Your Officers.

Education Officer- Scott Storey:

uuseducation@shu.ac.uk

0114 225 4532

Hi, I’m Scott, this year’s Education Officer. I intend to raise the profile of student reps to make sure you are able to get the education you want, make the union and university more accessible to mature and part time students and fight against university spending cuts. I want to hear from you if you have any ideas, issues or problems.

My Social Networks

My Blog:  http://hallamunion.org/your-officers/education-officer-blog/

Twitter: http://twitter.com/Hallamofficers

Weekly Update - 12 - 18th September 2011

This week I have:

- Catch-up about student reps with Nicky.
- Dance rehearsals. (I kid you not, this is like no other job!)
- Went to London for the Quality Matters conference, great time to catch up with other officers around the country and learn about getting more students involved in quality.
- Had a visit from Christina Yan Zhang – NUS International Officer and gave a talk with the officers to nearly 600 international students welcoming them to Sheffield.
- One – to – one meeting with Philip Martin about anything and everything and to link up with the university on some of the things I am working on.
- Meeting about Learning Centre redevelopment.
- Management meeting about Welcome Week.
- Meeting around elections.
- Extraordinary trustee board meeting to present our objectives for the year.
- Meeting about employability, volunteering and the Hallam Award.
- Fresher Rep training.
- International Welcome Party, turned out to be a MASSIVE event and ended up helping out on the bar and cloakroom.
- Catch-up with Serena, Campaigns Co-ordinator about the feedback campaign.
- Senior Management and Officer Group meeting, nice meeting with agenda created on the day.
- Meeting internally around widening participation and access agreements.
- Societies introduction meeting and elections for the societies standing committee.
- Went around halls putting up promo material for Welcome Week.
- Had a non-halls fresher’s event in the HUBS for those who aren’t in halls to get to know each other. It was another massive event where you could barely move in the bar!
- FRESHERS FEST – 12 hour event which marks the start of welcome week which was a great success despite the rain. I spent a good 16 hours in the union and 6 of those as a kangaroo. (Told you, like no other job!)

And to top it off amongst all of that I had a dentist appointment. Definately was the quiet before the storm. Worked all 7 days this week.

Weekly Update – 5 - 9th September 2011

This week I have:
- Had an overview of welcome week to see the plans for each day.
- Learnt more about how best to use volunteers.
- Had our first meeting about elections and the new process for this year.
- Caught up on paperwork so my desk is nice and organised!
- Had a visit from NUS and a couple other unions for Widening Participation Champion training which was held here at Hallam Union.
- First Academic Development Committee (ADC) meeting of the year. Took up nearly a whole day!
- Finished the week with staff development day & awards.

Seems like another empty week. But the last 3 on the list were all day long events.

Weekly Update – 29th August - 2nd September 2011

This week I have:
- Been off most of the week due to the bank holiday!
- Lots of work helping out with accommodation problems
- Responded to student concerns about graduation
- Picking up bits and pieces for everything else as loads have been off on holiday this week.

Doesn’t feel like I’ve got too much done this week! Calm before the storm of welcome week!

Blog Post – Going To University – 30th August 2011

Hi everyone,

I’ve got another blog post up on going to university. I’ve put in a few hints and tips about what to bring, lectures, getting involved, getting home from nights out, housing and assignments.

Click here to read the latest post

Weekly Update – 22 – 26th August 2011

This week I have:
- Had a meeting about employability and plans for careers week
- Worked on the pages and resources for the student rep section of the website
- Spent lots of time on facebook speaking to students coming in September about welcome week and accommodation
- Met about access agreements with other officers and union staff
- Finished filming the officer video!
- Spoke with university staff about the NSS
- Met with the University about the Inspirational Teaching Awards (Expect some info about that when term starts! It’s very exciting stuff.)
- Had a visit form University of Nottingham Students’ Union
- Contacted NUS (National Union of Students) about student bursaries and fee waivers
- Asked Usman Ali – Vice President Higher Education at NUS to be part of a panel debate at what will be our first ever student rep conference later in the year.
- Philip Martin (Pro Vice Chancellor for Student Experience, Learning and Teaching) at the university was also asked to be part of the panel debate and agreed!
- Met with timetabling to discuss their plans for the coming year.
- Had Officer Committee!
- Discussed plans for the staff development day

Blog Post – WIDAR Conference 2011 – 23rd August 2011

As promised when I posted my last blog post (and to several other people on facebook) I have put up a blog post about how I spent my time at WIDAR Conference 2011

Apologies for the length of this one, I felt it was important to put everything in though. I will also try to make future posts more interesting with photos and a bit more comedy.

Click here to read the latest post

Weekly Update – 15 – 19th August 2011

Hi Everyone, In addition to my monthly (hopefully more frequent though!) blog posts I will be putting up brief weekly updates to let you know what I am up to.

This week I have:
- Met with Sheffield University Officers along with the other Hallam Officers
- Had a meeting about Student Engagement
- Spoke about the student rep section of the website with Nicky (Student Rep Co-Ordinator)
- Couple meetings about Elections
- Web Training (Hence all the updates!)
- Met with uni executive with other trustees
- Meeting about bye laws
- Met with uni staff about part-time students
- Had a meeting about campaigns and Widening Participation
- NSS (National Student Survey) results came out
- Started recording the officer video! Can’t wait to see it when it’s done!
- Went to WIDAR (Workers In Democracy And Representation) Conference in London (Blog post coming soon about it!)

Blog Post – A-Level Results! – 17th August 2011

I have a new blog post up reflecting on when I received my A-Level results with a bit of shameless promotion on why you should get involved with Hallam Union when you come to Sheffield Hallam University in September.

Click here to read the latest post

My next planned blog posts will be on the WIDAR conference I will be attending  and the acronyms you will probably have thrown at you constantly in the first few weeks of university to hopefully give you a bit of a heads up so you don’t panic!

Scott’s original manifesto

1. WHAT EXPERIENCE AND SKILLS I BRING TO THE ROLE:

My Current Roles in the Union – Chair of Education Standing Committee – Faculty Rep – Student Rep – Chair of Student Assembly – Chair of Men’s Lacrosse Club To sum it up, I do lot’s in the union and have exposure to most areas! The best thing about most of my roles is that the minutes of them or details are available on the union website so you can see exactly what I get up to at present! A few of my biggest successes have been – The engagement with the student assembly and all the good feedback for the union and the university to improve both of them. – Education committee meeting and working with Pro Vice-Chancellors and other university heads of departments. – Getting the specialist networking labs in Furnival fixed so more equipment is available for students. – I’m also currently increasing the links the lacrosse club has with external partners and hopefully this will help all sports teams.

2. IN THIS ROLE I WILL ACHIEVE FOR STUDENTS

STUDENTS ARE THE HEART OF THE UNION AND THE UNIVERSITY – My overall guiding principle is that students should be at the heart of every decision making process and action in the union and the university. NO IFS, NO BUTS, NO EDUCATION CUTS! – Continue in the fight against tuition fees at a national and institutional level to ensure students get value for money on their education. POSTGRADUATE + PART-TIME REPRESENTATION – Currently the 9000 postgraduate students and 11 000 part-time students at the university do not have a direct representative in the union council. I want this to change. STANDARDISATION + KNOWLEDGE SHARING – Hallam is inconsistent with assessments. I want to work on the work that has already done to standardise the assessment process across the faculties. – Each of the faculties do fantastically at different things. This knowledge needs to be shared between the faculties so they can work with and improve each other. FEEDBACK – If you want to improve, you need good personalised feedback and contact with your tutor. At present this doesn’t always happen. I want to provide lecturers with guidelines on what students want in their feedback.

3. STUDENTS SHOULD VOTE FOR ME BECAUSE:

Time for a Storey, Time for Hallams Happily Ever After