Safety and wellbeing of students remains top priority for Kent Law School

As teaching begins for the new term, the safety and wellbeing of staff and students remains a top priority for Kent Law School (KLS) in 2021.

As a result of lockdown all teaching at KLS is being delivered online until the end of February. Student feedback from last term reflects a high level of student appreciation for the way that KLS put student choice at the heart of all its planning.

Reflecting on the experience of delivering teaching and learning during the previous lockdowns, Head of School Professor Lydia Hayes praised students for paying close attention to campus safety measures: ‘Our students were brilliant last term: mask wearing; disinfecting; staying distanced; respecting the rules.’

The Law School was able to adapt quickly and effectively as the pandemic developed in 2020 and Professor Hayes says KLS has much to be proud of: ‘Last term, as well as being able to offer all our students the option to be taught online, our dedicated team of teaching staff made it possible for us to offer every KLS student the choice of face-to-face learning. This meant we could give every KLS student the choice of learning whatever their circumstances, health, background or location around the world.’

Some of the adaptations the Law School has made for the 20/21 academic year in response to the pandemic include:

  • Putting student choice at the centre of KLS’s teaching programme (with students opting in or out of on-campus or online learning) and in recognition that our student community is global and diverse
  • Respecting the expressed wishes of each student about how they wanted to engage with study: making new groups, overflow groups, pivoting groups, making big groups and small groups – being exceptionally flexible
  • Adapting lecture-delivery in response to student feedback to make the content more accessible as a series of ‘bite-sized’ pre-recordings
  • Providing extra contact time for all students with a new ‘Module Hour’ and mini-tasks to help students get the most out of their lectures and learning
  • Extending the KLS Student Mentoring Scheme; more than 60 student mentors from stages 2 and 3 took up leadership positions and supported stage 1 students
  • Designing and delivering a new law study skills module specifically resourced to give a boost for 120 young people in stage 1. It was optional and it was oversubscribed – so parts of the content were made accessible to all via the KLS Skills Hub
  • Establishing ‘KLS Community’; a team of academics focused on providing a great student experience through online and on-campus activities. These are open, inclusive and relevant. The aim is to prepare students to express their opinions, act with confidence, enable their employability and build the KLS Community
  • Boosting the availability of academic advice so that all students are engaged with small group support. We now target student needs at each stage of study and timetable regular advice and support. It’s still possible to arrange 1-2-1 meetings with academic advisors, but it’s no longer necessary for students to request academic advice in order to access it
  • Making 1-2-1 support available online via the Law School’s Skills Hub. This has increased resources and the number of students accessing skills support – particularly important given the pressures young people have been under due to the disruptions of the pandemic
  • A new team of academics focused on student inclusion and attainment to ensure we continue to make progress in decolonising our curriculum and building a stronger sense of inclusion and belonging throughout the KLS degree programme
  • Growing the diversity of the KLS leadership team – now 30% BAME academics – and listening to the needs of our diverse body of students, particularly with respect to how best the School can support their ambitions, expectations, and desires for a better world
  • Increasing resource to the ACE (Academic Coaching for Excellence) programme (which invites BAME students to be partnered with a KLS academic as their ACE coach) and explicitly targeting this support as a positive action intervention under the Equality Act 2010 to reduce the awarding gap between black and white students
  • Ensuring all international students were contacted personally by an academic at the beginning of term; just to say hi but particularly to check in with post-travel self-isolation
  • Providing support to self-isolating students and pivoting classes online as soon as staff become aware of a positive COVID test.

Here’s what KLS students have said about the School’s response to the ever-changing pandemic situation:

  • “Many international students have been very positive about how the school has been accommodating in terms of timetable and seminars especially helping those students who were studying from their home countries in different time zones.”
  • “Having the opportunity to choose between online and on campus seminars was very welcome.”
  • “Pre-recorded lectures help more effectively with learning since we can pause if we wish to, we can make notes, we can repeat bits we didn’t understand… the delivery of lectures is clearer and better structured now especially when divided into smaller chunks.”
  • “Academic Advice seminars are very useful in terms of the content covered but also for making students feel more connected to our studies and university which would otherwise be difficult to do… helpful that unlike previous years we now have three sessions during each semester… content & topics covered have been very helpful.”

The University acknowledges that this is a worrying time for students and has assured students that they have access to support and advise wherever they may be. If you have any concerns or queries, please check Kent’s student Coronavirus webpages or email CovidSupport@kent.ac.uk