Notes for staff on first stage 1 progress meeting

Week 1/2: Gentle introductory meeting, 15 mins

The purpose of this meeting is to

  1. Make students feel welcome
  2. Get to know them in a little more detail, including allowing space for them to disclose any concerns or special requirements
  3. Set expectations for attendance and engagement (e.g. with email)

Initial meetings will be individual (subsequent meetings will be in pairs/threes).

We suggest adding more office hours slots to enable students to book a slot.

Some general questions to ask/topics of conversation to serve these ends:

Getting to know tutees
  • How did you get interested in Psychology?
  • Did you study Psychology A level?
  • If so, which topics did you enjoy the most?

Settling in…

  • Have they traveled far to come to Plymouth?
  • Have the settled in, found friends in halls etc?
  • Are they aware of the welcome event

University information…

  • Do they have computing account and card
  • Do they have access to the DLE, timetable?
  • Do they understand about workshop groups/allocations?

Expectations…

  • Tutors: Explain what a personal tutor is for (academic and pastoral support, and a first port of call to access other university services)
  • Office hours: Remind them about office hours and booking them via the DLE or with you individually
  • Attendance: Explain the importance of attending monday briefings and workshops
  • Email/comms: Explain that most university communications will be via email — this needs to be checked daily, and preferably at the start and end of each day. (Could also mention about email ettiquette)
  • Paid work: Ask how much paid work they do. Remind them that this is a FT course and they will be expected to do around 37 hours per week, including recommended preparation and self study.

Future directions

Do they want to be a professional psychologist? Clinical/health /forensic? - Are they aware of the various training pathways for them? - Suggest that is something to investigate during the year, mention www.prospects.ac.uk

Practical considerations

Briefings

  • Did they attend the Briefing meeting on Monday morning at 10am on Zoom?
  • If so, did they find it useful? (please forward feedback to Ben/Jeremy)
  • If not, what prevented them? Encourage future attendance. Briefings will be an important orientation for students through the semester.

Practice

Future progress meetings

  • Mention that next meeting will be in week 5/6
  • Students will need to set the agenda for it, and make notes from it
  • There is a practice task which covers this
Learning about students’ choice of Plymouth

As a school we are also very interested to hear from students on these topics:

Why Plymouth?

  • Was there anything special about the place?
  • Was there anything special about the university?
  • Was there anything special about the course?

Open/applicant days?

  • What did you like about them?
  • Do you have any suggestions for improvements?
  • What aspect of your degree are you most excited about?

Please forward and information gained on these topics to Gustav.