(This mainly applies to the group discussions and presentations.)

This is due to being told one thing is acceptable within written work from CELT and then being told something different in our feedback.

Furthermore, some students have received recommendations for further reading. Is this a new thing that is being implemented? This has not been the case in previous feedback. Should this be something that we should have been notified about in advance?

This was commented on last year but it has not been addressed properly. We commented on the fact that session were being scheduled as 1hr30 or 2hr, but the content only filled 1hr or 1hr30 worth of the session. You took this as us complaining about finishing early and did nothing to the sessions. What we wanted was for the sessions to either have more content to help us with our development, or be shortened to an appropriate time and move the sessions up so that we finish early and have additional time to complete assignments, placement work, CPD, etc.

Issue 2: Content in sessions

In most of the sessions to do with the curriculum, we are mainly taught about HOW to teach, where as we also need to be taught WHAT we need to teach. You keep telling us to develop our subject, but give us barely anything to help us develop that. There have been things mentioned, but I believe it would be beneficial to have a session PER SUBJECT in looking at WHAT we need to teach and what resources are available for us to use.

Issue 3: Expectations and feedback

This has been mentioned but I feel like it is a valid point. When it comes to your expectations of what you want us to achieve, they need to be lowered. You expect 100 different things: criticality, evaluation, synthesis, theory, practice, etc. but we have such a limited amount of time/words to present this all across. When it comes to the assignment – what ever is most important is what is should be focused on and what our feedback should reflect. In addition, the expectations for what we need to be included in the assignment need to be CLEAR. PE501 was not clear and not presented effectively. As you are aware, there was many misconceptions with this, and the presentation of the resources was also a shambles. Staff need to all be aware of what is expected of us so we are told 1 consistent thing rather than 100 opinions. When it comes to feedback, it is not consistent. From my feedback I was told I need to include more sources and evaluate them more. But I was also told to use less sources and to not evaluate the source, so it is not clear what I need to do which is not helping my development.

Issue 4: Placement allocations

We have addressed this numerous times but it is not fair that people are placed near where we live, but we are expected to drive 1hr30 to somewhere closer to someone else. Placements should be allocated, starting near them, then working away until one can be placed.

Issue 5: Respect

We do not feel respected as people. You say you want to help and support us but when we ask for help and give feedback, we are either ignored, dismissed or penalised for asking. Some of us have children and most of us work as we need money to survive and the pressures from the university do not help and need to be put into consideration when making decisions. We agree that the degree comes first but for most people like me, not working is NOT an option and cannot be helped.

Having the assignments spaced out more has been really helpful is managing our workload.

Positive 2: Discussions.

Having more discussions has been really effective in helping with our knowledge and understanding which needs to be implemented across all 3 years.

There was a lot of conflicting information given when planning our resource for PE50122 so feel communication on exactly what was expected would have been beneficial.

Do like how there is less pressure and assignments have been spread out better.