Over the last four years, our BSc Education programme at Cardiff has undergone a significant period of transformation. While our National Student Survey (NSS) scores are only one lens on that progress, they also point toward something deeper: a shift in culture, practice, and shared attention to the everyday experience of students and staff.<\/p>\n
I became Education Teaching Team Lead in 2022, following a global pandemic, emergency shifts to online teaching, and sustained industrial action. The 2021 NSS results for the BSc Education programme hovered just above 50% in overall satisfaction, representing the challenges and difficulties facing both university students and staff. In free-text comments, students described their experience in fragmentary terms:\u00a0 Feedback felt inconsistent, there was a perceived lack of programme coherence, and understandably, a sense of a loss of trust in higher education in general.<\/p>\n
These challenges served as a catalyst for change and the basis for a programme of work I hoped to implement with colleagues and students alike. In response, the School appointed two new academic staff: Dr Vassiliki Papatsiba<\/a> and Dr Anja Giudici<\/a>, colleagues who bring both diversity and depth in teaching and research to our Education programmes. We also introduced clearer module documentation, began rebalancing the delivery of modules across semesters, and enhanced students\u2019 sense of Cynefin through developing social\/study spaces, extra-curricular activities and greater opportunities for dialogue with each other and academic staff.<\/p>\n Through initiatives led by Dr. Finn Bowring<\/a>, we improved the structures of feedback and assessment, and with sustained efforts from Dr Mark Connolly<\/a>, Dr Charlotte Brookfield<\/a> and Dr Jenny Hoolachan<\/a>, the School also enhanced its student academic representative (SAR) programme to better recognise and respond to our students\u2019 needs.<\/p>\n By 2022, overall satisfaction in our BSc Education programme had risen to 56%, a modest but meaningful recovery, given pandemic legacies and structural strain. It reflected growing stability, clearer lines of communication, and more deliberate effort to address concerns. In 2023, I led discussions with colleagues about the pedagogical and curricular aspirations we had for our programmes and plans for how these can be interpreted through the student experience, including enacting values in practice, an emphasis on curricular coherence, and relational pedagogy.<\/p>\n As a result, overall satisfaction in Education for 2023 rose to 69.2%, with NSS results in areas such as \u201cStaff are good at explaining things\u201d reaching 100% positivity. Additionally, free comments shifted in tone: the general frustration of 2021 gave way to acknowledgement of clearer assessments, improved feedback, a more coherent module structure, a greater sense of belonging in the School and BSc Education programme, and more meaningful relationships with academic staff.<\/p>\n