Rep System FAQs for Staff

Student voice is an important mechanism in maintaining a high quality of education across UAL. Course Reps play an important role in ensuring that students have effective opportunities to raise feedback and work with staff to improve student experience. Every course at UAL should have at least 1 Course Rep per year group (1 Rep: 25 students for larger courses. This includes students that are Pre-Degree students, UG students, PGT and PGR students.  

You can read the Course Rep role description here.  

Course Reps work closely with their Course Leader and Course Support team, Course Reps regularly collect student feedback and deliver this to staff in their Course Committee meetings.  

Course Reps also work closely with the Students’ Union, engaging with the Education Quality Team and Democracy & Influencing Team to shape and influence student experience at UAL.  

The Course Rep role is a non-elected voluntary role. To ensure that your course has a Course Rep in place, please use the slides provided by the Education Quality Team (found here) as part of your induction sessions, to explain to students the expectations and benefits of being a Course Rep. Once you have introduced the role, we suggest giving students a week or so to put themselves forward if they are interested and then register themselves with the SU.  

It is important that Course Reps are chosen in a fair way and all students are given the opportunity to put themselves forward.  

If you find that students are not forthcoming in taking up the role, it can be helpful to speak to individual students that have shown an interest in student voice/ leadership. Students often feel more capable to step forward for a role if they have encouragement and support from staff.  

Students wishing to become a Course Rep should speak to their Course Leader before using this webpage to sign up with Arts SU to begin the recruitment process. Once your Course Reps for the year are confirmed, we ask that you dedicate a few minutes of a teaching session for reps to introduce themselves to their cohort so students are clear on who is in the role and the best way for students to share feedback with them. There is also a template for this introduction, which you and reps are free to use. 

Unless an overwhelming number of students put themselves forward for the role, we encourage that all those who volunteer are confirmed as Course Reps. If too many students do put themselves forward, we suggest you have a conversation with them to ensure they understand the scope and responsibilities of the role and that they are able to take them on. 

There are different ways to support Course Reps:  

• Create time, in academic spaces, to allow Course Reps to introduce themselves at the start of the year and to gather feedback throughout the year.  

• Speak to Course Reps in advance of each Course Committee to ensure they feel prepared and valued in this space. 

• Create regular opportunities to speak to you about feedback and any student concerns as they arise.  

• Remind them to revisit and use the Course Rep training resources throughout the year and to trial different methods to evidence feedback.    

• Reach out to the Education Quality Team directly if you have any concerns and celebrate the work of your Course Reps by engaging with the Rep of the Month reward scheme to allow them the chance to be recognised and rewarded for their work.  

• Check your emails for our Course Leader Newsletter that we send out every 2 months to find out the latest Course Rep news, EQ Team work, and SU insights.  

1. Please ensure they are trying to register or sign in to a student account: their student ID will not work with a staff/guest account. 

2. Please make sure you've completed enrolment as you won't be able to register until you are.  

3. If your enrolment has been completed and you are still struggling, it's probably a consent settings issue (i.e. Account not matched). Students can now update their consent setting by following these simple steps:  

•Log in to your UAL Student Portal   • Look for my Enrolments tab -> my Study Details -> Update Consent button.   • Click update.  

4. After receiving confirmation, please wait 24 hours before trying to log in/register. If after this, you continue to struggle, please email us once again and include your name, UAL email address and student ID no.    

5. If you still can't sign in, please contact UAL registry on studentsystemshelp@arts.ac.ukThis link will open in a new tab to update your consent settings with us.  

Each year, the Arts SU Education Quality Team provide training for all students becoming Course Reps. To their training, your Course Reps should have attended our in-person training session or watched our core training online and completed the online quiz. You can find all of the resources here to see what skills and knowledge they have learned.  

If you are worried that your Course Rep is not fully trained, you can email the Education Quality Team at coursereps@su.arts.ac.uk as we have a list of all trained Reps. We will also email Course Leaders at the start of the year if your rep has not completed their training by the deadline.  

If you have concerns around the fulfilment of the role, we have lots of resources on our website that you can sign post your Rep to including how to make a survey and how to prepare for course committees.