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  • 43 score
    47 voters

    Create a policy for Student Parents & Carers

    Submitted 3 years ago by Maisie Lodge
    Expired
    • Wellbeing
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    16comments
    Petition the university to create a clear and easily accessible policy for student parents and carers. As a group, we students face unique struggles which are not catered for in the generic university policies and procedures. This is more evident and pressing during this time of national lockdown when our studies are severely hampered by the fact we are also home-schooling our children and keeping them safe, whilst trying to maintain the same standard of academic work.
Nicole Davies
5pm on 15 Jan 21 This would be amazing, alot of people do not realise the struggles parents face, even before the pandemic there were struggles
Syanne Parsons
5:02pm on 15 Jan 21 This is an amazing idea, one thing I found was the lack of flexibility or understanding towards parents and carers. Given the amount that now go to university it’s clear a procedure is needed to allow university to be accessible and as stress free other then assignments of course!
Kelly Cyples
5:09pm on 15 Jan 21 This is a fantastic idea! Been a parent and a carer I am finding it extremely difficult to meet deadlines, engage in lectures aswell as meet all my children’s wants and needs.
Maisie Lodge
5:13pm on 15 Jan 21 Student parents are a unique subgroup of parents and as such need unique, tailored support, through the use of support plans for all parents. Pregnant students are often dismissed and seen as setting themselves up to fail. Children needing to use laptops/computers at the same as their parents with learning, can laptop loans be organised? Some parents have multiple children and/or are caring for vulnerable children/those with additional needs who they are also having to home-school whilst studying their degrees. Not feeling able to meet their academic potential. Placement and work experience needs to be more flexible to take into account caring responsibilities, especially during lockdown. We are being forced onto placements which threaten our children’s safety, or face failing the module or having to defer a year. Attendance shouldn’t be based on who is watching lectures live, and lectures should be recorded for student parents and carers to come back to if they have to leave the live session. Struggling without access to the library during lockdown, as children are not at school and can't come into the library. Juggling home schooling children and studying. The stress of parenting, working and having a complete lack of support is affecting our mental health, making things even more difficult. It’s hard to reach out for support as it’s not offered, we feel we have to beg for it. The required work experience is hard to juggle with childcare, home-schooling and keeping to deadlines. We shouldn’t be given the choice of struggling with our studies and suspending our studies for something outside of our control. Lack of support over the Christmas period. Lecturers are given extensions to giving feedback and responding to emails, but the same considerations are not being afforded to student parents and carers. Or, any extra time given to students coincides with periods when there is no support available. Every week schools are shut should be given back to student parents as an extension.
Debbie Pickard
6:10pm on 15 Jan 21 I started studying during the pandemic, and feel that it is important that this idea is considered for students who are also parents. Whilst there are considerations in place for the ill health of a student, there is nothing to cover dealing with family health issues, which can be all consuming. With the pandemic, lockdowns are happening, resulting in home schooling of our children. This takes away the focus on our own studies (which we’d usually do whilst the children are at school). For our mental health, we need down time...and that isn’t always possible when home schooling, studying and other domestic duties.
Gemma Smith
10:24pm on 15 Jan 21 This would be amazing. As a single mother and having my daughter home due to some of her class mates testing positive last semester, I really struggled with not only focusing on my online lectures due to homeschooling, but also finding the time to complete my work. The days I didn't have lectures would normally have been spent working on assignments, but instead I was homeschooling. My first year, so far, has been overwhelmingly stressful, and feel it will only get worse.
Heather Millard
12:08pm on 16 Jan 21 Fully support this. I grew overly concerned about my attendance of the live lectures as I had to spend my time teaching my own daughter throughout the day and then caught up with my lectures in the evening. I think there needs to be more flexibility for students to attend the recorded lectures when they can. Attendance need not be marked by live attendance only. The online resources and guidance is great but I feel we could benefit from a few changes. The online learning is an absolute blessing during this time and I think the lecturers are doing a fantastic job and I actually love doing my course online because it enables me to manage my time with my daughter quite effectively. I’m thankful that my daughter is 5 and can be quite forgiving about my time spent on the laptop, others are not quite so lucky.
Naomi Bennett
12:35pm on 16 Jan 21 This definitely needs to happen, struggling to study and homeschool my children.
Daniel Lodge
12:56pm on 16 Jan 21 The pandemic definetly exposed a level of discrimination in University policy for parent students, leaving Uni courses little wiggle room to cater to detrimental needs and the right to a fair education. I am hearing horror stories from peers with children about the lack of flexibility from their courses due to the need to put the health of their children and family first during a very difficult and extremely tragic time. Nobody should have to choose between survival of those they love, and needing to go on placement or risk losing their degree. Absolutely the wrong side of history is any university policy that forces such demands on families in a time of national peril. Change is needed to protect a parents family and their right to an equal and fair education.
Stephanie Baxter
2:09pm on 16 Jan 21 This is essential; balancing home-schooling, academic work, and placement during a pandemic as a single parent of two primary aged boys has been ridiculously hard. Flexibility during this time is needed for students who are parents. I do not feel I have had much choice. I have to continue my degree, but with little options to keep myself and family safe at this time.
Shannon Underhay
3:55pm on 16 Jan 21 Fully support this and feel it is needed. Being a student parent is extremely hard but even harder in a pandemic. I feel we would benefit greatly from some more support.
Connor Rollins- Hewison
6:45pm on 16 Jan 21 So to Accomodate for P+C we could utilise some of the students who arent parents or carers. So the uni already has a voluntary tutoring service (peer assisted learning) Why don't we extend that to The kids? It could still be treated similarly to an actual job you'd interview the human (make sure you want them around your child- or at least over a zoom/teams/skype call) It'd be interview experience as well as tutoring experience and the tiny humans get to learn. and Student P+C don't have to pay as much as they would for a normal tutor. You can review progress and if we make it mandatory that lesson plans are submitted say 2 days prior, you can ensure your child is learning what they need to learn and potentially more than they would have learnt at school?
Carla Fletcher
10:11pm on 17 Jan 21 I wholeheartedly hope that change can be made regarding student parents. Even prior to the pandemic there were numerous issues that students parents face and in my 2 and a half years of being at the university, I have tried my hardest to vocalise those issues....but nothing has been done. However, the pandemic has since exacerbated all of these problems and have created an infinite amount of new ones, but student parents never seem to be considered in any university wide changes or support! After initiating talks with a large proportion of student parents I have compiled a list: - childcare: prior to the pandemic I experienced the most nonchalant responses to the fact that I could not attend late lectures due to childcare only covering up to 18:00. The lecturer did NOT record his lectures and therefore found myself self-teaching an entire module....my grades unfortunately show this! I received no support throughout this and now even if the no detriment policy was applied I'd still be unhappy and would contest it! During the pandemic there has been NO childcare for student parents, we have not been supported nor has much leniency been provided, despite a large amount of students going through the exact same problems which has ultimately heightened stress and panic. - Assessments: exams are limited to 24 hours for the most part and student parents find this incredibly hard to achieve unless they stay up all night! We simply get the response that the exam should only be 3 hours' worth of work, however, it would be naive to think that students without the responsibility of caring for their children would not be using that full 24 hours themselves! This is VERY unfair and puts student parents at a great disadvantage. There have also been some huge problems regarding assessments over the christmas period. Student parents have tried to contact their module leaders for extensions and have had no response, there is NO support over the christmas period. - No detriment Policy: These are very rarely applied and throughout my second year (at the beginning of the pandemic) I was told, alongside other students that it was only being applied to third years, however, some other students in the same school were able to miss entire assessments....where is the consistency?! They need to be applied to ALL years, because as we are repeatedly told...all years matter in university despite some not accounting for the final degree grade! Personal situations also need to be considered on a student to student basis too! - DOUBLE STANDARDS - As soon as the third lockdown was announced we were notified of the lecturers' leniency in marking.....but have yet to see any REAL leniency for ourselves. Staff are highlighting their struggles every time they are on 'live' and yet the diverse student population means that we too are experiencing the same and there is a BIG BIG difference between being paid to do this as a job and paying for the 'expertise'. This is also causing students to not want to bother lecturers as they feel like they are making them stressed or wasting their time.....WE SHOULD NOT BE SHOULDERING THEIR PROBLEMS ONTOP OF OUR OWN - Third Year - it is well known that in third year even in normal circumstances is pushed for time, everything needs to be accomplished as quickly as possible so that we can meet deadlines as the workload is considerably heavier. However, extended email responses are causing students to fall behind, there will be a surge in EEC applications because student ARE NOT BEING ADEQUATELY SUPPORTED - Devices - our children are in need of their own devices during the lockdown which means many of us are sharing ours with them. This is cutting our time to be able to conduct university work and attend lectures at specific times - attendance should not be measured by simply being on the 'live' sessions, and laptops leant out to student parents need to be leant out without the constant notifications that they may have to return the laptop should another student need it - this is stress inducing! Also, the process to acquire a laptop needs to be made much more visible...alot of students didn't know they could borrow laptops Things have to change.....we are not superheros and we are under a lot of stress.
Emily Lane
10:34am on 26 Jan 21 Congratulations, this idea has passed the 25 votes threshold! It is being taken to Student Affairs Committee this week by the Part Time Officer for Parents and Carers and the Full Time Officer team. This is a meeting with senior members of staff from the University where the Officers can present the concerns of students. If it doesn't succeed here, this point will be taken to Summit. This is a meeting students attend to vote on ideas to be actioned or voted against.
Michaela O'Reilly
2:43pm on 26 Jan 21 Great idea... it is so hard to keep up with homeschooling children, catching up with work, being able to engage in lectures properly with children at home, I have really struggled the past 2 years with uni being online, I was even struggling under normal circumstances with children. I really hope there is something that can be done by the uni to accommodate parents more.
Emily Lane
2:58pm on 9 Feb 21 This idea has been taken to the senior members of the University by the PTO for Parents & Carers and feedback will be given soon. This idea does not need to go to Summit as the University is working with the Union.