A few prompts and reminders which might be helpful to students' associations and institutions around this time of year, some of which we’ve already flagged in recent articles….
Course Rep Training planning
As noted in our April news article about CRT planning, we will soon begin our annual process of contacting Course Rep Training (CRT) organisers within Scottish institutions/SAs to ask about their plans for CRT delivery in 2025-26. This process helps us to determine how sparqs can support institutions to get their reps systems in place for the coming academic year. We will be in contact directly in due course, but the article is a prompt for institutions to start thinking about their rep systems and CRT delivery plans for the coming year, if they’ve not already done so. CRT planning is a key action suggested in the timeline of our recently updated Induction resource for Academic Representation Co-ordinators. The timeline presents a mock outline of a year and may be helpful in terms of other tasks which may be within your remit if you're an Academic Rep Co-ordinator or in a similar role.
IAT recruitment
If you are part of our IAT (Institutional Associate Trainer) scheme, or are considering joining it, you'll need to get your IAT recruitment underway soon, if not already in process. As noted in the April CRT planning article, your in-house trainers need to be recruited in plenty time, in order that they can be included in the sparqs’ residential training in late August. Our training will equip them with the skills to deliver your CRT across the coming year. This year’s sparqs' training is taking place from Tuesday 26th to Friday 29th August 2025 at Queen Margaret University.
Induction and outduction of your education officers
As the turn of the academic year approaches, it’s a good time of year for students' associations to start thinking about plans for inducting their 2025-26 education officer(s), as well as the ‘outduction’ of those 2024-25 officer(s) about to finish their term. As noted in our April news article on induction/outduction we have updated our guidance documents to help with both of those processes. As you consider officer handover, please keep in mind the importance of capturing the perspectives of outgoing officers in relation to the work they have been involved in during the year. Their feedback should inform the Self-Evaluation and Action Plan (SEAP) process and the submisison due on 1st December 2025. See our separate SEAP reminder article for more details.
That’s Quality! 2025 – save the dates and register your officers and SA staff
A reminder that registration is open for our 2025 That’s Quality! programme, our annual induction event for student officers and students’ association staff. The event is once again a three-part training course and attendees are required to complete the self-study module and attend both the online, half-day session on Tuesday 22nd July 2025 (colleges AM and universities PM) and the joint residential event on Monday 11th and Tuesday 12th August 2025. Please think about which of your officers and staff need to attend and get them registered to attend and save the dates!
We know it’s a busy time of year for everyone, so we just wanted to pull together a few key reminders in one place, so that they’re not missed in amongst elections and awards season and all the other competing priorities around this time of year.