sparqs recognises that understanding and improving student mental health and wellbeing is a priority for students, student officers, institution staff and people working across the Further and Higher Education sectors in Scotland.
We are currently developing a project that will examine the role of learning and teaching – including elements such as curriculum design and delivery, assessment and work-life balance – in promoting wellbeing and highlight the necessity of putting the student voice at the heart of this work.
We’re very grateful to Pauline Hanesworth from Advance HE for delivering such an informative and thoughtful keynote session on this topic at this year’s sparqs’ conference. If you weren’t able to attend, we recommend having a look at her presentation as an excellent introduction to the concept of embedding student wellbeing in the curriculum.
The sparqs’ project will consider how exploring mental wellbeing through a learning and teaching lens can complement the work already being done to tackle stigma and improve access to support services by NUS Scotland’s ‘Think Positive’ campaign, for instance by embedding learning and teaching elements in Student Mental Health Agreements.
Currently in a developmental phase, sparqs is gathering evidence of existing good practice in this area – as well as barriers to success - in order to further our understanding of the direction the project should take. We will be asking for sector input at the following events:
- sparqs’ Academic Representation Co-ordinators (ARC) Network meeting at Inverness College UHI on 7th May 2019.
- CDN’s ‘College Expo’ event at Perth College UHI on 13th June 2019.
If you are unable to attend either of these events, but would like to feed in to this process or are keen to be involved in the project further down the line, please contact Hannah Clarke, Senior Development Consultant, sparqs – hannah.clarke@sparqs.ac.uk - 07966 104056.
