Supporting students with disabilities. We are committed to support those students with a disability who seek to enter higher education and who may therefore require additional support. We welcome these students to the University and we wish to see them study successfully for their chosen qualification. We have established an Additional Support and Disability Advice Centre to assess pre-entry need and offer post-entry support. We envisage increasing the support offered through this Centre as more students who require assistance are attracted to study at the University.
Supporting students with disabilities. The University’s commitment to the disability inclusion agenda is reflected in the decision, implemented from September 2015, to co-locate the University’s disability service, Additional Learning Support (ALS), alongside SPLASH within a newly created ‘Learning Development Area’ of Library & Learning Support Services. The Learning Development Area promotes inclusive, innovative and pedagogically-informed learning and teaching practices across the institution. Through increased advisory work and interaction with faculties, as well as relevant central services, the objective is to encourage student- centred learning and teaching practices that embrace disabled students’ learning diversities as much as is possible within the formal curriculum setting. This approach ensures that the needs of our disabled students are appropriately supported and, to a degree, reduces requirements for ‘add- on’, individual support except where necessary. The University has introduced new specialisms and revised roles within the disabilities service, increasing staffing in ALS to 8.3 FTE permanent posts, supplemented by additional in-house hourly- paid tutoring and mentoring staff. This will help us to both enhance our support to students and substantially increase staff-development, training and advisory activities across the institution. ALS has introduced a dual mental health-mentoring and adviser role which directly supports students both with and without Disability Student Allowance (DSA) entitlement working closely with the mental health team in the Centre of Wellbeing. The service is also introducing equivalent neurodiversity specialist provision to enhance our ability to respond better to the needs of students on the autism spectrum, alongside those presenting with other neurodiverse profiles. With an increasing number of students presenting with mental health issues and autistic spectrum disorders, irrespective of whether supported through the DSA, ALS will continue to develop in- reach activities, building on innovative and successful induction initiatives. For example, we will enhance and extend our dedicated support structures to further improve support for students on the autism spectrum, including: Extending the 3-day induction support that students identified as on the autism spectrum currently receive to include support across the full student lifecycle, and providing more support toward ‘good degrees’ and greater support for all areas of student life through a s...
