New Student Support Escalation Plan supports student retention and success
The School of Trades and Services has developed a system to capture and manage a range of issues that have the potential to impact their students’ success. The ‘Student Support Escalation Plan’ (SSEP) is designed to track the course of action being taken in response to any issues or challenges their students are experiencing, and to capture the steps taken by staff to manage them.
SSEP was designed and implemented by Tu Nuualiitia – Student Experience Partner, School of Trades and Services, and Rakesh Patel – Business Analyst, Finance
The system was developed in response to staff and programme feedback, captured at team Ata Kōrero workshops late last year. Lecturers’ feedback identified that a key concern for them was their ability to monitor and maintain the progress of their students, which also impacted their ability to gather data evidence or narrative to inform and support PEPs, PAQC or CEP requirements, and strategic outcomes.
In response, Tu Nuualiitia – Student Experience Partner, School of Trades and Services, and Rakesh Patel – Business Analyst, Finance, developed SSEP, a simple spreadsheet system where staff record and provide accountability for ‘real time’ actions to address areas impacting a student’s ability to succeed.
Tu and Rakesh are also pictured here at the MPTT graduation, November 2019, with the Unitec team responsible for organising the event: Rakesh Patel, Pava Saifoloi, Derrick Solomon, Kirsten Petersen, Karetai Williams, Tu Nuualiitia, Danyon Morgan-Puterangi
The SSEP spreadsheet is populated by teaching staff as soon as a student meets a defined escalation point, which are defined as:
- Late to class
- Absenteeism
- Course assignment completion concerns
- Other – personal health, family issues etc
Actions and progression are captured in the spreadsheet and accountability is shared by the relevant lecturer, and often escalated to include support from MPTT navigators, the Learner Outreach Programme, or Pacific and Māori champions.
The spreadsheet has been designed to be user-friendly and self-populates relevant data when the student’s ID is entered. Dropdown menus are also a feature for ease of use and to ensure data is captured and categorised in a consistent format.
SSEP was prototyped with the Automotive Level 3 programme, supporting the Māori Pacific Trades Training (MPTT) scholarship students during our first COVID lockdown. Tu says that data from this pilot showed that students who had been escalated through SSEPs, highlighted by attendance drop-off, had re-engaged in their classes (online). The SSEPs process had identified the students needing additional support, staff had responded quickly and relevant resources had been put in place – all attributed to the SSEP process.
At the start of s
emester 2 the SSEP system was rolled out to all other Trades programmes to support all of the 2020 MPTT scholarship students, currently 160.
Plans are in place to extend SSEP, as a monitoring resource for other Schools, if required, in February 2021.
The SSEP process is a great example of collaboration within the School and across the institution, and reflects our Te Noho Kotahitanga principle of Mahi Kotahitanga in action. The project has brought together teaching and support staff, including Rakesh, who Tu says has always been an important part of MPTT. He has responsibility for their EFTS, as well as the relationship and institutional reporting to Government. Tu says Rakesh has been very important in the success of MPTT at Unitec and in creating the SSEP system.
If you’d like to learn more about the SSEP tool, Tu would be happy to share more on the system with you – contact Tu Nuualiitia.
Fantastic iniatitive. Tau kē e te whānau!