sparqs supports the Student Engagement Staff Network (SESN), a professional network for staff in colleges, universities and students’ associations with roles relating to the co-ordination and development of student engagement in quality.
Strong and effective student engagement is crucial to the student view on learning, and good professional staff support to representation and engagement activity is in turn essential to make this happen.
Such roles generally lie within students' associations (though can often be institutional posts) and typically include responsibilities such as coordinating course and lead rep systems, support to senior students' association education officers, liaison with institutional staff on student engagement in quality, and ensuring effective student engagement in committees, governance and review activities. The Professional standards framework for student engagement is an important tool for understanding and articulating these positions. We have accompanied it with a series of resources, including an Induction Guide for Academic Representation Co-ordinators.
As lynchpins to student engagement in quality, student engagement staff require substantial knowledge, skills, experience and support. The SESN meetings, founded on the themes of "learn, share, develop", aims to provide that through discussion around key sectoral developments, consultation on new initiatives within sparqs, and opportunities to share and reflect on personal and professional practice in supporting academic representation. We welcome contributions of case studies and discussion topics from student engagement practitioners across the sector.
Suggestions are always welcome for topics for SESN meetings. If you would like to propose anything, please contact Amy Monks.
SESN mailing list
There is a Jiscmail group for SESN which is a forum for discussion of the events and their content as well as for exchange of related work. To join the Jiscmail group, please visit this link.
New attendance process
Based on feedback from network members and a successful trial of a streamlined process in 2025-26, calendar appointments for online SESN meetings are now automatically sent to all those signed up to our SESN Jiscmail list and members are asked to accept/decline to confirm whether they plan to attend each meeting.
New members wishing to join SESN should sign up to the SESN Jiscmail mailing list (link above) to be kept in the loop and to receive the calendar appointments for forthcoming meetings.
2026-27 SESN meetings
Dates for the coming academic year are as follows:
- Tuesday 22nd September 2026 – by VC, 1.00-3.00pm
- calendar appointment sent to SESN members. - Thursday 26th November 2026 – by VC, 10.00am-12noon
- calendar appointment sent to SESN members. - Thursday 28th January 2027 – by VC, 10.00am-12noon
- calendar appointment sent to SESN members. - Thursday 18th March 2027 – by VC, 1.00-3.00pm
- calendar appointment sent to SESN members. - 13th May 2027 - joint, in-person 'Planning for the year ahead' meeting of NEON, SESN and STAG (sparqs Tertiary Advisory Group)
- QMU, 10.00am-3.00pm - will open for bookings nearer the time.
Last year's meetings can be accessed below and meetings from previous years can be accessed via the side menu on the Events page.
2025-26 SESN meetings
- Thursday 23rd October 2025 – by VC, 10.00am-12.30pm
- see the event page for further details and the materials from the session. - Thursday 27th November 2025 – by VC, 10.00am-12noon
- see the event page for further details and the materials from the session. - Thursday 12th February 2026 – by VC, 10.00am-12noon
- see the Agenda and Presentation from the session. - Thursday 30th April 2026 - by VC - 10.00am-12noon
- see the Agenda and Presentation from the session. - Tuesday 12th May 2026 - 10.00am-3.00pm at QMU - joint, in-person event along with NEON colleagues and members of STAG (sparqs Tertiary Advisory Group).
- see the event booking page to register for this 'Planning for the year ahead' event.
Security arrangements for online meetings
Online meeting links are not available on social media or our website. They are sent by email only to those who have registered for the event. To ensure only those who have registered join the meeting, delegates are asked not to share the link with anyone. Only those who have registered will be admitted.