Students and the student experience are at the heart of everything we do at City St George’s. This strategic priority has been a driving force behind the development of the new Student Support Hub at the Clerkenwell campus, and the new Hub at the Tooting campus.
In September 2024, the Student Support Hub opened at the Clerkenwell campus, transforming one of the central buildings and consolidating the core student support services, making them quicker and easier for students to access, and creating a more efficient environment for staff delivering these services.
This ambitious project was devised in response to student feedback that it had been difficult, and time consuming, to access disparate teams working in locations spread across the University.
Sian Thurgood, Director of Student Experience, has been involved in the Clerkenwell project since its inception and is now working closely with the Tooting team to help realise their vision.
Sian said, “We knew from survey feedback that students previously had to locate and access disparate support services across the Clerkenwell campus but wanted to be able to access these services from one central location. The Student Support Hub has provided this space at Clerkenwell, and we look forward to work with colleagues at Tooting to redevelop the Student Life Centre.”
The services which can now be found in the Student Support Hub at Clerkenwell include Student Health and Wellbeing, Learning Enhancement and Development (LEaD), IT Service Desk, the City St George’s Students’ Union, and Careers and Employability.
Responding to a survey taken after the 2024 autumn term Welcome period, one student commented the project was a “design inspiration”.
A project is currently underway to redevelop the Student Life Centre on the Tooting campus to create a multi-purpose study and support zone for students. Following consultation with staff and students which has informed the plans, construction began in the new year with completion planned for spring 2025. The teams in Tooting and Clerkenwell will continue to work together to align and harmonise physical and digital student support services across two main hubs.
The redeveloped space at Tooting will offer an enhanced helpdesk, as well as a focused study area, collaborative study spaces and heat and eat facilities.
After a term of operating in the Clerkenwell Student Support Hub, staff have reflected on lessons learned and opportunities for continuous improvement. Key areas of focus are improving signage and way finding as well as increased promotion of service offering. The teams are embedding and refining new ways of working and continuing to report on, monitor and evaluate progress.
Sian continued, “We’ve already started to implement some of the lessons learned from term one which has informed plans for term two. We are continuing to work with colleagues at the Tooting campus to share information and the learning we have gathered”.
With a view to continuously improve the offering, the teams will ensure that reporting, monitoring and evaluation mechanisms are in place, maintaining opportunities to incorporate the student voice.
Further feedback from the Welcome survey on students’ engagement with the Student Support Hub at Clerkenwell to date has been positive, with 81 per cent of students who responded saying they had a positive experience accessing support there. 98 per cent of returning students who responded felt the Student Support Hub is an improvement for students.
Following a focus group set up to hear students’ views on the new space at Clerkenwell, one student commented, “The improvement is amazing. I think the best part is you can go and ask whatever query to the desk, and they will be able to help you or at least signpost you to the appropriate people. This is helpful to me as there is so much information out there about uni life.”
Achieving one of the main objectives to improve accessibility and make accessing the services easier. 92 per cent of students responding to the survey found the Student Support Hub is easy to find.
One student who was on an exchange year visited the Student Support Hub at Clerkenwell and observed, “It looked pretty amazing. It just shows that this sort of thing can be done, and we should encourage it.”
The lessons learned at Clerkenwell will inform the ongoing development and service design work at Tooting. The project team will continue to work with the student advisory group on engagement with, and promotion of, the new space, including incorporating evaluation processes on completion of the project.