Flying Start and Inductions

Flying Start and all Inductions/Introductions

The key aim is to set up a positive, welcoming environment that enables new students to meet key staff and each other to discuss their subject.

Paper plane icon.

Flying Start’s key aims:

  • Stimulates excitement about the subject
  • Develops an academic community
  • Encourages students to work with new people
  • Develops habits of intensive, full-time study

There are also a lot of good ideas, techniques, and advice on the ‘Moving your Module Online’ (MYMO) module on Brightspace.  

For assistance, meetings or questions please contact Jane Wormald (j.wormald@hud.ac.uk

Key Points

What is the initiative?

Flying Start is one of the initiatives instigated by the University of Huddersfield, with a specific focus on students who live, study and travel to University from the family home.
Flying Start provides an immersive, educational experience for new first year undergraduate students that is active, engaging and subject specific.

It builds on existing research which identifies social and academic engagement between peers and with staff as significant for retention, achievement and belonging (for example, Tinto, 1993; Thomas, 2012; Braxton et al, 2014; Dwyer,2017), ultimately aiming to close differential achievement and reduce attrition.
The first student surveys and tutor responses (2017) concluded by showing significantly positive effects in areas of engagement, self-confidence and belongingness, especially for the male students, and a stronger sense of having built positive relationships with peers and staff compared to non-Flying Start courses.

Why is it needed?

The University of Huddersfield has over 50% of its students living and studying from home with a high proportion of these students in widening participation categories.

For these students, withdrawal can have a particularly damaging impact, both personally and financially. Non-continuation is also costly for institutions with retention and achievement data being scrutinised by Universities, in line with the requirements of the Teaching Excellence Framework.

Like many universities, our most ‘at risk’ students include combinations of student characteristics, for instance males studying and living at home, BAME students or those entering HE with low UCAS tariffs, BTEC or non-standard qualifications.
These characteristics are recognised across the country by most universities.

This project has enabled the use of central student data to identify these characteristics and recognise how they are spread, or cluster, across the university. Universities, Schools and courses are made up of different combinations of potentially at-risk students and identifying these has been important. Ongoing work in this area has developed significantly and provides us with insightful data at University, School and even course level.

Starting University initiatives

The award winning Flying Start is one of several welcome initiatives at the University of Huddersfield.
From September 2021, new entrants to the University will also be directed to a pre-arrival magazine style resource called ‘Ready, Steady, Study’ (for UGs and PGTs) and ‘Ready, Steady, Research’ (PGRs).

This is best viewed by phone but can be accessed on any device. It is unlikely that this will overlap with Flying Start activities, but it is worth staff knowing what’s there. There may be some overlap in your Flying Start with the ‘Huddersfield Essentials resource’ (also available to all teaching staff on Brightspace).

Please make yourselves familiar with this and refer students to relevant sections when applicable. New students are encouraged to complete the essentials of the resource, but there is plenty there you can use for information and ready-made resources during Flying Start and into the first term.
You may also find some good, blended ideas on ‘Moving Your Module Online (MYMO)’ (on Brightspace).

Key Principles of Flying Start

The key aim is to set up a positive, welcoming environment that enables new students to meet key staff and each other to discuss their subject.

Aims:

  • Stimulates excitement about the subject
  • Subject specific
  • Develops an academic community
  • Encourages students to work with new people
  • Develops habits of intensive, full-time study

Content should be:

  • Activity based tasks
  • Subject specific
  • Current & purposeful
  • Staff and peer interactions
  • Promotes belonging
  • Campus & town orienteering
  • Relates to careers
  • Introduces PATs, GPA, academic integrity

For assistance, meetings or questions please contact Jane Wormald (j.wormald@hud.ac.uk)

Useful Information:

Heritage Quay University Campus Trail Activity

Heritage Quay has designed a historical campus trail for Flying Start (thank you, Becky Bowd). This is an activity to get to know the campus through its history. Becky has made an amazing leaflet and mini quiz for student groups to do after returning for their tasks with evidence.
Hud Trail Leaflet

Contact: Rebecca Bowd, University Archivist. r.e.bowd@hud.ac.uk

Careers and employability:

Here are some resources that CES has designed for tutors for Flying start sessions:

We’d also recommend including within Flying Start techniques from the Pedagogy of Compassion and Cooperation, as these really help students develop the confidence to contribute in class and help students get to know each other.

These are explained in the folder: Classroom Activities to Increase Compassion and Cooperation.

Employability & Enterprise Resources – Classroom Activities for Employability Enterprise and Personal Development Planning – All Documents (sharepoint.com)

Academic Integrity Resource

Remember all students must complete the Academic Integrity resource, timetabling it as a task during FS is really useful. This ppt is an aid to introducing the concept (the slides deliberately do not contain a lot of text, the presenter notes provide an outline of what the presentation is intended to cover). 

There is also a workshop activity which you can run in Flying Start, to help students to understand the different types of Academic Misconduct and the consequences for breaching the regulations.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Students and Staff should be familiar with the university’s stance on how we use AI.
The central team has devised a Flying Start task to use with students to introduce AI and its use in their study.
See the Assessment Design in the AI-Age page.

Personal Academic Tutors  

All students should be introduced to the concept of PATs and meet with their allocated PAT very early on. ‘Your Personal Academic Tutor’ can be used to introduce the role of the PAT during Flying Start and includes a video about how to get the most out of a PAT tutorial. 
Link to a video on PAT advising.

Starting University: Respect (Behaviour)

To address concerns in some parts of the university, there is a student activity that will bring awareness of professional behaviours at university.

Please see the Behaviour and Respect page for more details.

Wellbeing and Disability

Even before students begin the GPA programme, they may need to know where support services are for either themselves or others. 

Students can get in touch with:
– The Wellbeing Services on studentwellbeing@hud.ac.uk 
– or Disability Services on disability@hud.ac.uk
– Request an appointment with a Disability Adviser by completing the Disability Services Online Appointment Request form.
– or if they are on campus, iPoint can facilitate access to Wellbeing and Disability Services. 
(They are situated at the main entrance to Student Central and are the reception to all student services and more.) 
– They can also ring iPoint on 01484 471001. 

Please be aware, an appointment with Wellbeing and Disability Services will be online via Teams or via telephone unless there are circumstances that require you to meet staff face to face. 

Students can access online support through an online service called Togetherall. This is confidential and available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It offers online self-help information, advice from trained staff, and peer support.  

There are Support and Guidance staff in each Academic School. Please have a look at your school’s web pages for details of these staff and how to contact them.

The Wellbeing and Disability team can also run Flying Start workshops.

Guides and Resources

See examples of past projects and Flying Start sessions under the ‘Guides and Resources’ button below or 

For assistance, meetings or questions please contact Jane Wormald (j.wormald@hud.ac.uk)