Kingston School of Art's Studylab programme wins prestigious NEON widening access award for improving students' retention and success

Posted Thursday 17 May 2018

Joanna Bailey (left) and Kate Fahey (right) received the Widening Access Initiative Award at the NEON Awards from Gordon Marsden MP.

Kingston School of Art's Studylab project, aimed at supporting students' academic progress, has won the widening access initiative for student retention and success category at this year's NEON Awards. Run by the National Education Opportunities Network, the awards celebrate successes and best practice in widening access to higher education, in particular recognising students from under-represented groups and how they made their journey.

The Studylab project is a tailored programme that provides extra academic support and guidance for Level 4 and Level 5 students on architecture, interior design, photography and filmmaking courses through email contact, workshops, seminars, and tutorials.

a tutor helps her students by showing her a diagram in a textbook The NEON Awards celebrate successes and best practice in initiatives widening access to higher education.It is designed to help students from all backgrounds engage with different aspects of their course and meet submission deadlines where they may otherwise have struggled. It aims to develop skills in areas such as organisation and time keeping and helps boost confidence and academic performance to improve retention and progression.

The support programme, coordinated by Kate Fahey, working closely with Joanna Bailey, Director of Learning and Teaching in the School of Art and Architecture, is promoted to students across all four courses during induction events, talks within modules, in online resources and during course meetings.

Ms Bailey and Ms Fahey collected the award from Shadow Minister of Higher Education, Further Education and Skills Gordon Marsden at the Palace of Westminster ceremony.

"This award recognises the team effort that takes place across L4 and L5 Architecture, Interior Design, Photography and Filmmaking on Studylab coordinated by Kate Fahey" Ms Bailey said. "Studylab is made possible because of the support from colleagues within Learning & Teaching, Widening Participation, EDI and Student Attainment."

Associate Dean Learning and Teaching at Kingston School of Art, Dr Angela Partington, said the Studylab project demonstrated the University's commitment to widening access to higher education and supporting all its students to succeed and thrive. "Winning the NEON award is a fitting recognition of the programme's success. At Kingston School of Art we recognise diversity as a key driver of creativity and are continually reviewing our curriculum content and strategies to ensure that equality, diversity and inclusion are embedded," she said.

"Studylab not only provides support to students who need it, but is also a source of additional student feedback from which we are learning how to better reflect the diversity of students in our curriculum."