National Teachers and Advisers Conference

Our keynote presentation focussed on the future of teaching and learning, with the aim to equip teachers with the knowledge to advise students on what they can expect in terms of their undergraduate student experience.

This session was presented by Professor Peter Green, Vice Dean for Teaching, Learning and Students in the Faculty of Science and Engineering.

Staff discussed the changing landscape of higher education admissions, with a focus on:

• how the University has approached applications and admissions during the COVID-19 pandemic;
• our approach to results confirmation in August;
• contextual admissions;
• general admission queries, such as: offer making, places available on programmes, entry requirements, students gaining admission to courses, and work experience.

The UCAS academic reference plays an important role in admissions decisions.

This interactive session covered what universities are looking for in the academic reference and provided best practice in writing and structuring the reference. It used real examples to show the kind of information that could make a difference to the outcome of your students’ application.

This session provided an overview of the virtual resources available to your students, outlining how they can access and engage with our suite of online content.

It covered our virtual and 360 image tours, the Visit University of Manchester app, our Unibuddy student chat platform, Manchester Connect and the Manchester Live webinar series.

We discussed our research into how students felt about the cancellation of GCSE's last year, and how we can help students this year and in subsequent years when the effects of exam cancellations are still likely to be felt. 

This research was carried out by a team at The University of Manchester, including: Tee McCaldin, Kevin Woods, Kerry Brown, Rob Buck, Nicola Fairhall, Emma Forshaw, and David Soares. For more information, contact: tee.mccaldin@manchester.ac.uk