National Student Survey Student Voice Student Voice Committees (SVC)

Working together to improve your student experience

Professor Peter Green meeting and chatting with students in the Nancy Rothwell building.

A message from your Faculty Leaders about improving the Student Experience

Hi everyone,

We hope that you’ve settled in well to the new academic year, that any new students are accustoming to life in Manchester, and that returning students are back into the groove of university life!

This email is coming to you from Amrit (your Faculty of Science & Engineering Officer at the SU), Prof. Peter Green (FSE Vice-Dean for Teaching, Learning, and Students), and Sarah Lister (FSE Head of Teaching, Learning, and Student Experience). We meet with Faculty and School TLSE leaders each week and regularly discuss what actions we are taking to implement your feedback.

We would like to take a moment of your time to discuss some of the work that is currently going on behind the scenes. You may be familiar with the National Student Survey (NSS); for those who aren’t, it is a survey that is sent out to all final year undergraduate students to provide a reflection on what their university experience was like, both academically and otherwise.

Based on the feedback provided by final-year students in NSS 2024, we developed the 2024/25 NSS Action Plan which had specific goals to help raise the Student Voice and improve Assessment and Feedback processes for all students in the University. This plan was in action for the 2024/25 academic year and in the 2025 NSS we saw 8.6% more final-year FSE students responding positively about Student Voice, and 5.5% more students responding positively about Assessment and Feedback.

This year, we’re building on the 2024/25 plan and have developed a 2025/26 version, created in collaboration with both University staff and the Students’ Union Executive Officers (Rhi, Alec and Amrit). We hope that again, by having dedicated actions related to improving in the areas of Student Voice and Assessment & Feedback, you’ll subsequently experience an improved student experience.

This year’s plan has been communicated to all staff, and we’ll also be posting regular updates about how the plan is being enacted. Throughout the year, we’ll be actively seeking feedback from your Academic Representatives so please find out who your reps are and stay in contact with them where you see things that are going well or where you think there is further room for improvement.

We want all the improvements to the student experience to come from and be in collaboration with you, the students; we want you to be part of the conversation. Please always feel free to reach out to your Faculty Executive Officer (for FSE this is me, Amrit!) if you need support, have noticed any room for improvement, or anything and everything in between. It’s also important for you to tell us about great teaching and student experience, so we can celebrate where things are done well and replicate great work across the Faculty.

We hope that you’ve been able to get to the end of this email and can appreciate that we really value your student voice and insights. You can help us build towards a better University, together.

Amrit, Peter, and Sarah
Amrit Dhillon – Students’ Union FSE Executive Officer 
Prof. Peter Green – FSE Vice-Dean for Teaching, Learning and Students 
Sarah Lister – FSE Head of Teaching, Learning, and Student Experience