The small steps that can make a big difference to student parents

Student parents have different responsibilities in comparison with non-parent students, and therefore different needs. Studies have shown that parents struggle to balance their time with the demands of university work, childcare and undertaking paid work. These time pressures require extensive planning and often considerable third-party support, such as family or friends helping with childcare. Time-related pressures increase the stress student parents feel, as well as having other implications for their health – namely, the need to work during children’s sleep time. Single parents, and students who are also experiencing financial hardship, will feel this stress even more acutely.

On the programme I lead, social sciences, I know that we have a significant number of students juggling university and parental responsibilities. We’ve made this a key area of focus, to improve the support we provide to these students. 

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We wanted to understand the nature of the challenges faced by our student parents. Results from a small opt-in survey noted that the main challenges were access to childcare funding, lack of funding for study time or any optional (non-timetabled) learning activities, child sickness and school holidays affecting attendance, and timing of classes not fitting in with childcare. So, what steps have we taken to try to support our student parents on the social sciences programme that could be replicated elsewhere?

Consider the school run

We take care in scheduling our classes to consider childcare needs. Last year, we scheduled classes between 10am and 3pm to ensure that there was time to travel to and from classes around general school and childcare hours. Where this is not possible owing to timetabling issues, we have prioritised supporting student parents to access sessions/modules at times that fit in with their childcare schedule. 

Work around half-term holidays

We have aligned our termly reading week with the school holidays in the areas local to our campuses. Widening participation, a long-term policy concern within higher education, has seen positive shifts in terms of access and entry into higher education. One impact has been a socio-demographic shift that has meant that many more students now have parental responsibilities, and we noticed on our own programme a significant drop in attendance during the school holidays. 

Yes, there are some challenges in taking this approach, as different school areas sometimes have different half-term weeks. But overall, this has enabled most of our student parents to avoid missing any classes because of school holidays. 

Plan deadlines carefully

We seek to avoid assessment deadlines taking place either during or immediately after school holidays. Student parents should not be adversely affected by a shorter time frame to prepare their work. This was not something we’d previously considered, but based on student feedback, it was clear that student parents were less able to work on their assessments during school holidays. They believed having their assessments aligned with their childcare provision would strengthen their time management and help to alleviate their assessment-related stress. 

Student feedback has also helped us to develop some new priorities for this academic year. In 2024-25, we are seeking to expand our approaches to supporting student parents, with our priority being to better identify and provide a supportive peer environment for student parents.

Identify who needs support

We are seeking to build a database to capture information about student parents on our programme. Unlike other social groups increasing as part of the widening participation agenda, data to ascertain how many student parents are enrolled within institutions is often not collected. This subsequently can affect funding, and limited understanding of the extent of support needed also hinders policy responses. 

It’s critical that if the data is collected centrally, then that information is shared to staff who are directly engaging with students. But this isn’t always the case. By asking students to opt in to identify themselves as student parents, we can facilitate a Student Parent Support Group that will enable us to share relevant information, provide timely responses to student parent-specific queries and hopefully also allow student parents to support each other on this platform. 

Start from induction

We had information prepared for student parents at induction on how to access forms of support, including time management guidance, childcare funding information and identification of their programme’s student parent champion, who they can get support from. 

Operate a ‘no questions asked’ policy

On our dissertation module last year, we included childcare as one of the reasons that would automatically be granted our one-week extension and had positive feedback on this. This year, using our database, student parents are considered using the same approach to students signed up with our disability services. There’s no need to provide the additional information required to request absences and extensions for assessments. We hope that this will enable flexibility in time management, and reduce stress related to assessment deadlines. 

These approaches are not without challenges, particularly the lack of childcare facilities and support on our campuses themselves. But we have been inspired by events run by QAA Scotland. They’ve showed that there are small steps that can be taken at the programme level that can have a big difference. We have also now set up a cross-university Student Parent and Carer Working group that seeks to institutionalise these ideas further. 

Small steps like these can have a big difference and ensure that our student parents can flourish and fulfil their potential.

Rebecca Gordon is senior lecturer and programme leader in social sciences at the University of the West of Scotland. 

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