Exploring Leeds Beckett University BME students’ experiences of “living at home”: sharing practice for curricular change and institutional actions

This workshop will explore research undertaken at Leeds Beckett University exploring the learning experience of BME students on five courses which have the largest BME student numbers. This project was catalysed by the need to address the national student attainment gap where BME students are consistently getting fewer good degrees than non BME students. The reasons for this are complex and multifactorial. More and more of all our University students are living at home rather than in halls or private rented accommodation. This may be one of the contributing factors influencing student learning experiences. Research has shown that much more must be done “to deepen commuter students’ involvement in learning (Jacoby, 2000). The rate of living in the parental home is even greater for BME students -55% of our female BME students live at home compared to 19% of female non BME students and 42% of the male BME students live at home compared to 17% of male non BME students. This workshop focusses on the BME students, exploring the findings of staff and student focus groups and how living at home impacted on their learning in a range of ways. We will outline some of the underpinning literature which informed our institutional action planning and explore ways we are jointly addressing the findings with students through inclusive curricular design. This workshop will encourage participants to share their own practice focussed on induction, retention and independent and collaborative learning and enhancing all students’ sense of belonging. It will end with a postcard activity where participants (be they students and staff) commit to “change one thing” in their own workplace to address the challenge of students living at home engaging beyond the classroom.