A guide to supporting student parents at university: part three

There are stark differences in the quality of personal tutoring student parents experience across the UK, as revealed in the findings of a 2024 national research project. More than 40 per cent of respondents reported having had “excellent” or “good” personal tutor support, with some ascribing their success to it. However, the good news stops there: 17 per cent reported their experience as just “okay” (citing a lack of tutor reliability and/or availability) and worse still, four in 10 were completely let down by the system. Twelve per cent reported that they did not think they had a personal tutor and 29 per cent felt their experience with theirs had been “poor”, citing unavailability, unreliability and/or lack of concern as reasons.

It is worth noting that, in many cases, personal tutors have had to feel their way into supporting under-represented students such as student parents alongside time-consuming teaching, research, administrative and other responsibilities. Personal tutors can also struggle to fulfil their responsibilities because of a lack of training and confidence. 

• Resource collection: how to factor family into higher education
• Supporting parent academics through staff networks
• Childcare for students and academics needs resources and relationships

The toolkit

I designed The Personal Tutor’s Guide to Supporting Student Parents to provide a research-informed road map for personal tutors via six “keys”. For each key, the toolkit sets out evidence to underline the importance of the intervention described and walks personal tutors through the practical steps they can take to support their tutees. The drafts of the toolkit resources were peer-reviewed by a team of five student parents from four UK universities and finalised during a focus group setting. 

Here are the key takeaways from the toolkit:

Getting induction right

Given the negative feelings two thirds of research participants reported about their transition to university, it is clear that getting induction right is crucial.  

 Personal tutors should seek to:

• Carve out time during this period for open and positive discussions with student parent tutees about their children, their childcare options and their plans for balancing study, family and work
• Discuss whether the student parent’s timetable works with childcare needs and, where it does not, help them navigate the possibility of requesting changes to their timetabled sessions, and if so, how
• Introduce the provider’s mitigating circumstances policy, given the likelihood that student parents will need to rely on it when their child falls ill or their childcare provisions fall through.

The toolkit contains an induction checklist for personal tutors, designed to ensure all relevant issues have been discussed during induction. 

Time planning

Given the time poverty student parents experience, personal tutees will need to do what they can to assist student parents tutees with time planning and dealing with absence. For example:

• Consider whether any early drafts of the timetable (or indications of which days are unlikely to contain on-campus sessions) can be shared in advance to assist with childcare planning
• Help student parents come up with a plan for what action they will take when they miss a session because of a child-related absence to prevent them falling behind
• Explore whether it will be possible to switch off automated email notifications requiring explanations for absence when the student parent has notified their personal tutor of a childcare-related absence to help reduce stress during such challenging circumstances.

Assessment challenges

Anticipated events such as school holidays could interfere with assessment preparation. Consider whether it will be possible for the student to work well in advance of the assessment deadline to manage their workload. If not, personal tutors should encourage their tutee to put a contingency plan in place for childcare during assessment windows.

Where unforeseen child-related circumstances interfere with assessment, personal tutors need to be clear about what evidence might be required to support mitigating circumstances applications and need to be ready to assist their student parent tutee in navigating this evidential hurdle.

Childcare practicalities

A common theme that arose in both research projects was the negative impact of the lack of understanding of the emotions and practicalities behind childcare. Personal tutors should make themselves aware of the current government childcare funding model for student parents, which will depend on where in the UK the student is studying (the toolkit provides advice on this) and should familiarise themselves with the grants and bursaries available within their institution that may be appropriate for their student parent tutees.

Feeling connected 

To help alleviate the feelings of isolation reported by student parents, personal tutors should familiarise themselves with institutional student parent support groups (most institutions should have these in place) and signpost these to their tutees. In the absence of an institutional group (or even where one is available but a departmental group would also help to support student parents locally), personal tutors could set up a group within the department which operates via Microsoft Teams chat or similar online platform.  This should take very little time to set up and, once established, can be run by the student parent members themselves as a platform for support, advice and celebration of their achievements. 

For more details and an induction, you can access the full toolkit here.

Andy Todd is associate professor of active citizenship at the University of Chester.

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Many of the themes drawn out of the research studies are explored in The Student Parent Podcast.
The research findings and toolkits introduced in this series, as well as invaluable insights from two current student parents, were explored during a QAA Scotland webinar in April 2024. Here is the link to the recording.