Parent and Carers' hub

Parent and Carers Q&A at Birmingham City University

 

Welcome to our parent panel today, which is an opportunity for you to ask any questions you've got about university.

 

Reina, are first year students only placed with other first years in student accommodation?

 

Yeah, so all first year students apply through the BCU accommodation portal and they're all allocated together. We have a range of accommodation properties and all first years are guaranteed accommodation as long as they apply by the deadline date. There are eight halls of residence that students can apply to. We ask you to select six preferences as part of the application, so put on there whether you would like a single sex, or mix sexed flat. There's an additional comment section at the end of the application and we ask you to put things on there that you want us to consider when allocating you, so things like I'd like a top floor, I don't want a top-floor, I'd like to live with more students, less students, medical conditions, anything that's important to us to make sure that we get the allocation right for you.

 

Where about are the different accommodations?

 

So the eight accommodation properties are across the city centre. We have two located close to the city south campus and six within the city centre. The closest is probably about a two minute walk from campus and the furthest is just a 10 minute walk.

 

Could you explain how the accommodation is paid and how often? Things like that?

 

Yes, so usually all of the accommodation contracts are in three instalments and they normally fall in line with the SFE payment. So once the SFE payment is paid to the young person, usually the accommodation rent is due probably a week or two afterwards and it just means then that the student can then budget for that term. So it's usually in three instalments. Here are some accommodations. There's the Heights, Old Fire Station and Bentley House. They ask for a substantial advance rent payment before the SFE's paid, so it's definitely worth looking at the different halls of residence to see what payments are required before moving in and what those instalments look like. Also, it's worth looking at the annual cost because that will be in line with the maintenance loan, to just make sure that the maintenance loan that's paid would hopefully be enough then to pay the accommodation fees.

 

When should you apply for accommodation?

 

As soon as you can see the accommodation application process is open, do it. Particularly if you need particular things out of accommodation, such as an accessible room, for example, if a person is disabled. But for everybody, if you've got a particular place where they want to go, make sure they know what deadlines are for applying, because accommodation is very popular.

 

The young person is a full-time motorised wheelchair user. How accessible is the campus and how far away from the main university are the accessible accommodations with hoists?

 

Well, it depends on which campus they're going to be at. So we've got University Locks, which is on this campus, just around corner from the main buildings. So if it was City South, they were going to be at, we don't have any accommodation on campus, so it would be our partnered accommodation. So, they'd have to have a look and see what the distances were. The campus is very accessible. We put a lot of work into making sure that buildings are accessible. What we'd encourage is... Students who think that accessibility might be an issue for them to obviously come in for days like this and to open days and thoroughly go round the campus and see what it's really like and particularly the buildings they're going to be learning in and if there's anything that comes up for them that worries them, then they can talk to my team about that.

 

Is bad behaviour managed, if that does happen in accommodation?

 

Yes, so we always encourage students to report to their local accommodation office. So each halls of residence has a reception and an accommodation office with security there in the evening and the accommodation team during the day. So report to them in the first instance and then the teams on site can mediate, speak to people, do flat visits, things like that initially. We've also got a front-facing accommodation office on campus in Curzon building. You can come and talk to us if there's some issues. Some students may not want to disclose who they are when they're reporting issues. So, there is a system called report and support so students can log any concerns that they have in their accommodation on campus or anything like that. You can report it with your details. You can record it anonymously. Parents can report issues. It's open to everybody to report any concerns and then the universitie’s Wellbeing team will pick that up and the governance team and then they'll investigate it. All of the halls of residence have a full events programme and that does involve things like free Friday giveaways, they have pizza nights, they have lots of things, grab and grow breakfasts on a Monday and things like that. So I think definitely get involved in things like that because they're free so you might as well. Attend them and take advantage of those opportunities. We have asked all of our halls of residence and all of accommodation providers to have a pantry on site. So they're things like free toiletries and food and things. So, you can just go to these areas and take some food as and when you need it if at any point you're struggling.

 

Does it matter or is there a difference between which sort of which route students take into university, so A levels, B techs, T levels, and then the jump between A levels in university or B techs in university? Perhaps Sarah you could answer that.

 

The short answer is no. It doesn't really make a huge difference. It's more the subject that matters. Some courses require you to have subject specifics and that might be, for example, you might need maths for accounting, for example. And that's just because that helps set you up best for those courses. But in terms of the actual type of qualification, no. We go alot on what the UCAS tariff points are. And that's considered equal across the board. So three A levels is equivalent to one BTEC Extended Diploma, for example. So that's all considered at the point of application and as part of our entry requirements for the course.

 

Students coming to university may be struggling socially a little bit at the beginning. What support is available to help them settle in at the beginning?

 

I mean I can speak from an admissions perspective, as you say if it's declared through an application, all students get contacted by our support services and when you come to enrol that support continues throughout, so it's really catered towards the student and what support they may need, particularly if they're struggling at the beginning there's a lot of events and there's a lot of contact on campus. Although everyone has a presence on campus all the time, I think particularly in those first few weeks that feels more pronounced and therefore it's easier for students just to be able to have a chat with someone if they need to and even if it's the wrong person everyone will be able point them in the right direction.

 

Yeah, and just to echo the other students union as well, lots and lots of support through them at the beginning of university, but throughout as well. Clearing is a very big time in the UCAS application cycle that comes around and really kicks off in a big way in August around A-level results day. But, if a student has applied to BCU, and BCU at this point may not be their first choice, but then that changes in clearing. Maybe they've done better than they expected, or maybe they've changed their opinion by that point there. How does that work when a student then wants to change their mind during a clearing process?

 

So, first of all, if they're firm elsewhere, so if they accepted an offer elsewhere, made it the first choice and they've been accepted, they need to release themselves into clearing so they need go into UCAS and release themselves. What you need to do is then ring the clearing hotline, so our clearing hot line is operating 14 hours on results day, 12 hours the next day and we're open over the weekend as well. So that will be the thing to do is to ring us, make sure you can get your place, release themselves and then they'll be able to refer through UCAS and we'll be able to get the application through normally within 24 to 48 hours of getting that referral.

 

If a student makes us their firm choice on UCAS, and this might be a little bit course specific perhaps as well, but are there instances where the grade requirements may be lower if they make us their first firm choice, or is there anything different between first and firm choice and insurance choice?

 

The short answer again is no on that, there's no difference between firm and insurance but I think it really, for me, it really matters as to where your child wants to go, I know that sounds really obvious, but that really is key, it's key to things like accommodation and things like that and if they know they want to come to BCU for example, make us the firm choice, it, it is really important.

 

So what are the factors that determine if an unconditional offer is made? And we'll bring in Leah for this one.

 

So with an unconditional offer, it's primarily that they're a mature student that they've already got their A-level, B-tech, etc. There might be some universities that can offer unconditional places based on portfolios, in particular for art-related courses, but the majority would be that it's the mature students that have already got their grades that are starting maybe that year later.

 

If a student applies to university for the foundation year pathway and perhaps does better than they expected, what would sort of happen in that scenario?

 

Spoiler alert, we get your results before you do. So it may be that on results day, you log on to UCAS and you actually see that that offer's been made. Alternatively, you can get in touch with us and as long as you meet those requirements, we'll move you up. Similarly, if you wanted to move down to the foundation year for any reason, and that's something that we can also do for you.

 

What happens in the case of deferrals and what happens if a student defers and then chooses not to come. Sarah, do you want to take that one?

 

Yeah, so if you want to defer, you can. It depends at what point in the year that you're at, so usually we'd wait until you've received your results and then we'd defer you at that point. If you have enrolled and then decide to defer it depends on how far into the course you were. Assuming you are sort of within that first two weeks that shouldn't be a problem and that would be known as a break from study, you wouldn't need to reapply, come back through admissions or do any of that. All you do is get back in touch with the support services once you're ready to come back. They'd be able to get you re-enrolled on the next year. If you hadn't got to that point and you were just deferring at the point of application, all you'd do is you'd get naturally picked up through the cycle. We would, my team would process that deferral and it would automatically be picked up the following year. If anything changed, you'd just let us know at that point, we'd bE able to withdraw your application.

 

Do we know when we find out how much student loan the student gets basically? Jackie, do you know that?

 

 

Well, so what happens is you submit an application, if you're normally living in England it will be to Student Finance England, if you’re in another of the UK countries it will be Student Finance Wales, Northern Ireland or the Scottish system, they all work very similarly so you submit the application, that gets assessed and then the student will have an award letter that comes out to them, they normally still get a hard copy as well as an online account which will tell them exactly how much tuition fee loan and maintenance loan or grants, depending on which country you're in, they will get for the year, they then can go on to their online account and access a payment schedule which would give them an idea of payment dates, particularly for the maintenance loan which is the bit that goes directly into the student's own bank account for living costs. So that would only be for the year, so it's important that they understand as well that they have to reapply for their funding each year so they'll get a new award letter in advance for each academic year as long as they apply for it.

 

So we do offer scholarships, so we offer a high achievers scholarship that is for people aiming for higher grades and if they apply and meet the eligibility requirements then they could receive £1,000 and there's also an accelerate scholarship and they have different requirements for each scholarship, but the award is £1.000 for both of those.

 

And to add as well, actually, we've also got- it's not a scholarship, but it is a bursary for care leavers, so students who are coming to us who've been in the care of local authority, there's a bursary for those as well.

 

Do you need to have made your final choice of university before you apply for student finance?

 

Absolutely no. I spend a lot of time travelling the country doing a lot of talks in schools and sixth forms and colleges about how to make your application for student finance and what we say is that all we need to know is your preferred institution. So if you know your young person wants to come to BCU for September they can list that as part of the application. If they change their mind then they can go on to their online application form and they have up until the end of September to nominate where they have gone to, but it's very important that they do tell us if they change their mind. Because the last thing they need is us paying the tuition fee to an institution and they've decided to go somewhere else.

 

Are there any discounts or incentives to stay on for postgraduate studies after graduation at BCU?

 

So we do offer a graduate discount on our masters and PhD courses, so currently it's available to any BCU graduate who can get 20% off their masters course.

 

What happens if the student's parents are divorced or if that situation changes also throughout the three years that they're studying?

 

If it changes throughout the three years, then I would say they probably need to just come and talk to us about whatever has changed and we can talk them through how that will impact their student finance.

 

Every studentIs allocated a personal tutor and that often will be the first person that they should get in touch with with any sort of issue that they might have whilst they're at university. So, the personal tutors are trained to support students through a variety of different issues and point them in the right directions towards our student support team too. So student support can help with financial issues, they can help mental health, disability issues, we've got a whole accommodation team as well. So, I guess that that they would be pointed in the right direction for a specific team, but their personal tutor who they would meet with on a regular basis would be that first sort of point of call and as I say every student would have a personal tutor whilst they are with us.

 

And Jackie, what sort of support is available for students with additional needs, particularly for those with autism?

 

There's a range of support that comes mainly from our disability support services, so what happens is if a student declares that on application to the university, they will get contacted by the disability support service pre-entry, so there's activities that happen late summer before everybody starts, around getting used to university and life skills around university. There's a summer school, so that's where students can come early and spend some time in the university halls of residence for a few days before everybody else starts, so it's a sort of quieter start for them to get used to that environment. And then once they're here, there's assessments, they can access assessments to assess the needs, to help them study whilst they're at university. They can get support to apply for the Disabled Student Allowance, which is the government funding that can help pay for that additional support or specialist equipment or whatever that person needs. And then they get, once that's all done, they will know what support will be put in place for them whilst they're studying, so that might be reasonable adjustments and other assistance in terms of studying and attending university.

 

If a student is struggling with the work or falling behind, what do we do as a university to help them? I wonder if, I mean, that sort of relates to what we do in the library, but also student support, maybe if you'd like to kick that off?

 

So there's lots we can do to help, we do lots of support around academic writing, around getting started with writing. Writing at degree level is a little bit different, so it's not unusual to need a kickstart with that. If you've come from work and you haven't studied for a long time, again, needing that kickstart is expected. We've got tonnes and tonnes of dedicated resources and more importantly people who can help with that.

 

There's a question about discounts that are available for students, so we have something called BCU Boost, so that would be food discounts, so all the food catering that we have on site is heavily discounted for students. 40% has been taken off that to help students so you can get a full meal for less than £3.

 

Jackie, do you provide any support for students on how to stay safe? Maybe it's their first time away from home or anything like that.

 

Yes, so there's lots of advice during Welcome Week and lots of activities to help people settle in and around things like staying safe. We also promote, there's an app that students can download to their phone which is about staying safe and if they need to be able to be identified and tracked or contact somebody in an emergency. But as well as the campus itself, Or the buildings themselves all have security. So that's all safe and supported as well. So our security services will be onsite in the open buildings and in the accommodation buildings overnight as well

 

Next question that we'll take. So how do we support students living at home to integrate? And maybe we could, a couple of us could input on that one.

 

Lots of our students do choose to stay living at home, that's not at all unusual. And the first thing to say would be, don't worry that your son, daughter, child is going to be in that situation by themselves. We have a huge number of students that are commuter students that choose to live at home whilst they're studying with us. So there's lots and lots of ways that they can meet other people and get to know other students very quickly when they're at university, again, through societies, through the Students' Union, through their course. We would encourage students to stay around on campus outside of just having their lectures, so not just saying just come for your lectures and then go back home. In terms of students that are thinking, am I going to meet other when I go to university, as I say, we have a lot of commuting students and a lot them make friends very quickly when they start their time at university.

 

Can you talk a bit about the supports available for LGBTQ students at BCU?

 

I suppose that encapsulates how, what support they want, I suppose, as individuals. So, as far as I'm aware, the Student Union have an LGBTQ community which is a protected society. By protected, that means that it will always exist, essentially, it's not reliant on certain numbers. Or an individual student to run it. It is a society that will always exist. And then we have obviously support services around mental health and wellbeing. So if they have had experiences related to their status, maybe other people's attitudes towards them or other things that they want to talk through, then we have therapeutic intervention services that can offer counselling and other things.

 

Is there a medical practice on campus?

 

So there's no practice on campus. We have a local GP network called Modality that we contract with. So students can register with them, or they do actually come onto campus during welcome week and have registrations. But they're not obliged to register with Modality. They can register any GP practice. But we would say that if your young person is moving away from home, they do need to have a GP in the area.

 

What is the support when a student is going through crisis?

 

So again, the report and support system is really important for that. So if a student is in crisis, they can refer themselves through the report support system. So that is staffed and monitored Monday to Friday, nine to five. So it's constant monitoring during weekdays. So what will happen is if they go through that system, somebody from the mental health and wellbeing team, we've got like a safeguarding. So they're the one that monitors that and will assess what needs to happen with that student depending on the information that comes through. So they'll make contact with the student, find out what is happening. And then it's quite a holistic approach, so if it's purely mental health and wellbeing, for example, that team will deal with it, but then if there's a practical aspect to it that will then come through to me as well so that we can deal with the practical sides as well. So they should get an individual person-centred holistic response to that urgent need.

 

I'm not sure if anyone knows how late lectures, maybe Emma, how late lectures normally go on till and what the normal university day sort of looks like for a student?

 

That's a really good question. It fully depends on which course. In my personal experience, I have never taught a session before 10 a.m. Or after 4 p.m., but I know that courses in other areas, so business, law, social sciences, they do have lectures that run later than that. And at our City South campus as well, they do. So it completely depends on the course.

 

So someone's asked about extra-curriculars. So there are like tonnes and tonnes of extra- curriculars at BCU. So obviously when your child joins there's welcome week which is full of activities for them to get to know people and obviously there are things like pub nights, club nights, quiz nights but they don't have to drink. There's things like getting involved in societies and there's been wellbeing, activities. And also things like kayaking and things like that. There are really all sorts of things to get involved in and that's throughout the year too. It's not just sort of at the very start.

 

I think it's worth saying as well that they can set up their own clubs and societies within the Student Union as well. So if they're looking for something specific and it's not there, the Student union will support them to set it up themselves as well, so it's really anything and everything really.

 

On the library website, on the home page, we do have a 24-7 chat service as well. So that is always a human being, so it's worth noting. So even if you're sort of contacting at 3 a.m. On the chat, you'll get a person to talk to and they'll be able to help you out as well

 

Emma, do you offer anything in the library in terms of preparation for exams and stuff like that specifically?

 

 

Yes, so once we basically get the referrals directly from disability support, so what we can provide really depends on the needs of the students. We do provide resources and materials in alternative formats, obviously depending on the need of the specific student, and we do provide, there's lots of resources on how to study at university in loads of different formats as well, so. More obviously, there are things like books on study skills and exam prep and things like that, but we also have online resources with video content which can support students as well. So that's the sort of thing when I'm talking about alternative formats, but also we can transform something that's in one format into another format to suit student needs as well.

 

Do students have access to laptops, computers, software, or should we purchase them?

 

They do have access to laptops. You'll see around the university laptop safes. The library has the only Apple Macs, but PC’S all over the university. It's run by the IT system, and all they have to do is take, is to borrow it. They've got 24 hours with it. You borrow it, and then they take it, return it to the safe where they got it from. There are circumstances where students can apply for hardship. Hardship loans and laptops they will be advised of that later on but that's actually part of their induction when they come so that's available to them so yes they are. In the library we have PCs as well that they can come and sit at and throughout the university.

 

If a student is worried about the transition like from sixth form or college is there any support in the library that can help them sort of get used to uni.

 

Yeah, so there's a number of things that we do do to support the transition into higher education as I've sort of mentioned already. We get involved in Welcome Week events, but we also we kind of scaffold the library support so they will get a specific induction on each of the courses from one of the learning and teaching librarians, which I am one of them. But they can book us for one to one tutorials. The other thing that's really worth mentioning actually is each course has a specific online resource list which is linked to each of their modules. So that's a great place to start looking if they have no idea sort of where to start looking for resources for the course. But yeah, so we've put a lot of stuff in place to try and sort of ease them into that, particularly that first semester. So like one of the cohorts that I support, I've seen, I see them about four times during semester one and we really, we build a little bit each time of how to use the resources for getting them through that first assessment. And then the support, we do come back each year as well to make sure that the support sort of grows with them as they progress through the course as well. There's always that one-to-one support as well that they can book with us. So if they've got specific needs. Specific questions, they can book one-to-one support via the website.

 

How does the library sort of have a sense of community for students?

 

That's a good question. So I've talked a little bit about our spaces. I'll mention the CALM space again, just in case anybody missed it. So we are always looking at reviewing our spaces and adapting them to different student needs. And we have actually recently appointed two members of staff that focus on student experience of our spaces, but also our digital platforms and our resources. And we have been growing our student voices of our service over the past few years. So we are constantly trying to reach out to students to get feedback on the service so that they can sort of help us to shape the service to be what they need and what they want from it. Another thing that we do is we get involved and stuck into lots of university events across campus. So there are lots of events that usually coincide with specific days of the year, or things like Black History Month and LGBT Pride and things like that. So we get involved in those. And we also are working to diversify our collections as well. So we have collections that specifically point towards inclusion and things that, but we also take recommendations from students. So we really encourage students to recommend authors, books, resources that they are interested in, as well as the ones that we already have, because we want to make sure that the collections are reflecting the students themselves and what they actually want to study at university. The last thing I would say is we have, in the past couple of years, launched a Wellbeing and Popular Fiction collection, which is mostly recommended by students. So, we do take student recommendations if they want to.. They just need to tell us what they wanna read and we'll add it to library collection and then they can come and borrow them for free.

 

 

How are job opportunities for the students of BCU?

 

Okay, so all final year students are on home undergraduate courses are entitled to the support of one of our graduate employability advisors. They will make contact with the student around February of their final year and will offer intensive job search support for up to 15 months after graduation. In addition, as I said previously, students are welcome to access the general career services at the university for up to three years after graduation. The careers team can help with job search support in the final year. We bring a lot of employers onto campus to promote their opportunities. We have a large autumn and spring careers fair where we have up to about 70 employers that actually come on campus that are recruiting for graduates.

 

It's worth noting as well that pretty much all of our courses, you can do a year in industry placement as well. So that'd be spending a year working in a workplace in the middle of the degree. So two years at university, one year then working in the Middle, and then another year back at university afterwards. And that really sort of enhances students graduate prospects. It's something that's encouraged that each sort of student thinks about. And there's a lot of help and support in finding that placement year as well, and there's lot of positive stories of students that have done that placement and really enjoyed it and then gone on to work with that employer once they've graduated as well. Our academics, many of them come from backgrounds where they've worked in those sectors before and they bring those networks with them. So they're being taught by people with that real industry experience to be able to get them those networks and get them the connections to get into the workplaces there.

 

Do you provide any support for students looking for part-time jobs to support themselves financially during uni?

 

Financial concerns can be important to students and making sure they have a part-time job is really important. So we support them with finding jobs and opportunities. In the first semester when students start in October, November time, we have our big part- time jobs fair which is lots of local employers offering local opportunities. And in terms of the support students receive from us as a career service, we will support them with developing their CV, applications, with interview prep, and we even run sessions prior to the careers fair to help them with how to network with employers and things like that as well. And students can come and see us at any point for one-to-one appointments for advice with. Finding jobs and opportunities. We absolutely will support them with that.

 

Are there many roles available on campus for student ambassadors and things like that?

 

Yeah, we have an on-site recruitment agency that manages all of the opportunities for students on campus. So much like a lot of the students you will have met downstairs today, they're all ambassadors for us that work at open days and at different events. But that's just one of the roles that students can do at BCU. We have roles within our marketing team. So for example, all of our TikTok content is created by students. And there are lots of other roles and opportunities that come up as well that students can undertake so we actively encourage students to be part of our staff community as well as student community at BCU.

 

Yeah I think it's worth saying as well that a lot of the roles are more optional so that they can work as an ambassador but if they have deadlines coming up they can say no to an event and things like that so it can be quite flexible as well.

 

So Jamie how would you support a student in getting a job who has Asperger's and gets overwhelmed in a new environment?

 

The careers team treats every student as an individual so we will support them with whatever their needs are in order to help them to get into employment. We offer a range of services from one-to-one appointments and we have employability advisors and career coaches who can work with students to walk them through the whole application process for opportunities. We also partner with an organisation called Employability that also works as an advocate for individuals that might need additional support. But yeah, we will work with all students to ensure that they get the graduate role that they deserve. If it is a graduate role or if it's a part-time job or a placement, we'll support them through that process.

 

How does the career service ensure that students are prepared for the graduate market?

 

So we work really closely with academics to ensure that employability is embedded within all courses. So each faculty has its own dedicated team of specialist careers, support services that work within the, and embed activities within modules and within different activities that are happening in timetabled time. In addition to that, we work with students on an individual basis so students can book in with us to have one-to-one support and we run lots of extracurricular support sessions and things as well that students can tap into. We have our online careers plus website where students can access a whole range of different resources that they can access in their own time and we also have our jobs board and things.

 

Students do a placement abroad. Is one year placement generally 52 weeks long or an academic year?

 

Okay, so yes to placement aboard, absolutely, we've got a go aboard team and they are particularly experts at this, so the student would certainly be in contact with them under various deadlines throughout the academic year. In terms of the length of placement, it does vary according to the course and I wouldn't want to give a specific number, it's also post-graduates who can have a six month placement. After they've finished and submitted their thesis and undergraduates it tends to be more like 52 weeks, but again it does vary a little bit here and there. We actually support students three years after they have graduated because we do recognise how competitive it is out there but also that maybe they have focused on their courses and part time work or whatever it is and that's really important because you know they're coming to university to become experts in an area, whatever that is. And we recognise that actually, for example, I work in a creative faculty and courses that are creative, so often our students start thinking about work after their degree show and that's absolutely fine, we obviously support them before, but that three years after they've graduated support is really important because they don't pay anything extra for it, it's there for them and we'd encourage them to contact us.