Thursday 17-02-2022 - 16:22

Student engagement in further education is what we use to describe the processes, mechanisms, and paths for students to engage with their college community.  This can take many forms – from students feeding into quality assurance processes to students being partners in the building of policy and processes – from students campaigning to change timetabling to leading the students’ union in a paid role – from keeping your local environment clean to building local volunteering into curriculums – and from setting up a chess club to real and sustainable positive changes to the mental health of students.

The guides

These guides are designed to be used at the very beginning of a college or provider’s journey to building excellent student engagement through a students’ union or association.  They will take you through how to build sustainable processes and structures that will put you in a great position to build upon year on year.  They are also designed to be a menu – we expect all colleges and providers to be at different stages of development so you can pick and choose what guides are useful to your institution.

All the guides fit into NUS’s model of Student Engagement and are designed to define a level of development that we aspire for all colleges and providers to meet.

Learner voice

1. Setting up a rep system
2. Completing the voice loop

Democracy and Campaigning

3. Elections
4. Elected Students’ Union Officers
5. Campaigns

Youth Social Action

6. Setting up Youth Social Action provision

Enrichment

7. Clubs and societies

These guides include key information about the implementation of key services and activities as well as links to useful resources and contacts with NUS. If you have any questions about any of the content in the guides please do get in touch with the Development team at  uniondevelopment@nus.org.uk