Hey Roehampton students!  

I don’t even know where to begin with this one! I blinked and somehow it’s already the last day of January! To keep things simple, here’s an update on my term one objectives:   

1. EAL Placement Partnership:  

Objective: the objective, is to implement English as an Additional Language Placement Partnership at Roehampton by January 2025, to engage students on English and Education courses, to deliver weekly English lessons to at least our EAL Students, resulting in an overall improvement in EAL students' English proficiency and confidence while fulfilling 100% of participating students' work placements requirements.     

There are two wonderful students set to begin placement on the English for Academic Practice Module: although this was not the initial idea behind the EAP placement program, I am very pleased that students from my undergraduate course, as well as those who need additional assistance with their English in the School of Continuing Education will mutually benefit. In the future I am looking at different ways that we can provide more resources for our students who wish to improve or work on their English skills. 

 In the meantime, if anyone should need any FREE online or in person resources for any level of English, please reach out to me at rsuvpeducation@roehampton.ac.uk and I will put you in contact with the right resources!  

2. Wellbeing Wednesdays’  

Objective: starting from Autumn 2024, we will work to ensure that all undergraduate students have Wednesday afternoons free from mandatory academic activities from 1:00 PM onwards to promote student wellbeing by engaging in sports, societies, and wellbeing-related workshops.    

The Wellbeing Wednesday initiative remains successful, keeping Wednesday afternoons free for all* of our undergraduate students, enabling not only all of our students to participate in Wednesday sport fixtures but also providing free activities for them to take charge of their wellbeing every week! I would like to shout out all of the amazing Colleges, The Bystander team, The Wellbeing Team, The Sport & Active Community, and everyone on campus who has gotten involved in this wonderful initiative.  

Some events, which occur weekly, that I would like to point out are the Autism Association from 15:30 – 16:30PM at The Base and Chat to a Sabb from 13:00 – 14:00PM at the Student Co-Working Space at The Hub. Coming up in February, the Sport and Active Communities will be hosting a Women’s Self Defense Class and the Bystander Intervention Team will be hosting a Online Active Bystander Training during Sexual Abuse and Sexual Violence Awareness Week.  

Our amazing VP of Welfare, Adam Fewster, and myself are currently reworking our strategy by taking our focus away from social media by creating a direct page on the RSU website where all the weekly Wellbeing Wednesday events will be posted in one place. We hope that this will make things simpler and more accessible for all students.  

3. Welcome Weeks  

Objective: For every university intake across the year, we will organise a minimum of two welcome activities to improve student engagement and orientation. 

Since the beginning of the academic year, colleges have become much more involved. Providing their own welcome activities for every intake. As a joint effort between the RSU and the colleges, I believe we have done an excellent job of working together to integrate new students into the community. This term so far, we have hosted many wonderful refreshers events, namely the refreshers’ fair had an amazing turn out, working together with all of the societies, colleges, academic departments, university services and more!  

The upcoming February intake coincides with our incredible RSU President, Imran Shafiqi’s, ‘Green Week’ which has a host of activities from a Green Fair in The Reef, a Community Clean Up event, a spotlight on the International Day of Women in Science and a finale at the Wetlands Centre on Valentine’s Day “In Love with Nature.”  

4. Collaborating with The Incredible Student Futures Team  

Objective: Enhance the employability skills of all students through comprehensive career development programs. 

Throughout the academic year, we have been working closely with the Student Futures Team; through joint efforts we have started some incredible initiatives such as Dress for Success, which was organised and implemented by Indie Nizzar, one of the incredible Career Advisors. Providing free smart clothes for students to wear and keep to interviews, placements, or whatever they may need them for! I also had the wonderful opportunity of working with Julie Powell, Head of Careers and Employer Engagement at the University; as a result, a great group of Roehampton students from the School of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences had the opportunity to visit the BBC Broadcasting House to learn from all the amazing teams at the BBC, such as the BBC Fusion Team, BBC Weather, BBC Verify, as well as engage with some incredible key speakers!  

The enthusiasm and engagement from our students was remarkable, sparking meaningful conversations about new ideas, future aspirations, and shared inspiration.  

Lastly a couple things I wanted to highlight from the start of this year:  

During my first week back from annual leave, I had the wonderful opportunity to see my colleagues Adam Fewster and Imran Shafiqi graduate from their master's degrees & deliver amazing speeches to their graduating classes! I also had an opportunity to deliver the commencement speech to the School of Education!  

Finally, I would like to give a big shout out to the entire RSU Team. You may see the sabbatical officers' faces on the posters around campus, but we also have an amazing, incredibly hardworking team who are constantly working around the clock to support our students. So, a big thank you to them and all the hard work that they do that truly makes all this work possible! 😊

Lastly, per usual the reads of the months to get you through the darker days:  

1. How to Change Your Mind in a Year – Lucy Maddox  

2. Calm – Michael Acton Smith  

3. The Book of Hope – Jane Goodall