As part of our continued support to the sector during lockdown, our May network events continued as scheduled – albeit online and with revised content that focused on the challenges for student engagement presented by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Our Student Engagement Staff Network (SESN) met on 5th May, and our National Education Officers’ Network (NEON) met on 7th May. Both events were a chance to explore the impact of the current transformation in learning and teaching on staff and officer practice, and discuss sparqs’ proposed interim workplan, created to reflect current priorities.
The events were also a great chance to share practice relating to the tremendous actions undertaken by institutions and students’ associations in supporting course reps, ensuring partnership work continued, and developing student engagement in the rapid shift to online teaching.
While meeting dates for the 2020-21 academic year are yet to be fixed, there are other plans afoot...
On Wednesday 24th June, SESN will meet for an informal professional networking session for an hour and a half, which you can now sign up to join.
To give officers a chance to meet regularly over the coming months, we will also run more frequent NEON events over the summer. Now open for sign-ups is an informal NEON catch-up for university officers on Thursday 20th August. This meeting is aimed at university officers only, as college officers already have our two-day That’s Quality! Colleges event during August and we are mindful of the significant time commitment which that already involves.
The next NEON event for both college and university officers will be on Wednesday 7th October, so please save the date for that just now, until bookings open nearer the time.
Officers from both sectors will have the chance to meet with other new and returning officers at our online versions of That’s Quality!, both of which are now open for registration.
For any queries re NEON, please contact Megan Brown, Development Consultant – megan.brown@sparqs.ac.uk, and for SESN, please contact Simon Varwell, Senior Development Consultant – simon.varwell@sparqs.ac.uk
