Extended programmes: widening participation by narrowing content

Abstract

In September 2016, the University of Greenwich Business School introduced its first portfolio of extended programmes. The majority of these programmes followed a common initial year, referred to for the remainder of this opinion piece as 'year zero'. The programme design for year zero was intended to launch students on their programme of study by introducing basic academic writing and communication skills, while also including general business-related content. On extended programmes, the benefits of generic foundation years such as year zero include the efficient use of resources. As all students are studying the same modules, it is easier for universities to forward-plan and to run larger lectures than would be possible if each programme had its own year zero with smaller student numbers. The reasons for the Business School's approach to programme design for this new initiative were therefore obvious and logical. There were economies of scale to be had, especially by basing year zero on existing foundation modules already available within the University, as the programmes could be set up relatively swiftly for the initial cohorts. This was very helpful, because, as these students would be recruited through Clearing 2016, there was no clear idea of expected numbers in the early stages of the recruitment cycle. However, in this piece, we argue that a bespoke year zero design, with a focus on a narrower range of subject-specific topics, enhances the experience of the students on our extended programmes and is worth the investment.The use of the plural 'cohorts' in the previous paragraph is deliberate, as it gets to the nub of the problem we encountered. Whilst, in the early days, we may have referred to all 'extended students' en masse, the students did not see themselves as a single group of 'general business' students. Their programme identities and departments were very important to them. Although the programme structures were set out clearly on the University's website, the students had not anticipated a quasi-generic foundation year plus three years; they had enrolled on to a four-year extended programme commencing with year zero. The students expected programme-specific content from the outset and, from the feedback we received from the first few weeks of term onwards, it became apparent that something had to be done. This opinion piece represents the views of colleagues from three departments within the Business School and demonstrates how we took a united approach to resolving the problem which we all encountered.Our response was twofold. First, we regarded the feedback as reflecting a serious and immediate problem, which we addressed by adding previously unplanned extra-curricular content into the year. One example was a trading competition in term one. In term two, the department with the highest number of extended students provided four weeks of taught sessions to its students on a programme-specific topic. This content, not assessed, was of a

Building working relationships with peers: an induction activity for students

“…This means the activity does not have to be viewed by students as a general induction activity but it immediately has relevance to their chosen programme of study. Reilly et al (2020) argue that students on extended programmes value bespoke content which is relevant to their subject specialism so we should look for every possible opportunity to make learning activities relevant to students' interests, starting at induction. Using the topic of CSR in the induction activity informs students about what is happening in the world of finance and business.…”