I have learnt that students and staff are always willing to go the extra mile to support people, work on projects and make everyone feel welcome in the community.
Student Engagement Officer
Dave Arnold
Student Engagement Officer
Email: darnold@sgul.ac.uk
My role at St George’s is extremely varied! I manage the Unitu Student Voice platform and work with colleagues to resolve issues from student feedback and enhancing how they engage with their students. I also manage the Student Ambassadors scheme and I’m involved with Student Advisors and the St George’s Skills and Recognition Award. I’m also the main liaison between and the University and St George’s Students’ Union (SGSU).
Since joining in March 2022, I’ve learned that St George’s students give 110%! They can still get involved in extracurricular activities despite being so committed to their studies.
From my experience working in the student movement, I think St George’s students need to know that everyone has a voice, and together their voice is powerful. Working together, we can all achieve great things and make changes that matter.
Student Experience Officer
Alina Apostu
Student Experience Officer
Email: aapostu@sgul.ac.uk
My role focuses on planning and analysing UG and PG student surveys and organising and managing student experience initiatives such as the Student Staff Partnership Grants, the Big Read, and the Education Ideas Hub.
I can help you with your queries and suggestions about student surveys and initiatives that build community and belonging at St George’s. Also, always happy to talk about plants, walking, and food!
One thing I’ve learnt from St George’s students is resilience and ingenuity. One thing from my experience which I hope others at St George’s would find helpful is to go for a walk when your mind weighs you down, either because of worry or lack of inspiration.
Student Experience Administrator
Robert Mills
Student Experience Administrator
Email: rmills@sgul.ac.uk
I deal primarily with the SOLTS modular survey process, ensuring that course-related communications between staff and students are as seamless and efficient as possible. This entails liaising with programme staff in order to generate appropriate surveys, keeping track of open feedback loops, and suggesting/implementing improvements to the way we facilitate course-related exchanges between staff and students at St. Georges.
Additionally, I provide administrative support for the Education Ideas Hub and Big Read events, as well as more general support for various projects run by the Student Experience Team.
I am consistently impressed by the uniquely active culture of collaboration between staff and students at St. George’s. While I am a relatively new member of our team, it is clear to me already that students here are more than willing to contribute to university life—both scholarly and social—in ways that go far beyond the requirements of their courses.