Academic learning support
Academic resources available to you whist you are our student
Personal tutorials
Many of our programmes offer a personal tutor throughout our students’ journey with us. If this is the case for your programme of study, your course handbook will contain specific information about this.
What your personal tutor can offer
Your personal tutor provides a personal contact point to help you feel connected to your course and is someone you can talk to if you have questions about your course or encounter any difficulties which affect your studies. You will meet with them regularly to consider your academic progress and any issues relating to, or with the potential to affect, that progress. They are a vital space in which to welcome you at the start of your programme, providing you with a consistent and supportive space throughout your studies; to enable you to help reach your potential and achieve positive outcomes from your programmes of study.
Your personal tutor can:
- Answer your queries or direct you to the most appropriate source of advice, including signposting to other support services that the Trust offers.
- Help you to make the most of opportunities available at the Trust.
- Help you to understand your feedback from assignments and discuss your academic progress.
Whilst your personal tutor cannot offer support in relation to the following areas below other support is available:
Finding out who your personal tutor is
Your personal tutor will email you within the first half term to introduce themselves, provide you with their contact details and arrange a time for an initial tutorial. Thereafter, it will be a shared responsibility between you and your tutor to find times for subsequent tutorials.
Meeting with your personal tutor
Please consult your course handbook to see how many tutorials you are expected to have throughout the year as the requirements vary between programmes. It might be helpful for both student and tutor to take brief notes of the tutorial as an aide memoir, and this can be agreed upon in the first meeting.
Your personal tutor can advise and support you across a wide range of issues. You can contact your personal tutor at any time in the academic year if there is something you would like to discuss. Your personal tutor is not someone you should only see when you have a problem but should be your first point of contact in the event of any query/problem impacting on your studies.
Study skills
You will find a wealth of information on Moodle to help you with your studies. For example, guidance on reading academic texts, taking notes, essay writing and more.
Library information skills and support
The information skills page on the library website provides guidance on topics such as academic referencing, literature reviews and database searching are really helpful for anybody who would like support with academic writing. They offer group sessions throughout the year.
Our friendly and knowledgeable library team will support you throughout your studies, whatever your level of professional or academic experience. The library holds an extensive range of e-books and online journals, subscribes to all the key databases and boasts a comprehensive print book collection too. A dedicated team make sure your reading lists are quick and convenient to use by providing direct links to the full text of essential course materials. Each student is also assigned a Personal Librarian, who’ll be a point of contact should you have any specific queries and will make sure you get to know about innovations that could make a difference to you.
Assessment guidance
Find help navigate the many processes, policies and regulations for assessment and provide you with answers to your commonly asked questions about assessment.
It gives you detailed information about applying for Extenuating Circumstances, information about Appeals and Academic Misconduct and other areas of assessment that might affect you during your studies.
For support and guidance on submitting assignments on Moodle, there are guides and videos to help you with this on your course pages on Moodle.
Proofreading and editing services
If you require help with proof reading or editing, there are many external services available. For example, please see the Chartered Institute Editing and Proofreading.
Please note that the Trust does not take any responsibility for the quality of this service.
