Juliette Morgan, Senior Consultant at Advance HE, and Ben McCarthy, Support Champion Project Manager, reflect on their collaborative project with Professor Edward Peck, the Higher Education Student Support Champion, which has seen the publication of two resources to support institutions to rethink and redesign their student support systems.
In his original blog following the publication of Advance HE’s Framework for Student Needs in 2023, Professor Edward Peck encouraged higher education providers (HEPs) to go ‘back to basics’ and rethink their approach to student support.
Through the Framework for Student Needs, we have argued that current approaches to student support are being challenged, to the extent that they may no longer be fit for the future. Numerous factors are generating this view, they include the sustained – and perhaps unsustainable – demand on student support services, the growing complexity of students’ needs, and a persistent stream of reports telling institutions to do more or do it better.
At the same time, interest in student support by Government, the regulator, and media has grown in recent years, and may yet grow further, whilst the sector’s financial context is placing greater emphasis on the need for efficiency, collaboration and transformation.
Not all of these challenges are new. Indeed, the sector has shown remarkable agility and creativity in the face of ongoing constraints and changing student needs. However, for many institutions, the typical response has been to layer new initiatives in a piecemeal way on top of those already in place, sometimes resulting in fragmented systems of support that are more difficult for students to navigate and more burdensome for institutions to deliver than is necessary.
Moreover, in his final report as Student Support Champion, published last month by the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI), Edward Peck highlights 10 emerging trends – such as burgeoning technology, demographic changes, and public perception – which may further challenge the traditional model of higher education, but which simultaneously may provide an opportunity for institutions to rethink the role and purpose of student support.
There are no shortages of colleagues across the sector who recognise these shifting patterns. Indeed, HE providers have shown real commitment over the past decade, investing significantly in support services. But even if funding could be increased – and it is doubtful it could – the current approaches to student support are unlikely to remain effective. The pace and intensity of change we now observe is pointing the sector into one clear direction: systemic redesign of student support.
We recognise that these are not easy or simple tasks; they will demand the collaboration, engagement and time of colleagues at a challenging time. To support institutions to coordinate these activities, Advance HE has been working with the Higher Education Student Support Champion to develop resources, including the publication of the Framework for Student Needs in 2023, and the complementary User Guide, published today.
Framework for Student Needs
We define student support broadly – from coaching and tutoring to wellbeing and employability, from support delivered by academics and across professional services, to support that occurs inside or outside of the curriculum. Only by taking this whole-institution view of student support can HEPs develop support that is coherent and student-centred.
While institutions will have experience evaluating and redesigning individual services, rethinking the entire student support ecosystem may well feel unfamiliar, complex and daunting.
The Framework for Student Needs supports this process. It can help institutions to:
- start conversations within senior teams about what they are trying to achieve through the range of support they offer
- map current interventions across the institution
- identify overlaps, gaps, areas of improvement and dependencies in the delivery of student support.
It encourages institutions to assess their support holistically, and the framework is therefore not structured organisationally by different teams or services. Rather, it maps students’ fundamental needs across two areas: those that relate to their competence, confidence and resilience; and those that relate to their sense of community and belonging.
These 10 student needs are necessarily and deliberately generic, designed to be applicable in most contexts, though their interpretation will vary and HEPs are encouraged to adapt the model to fit their own organisational context.
We envisage that the Framework for Student Needs could act as a tool for senior teams to meaningfully engage with, and to articulate the mission of, their institution’s student support, helping to define boundaries and responsibilities whilst avoiding the mission creep that has sometimes stretched support services beyond their intended remit. Over time, this may result in institutions delivering fewer interventions, but doing so more effectively and sustainably than at present.
User Guide
Following the publication of the Framework for Student Needs in 2023, the collaboration between Advance HE and the Higher Education Student Support Champion was extended and expanded to include input from a wider range of sector interest groups and membership bodies.
This collaboration led to the development of the User Guide, published in response to feedback from institutions that have used the Framework for Student Needs. The User Guide complements the Framework and offers a practical, step-by-step approach to mapping current student support activities, conducting gap analyses and developing strategic action plans.
The User Guide also outlines how the Framework can support and/or align with an institution’s wider strategic initiatives – such as submissions to the University Mental Health Charter and Teaching Excellence Framework, or adoption of key guidance from the Higher Education Mental Health Implementation Taskforce, Disabled Students Commitment, or other evidence toolkits.
Together, we hope that the Framework for Student Needs and the User Guide provide institutions with an accessible and pragmatic approach to systematic student support redesign. More information on these resources can be found here:
