VCE Summer School: 2019 Directors’ Report Prepared by Chelsea Griffiths, Isabella Verrocchi, Jeremy Waite and Sabina Xiao

Table of Contents Table of Contents 2

Introduction 4 What is VCESS? 4 Goals of the VCE Summer School 5 Program Timetable 6 Sample Student Timetable: 7 Management Chart 7

Timeline of VCESS Events 8

Directors 11 Director Recruitment 11 Director Induction and Training 12 Director Handover 12 Team Management 13 Notes on UMSU Volunteering Department and Policy 13

Tutors 16 Tutor Recruitment, Selection and Training 16

Marketing 16 Application Process: Online Form 16 Application Process: Interviews 17

Tutor Training 19 Summary of Training Options 20 Training Schedule & Attendance 20 Training Content & Delivery 20 Training Camp Logistics 21 Training Feedback 23

Tutor Training Feedback 23 TSO Feedback 26 Further formalisation of VCESS policy 27

Changes to Special Roles 28 Indigenous Mentor 28 Welfare Team: Queer Representative 28 IT Representative 29 Tutor Social Events 29

Students 30 Student Recruitment 30

Student Application Form 30 Marketing 31

Social Media 32 Open Day 33 External Organisations 33 Discount 33 Mail Out 34 Calling Schools 34 Other schools’ contact 34 Melbourne Graduate School of Education (MGSE) 35

VCESS Branding 35 Program Mascot : Cassie the Cassowary 35 Program T-Shirts 36

Student Demographics 39 Addressing Educational Disadvantage 40

Program 42 Academic Program 42

Student Enrolment Day 42 Subject Coordinators and Subject Booklets: 44 Guided Private Study 48 One on One Tutoring 48

Extra Curricular Program 49 Workshops 49 Seminars 50

Activities Program 51 Barbeques 52 Large Scale Activities 52

Scavenger Hunt 52 Mystery Event 53 Trivia 53

Residential Program 54 Special Roles: Program Responsibilities 56

Activities Team 56 Group Leaders 57 Operations Team 57 Residential Team 57 Subject Coordinators 57 Tutor Support Officer (TSO) Team 58 Welfare Team 58 Zine Team 58

Finance 60 Sponsorship and donations 60

VCESS Charitable Status 61 Sponsorship on the Residential program 61 University of Melbourne Sponsorship deal 62 Printing 63 Teach for Australia Sponsorship 63

Bursaries 63 Western Chances Bursaries 64 Travel Bursaries 64 Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander Scholarships 65 Residential Program Scholarships 65

Preliminary Program Budget 65 VCESS Budget Allocation from Students’ Council 66

Logistics 68 Room Bookings 68 Timetabling 68 The Tutor Management System 75 Data Management 75 Tutor Communication Management 76

Special Projects 77 Spring Revision Day 77 VCESS Homework Club 80

Program Feedback 80 Quality of Teaching 81 Quality of Program 82 Academic Program 82 Residential Program Feedback 83

Appendices 86 Appendix A: Tutor Absence Policy 86 Appendix B: Tutor Social Media Policy 88 Appendix C: Conduct Policy 89 Appendix D: Quality of Teaching Survey Breakdowns 93

Introduction

What is VCESS? Since 1971, the VCE Summer School (VCESS) has been providing students from disadvantaged backgrounds a head start on their final years of education. VCESS is a two-week tutoring program for VCE students which takes place every year in January. It is run by

university students for VCE students and it provides high quality academic support to rural and regional Victorian students through classes, guided study and one-on-one tutoring. As well as academic support, students are provided with a range of team-building activities, seminars and workshops that are targeted to the interests and needs of Year 11 and 12 students. The Program aims to teach students about creating a healthy study-life balance.

Goals of the VCE Summer School The broad goal of the VCE Summer School is fighting educational disadvantage in Victoria. It aims to work towards this goal by providing access to subject-specific tutoring, which is unaffordable to VCESS’ key student demographic. The Program aims to reach to as many rural and regional school students to provide them with opportunities to access the program through its Residential accommodation and targeted activities.

Program Timetable

Sample Student Timetable:

Management Chart Presented below is the Management Chart of the VCESS 2019 Program. Each team has a Coordinator or Coordinators with whom the 2019 Director Team worked closely with. It should be noted that numbers of team members change every year dependent on need.

Timeline of VCESS Events 11 April 2018 2018 Director Team opened applications for 2019 Director Team 24 April 2018 Applications for 2019 Director Team close 08 - 16 May 2018 Interviews for 2019 Director Team are held 19 May 2018 Offers for the 2019 Director Team positions made 26 May 2018 First Director Team Meeting 28 May 2018 2018 - 2019 Director Teams Handover 31 May 2018 First Meeting with Teach for Australia 06 June 2018 Director Induction Meeting 1 13 June 2018 Director Induction Meeting 2 20 June 2018 Meeting with Communications Team (Tutor Applications) 20 June 2018 Director Bonding Board Games Night (Planned by Chelsea and Isabella) 27 June 2018 First Meeting with Western Chances (Sponsorship) 05 July 2018 Director Team Meeting (Tutor Applications) 08 July 2018 Tutor Position Descriptions Finalised and Uploaded to UMSU Website 09 July 2018 Tutor Applications Opened 11 July 2018 Meeting with Melbourne Graduate School of Education 11 July 2018 Winterfest Information Session 13 July 2018 Marketing Presentation to VCE Economics Students 18 July 2018 Tutor Marketing at Winterfest Stall 21 July 2018 July Study Squad 01 August 2018 Sponsorship Meeting

03 August 2018 Tutor Applications Closed 04 August 2018 Tutor Interview Time Selection Opened 08 August 2018 Tutor Interview Training provided by UMSU HR Manager 08 August 2018 Sponsorship Meeting 10 August 2018 Interview Preparation Meeting 11 August 2018 Tutor Interview Time Selection Closed 13 August 2018 Tutor Interviews Conducted (Monday – Saturday) 19 August 2018 UoM Open Day Stall (Expression of Interest, Brochure Distributed) 24 August 2018 Tutor Interviews Completed 20 August 2018 UoM Open Day VCESS Stall (Expression of Interest, Flyers Distributed) 24 August 2018 Students Council at VCA 27 August 2018 Residential Group Interview 1 29 August 2018 Residential Group Interview 2 + 3 07 September 2018 UMSU Volunteering Policy Meeting with CEO of UMSU 07 September 2018 Dax Centre Sponsorship Meeting 10 September 2018 Student Applications Opened 10 September 2018 Tutor Interview Outcomes Emailed 22 September 2018 Tutor Meet and Greet 26 September 2018 Subject Coordinator Facilitation Day 1 26 September 2018 Meeting with Tutor Support Officers 30 September 2018 Subject Coordinator Facilitation Day 2 01 October 2018 Subject Coordinator Facilitation Day 3 03 October 2018 Meeting with Teach for Australia 2 03 October 2018 Meeting with Activities Team Coordinator 06 October 2018 Spring Revision Day 08 October 2018 Venue Management Contacted 09 October 2018 Email Days were rediscussed 10 October 2018 Meeting with Operations Team Coordinator 15 October 2018 Student Applications ‘Early Bird’ Discount Concluded 17 October 2018 Meeting with Zine Team Coordinator 19 October 2018 Tutor Social Picnic 31 October 2018 Faculty of Art Meeting for Room Bookings 05 November 2018 Subject Booklets Due 08 November 2018 Meeting with Group Leader 13 November 2018 Meeting with Queer Reps 14 November 2018 Tutor T-Shirts Ordered (Bluegum) 15 November 2018 Child Safety Meeting with UM HR Manager 20 November 2018 Training Planning Meeting 21 November 2018 TSO Meeting (Training Preparation) 22 November 2018 Tutor Training Day 23 November 2018 Meeting (Budget Proposal for 2019) 28 November 2018 DAX Centre Sponsorship Meeting 28 November 2018 Meeting with Tutor Management System Consultant 26 November 2018 Venue Management Bookings Received

26 November 2018 Student T-Shirt Ordered (Bluegum) 30 November 2018 Tutor Training Camp 01 December 2018 Tutor Training Camp 02 December 2018 Tutor Training Camp 07 December 2018 Student Applications Closed 10 December 2018 Printing Sent to External Relations 10 December 2018 Student Acceptance Emailed 12 December 2018 Meeting with Residential Coordinator 12 December 2018 Welfare and Residential Teams Mental Health First Aid 12 December 2018 Tutor Social Trivia Night 19 December 2018 Tutor December Training Refresher 21 December 2018 Block List Released to Tutors 21 December 2018 Directors Remote Work Period (until 2nd January 2019) 03 January 2019 Final Timetable Generated and Printed 04 January 2019 Student Enrolment Day 05 January 2019 Residential Program Planning Day 05 January 2019 Residential Team and Welfare Team Social Evening 06 January 2019 Residential Program Began 07 January 2019 VCESS Program Began 19 January 2019 VCESS Program Concluded 09 March 2019 Meeting (Report Writing) 01 April 2019 Projected 2020 Director Applications Opening

Directors

Director Recruitment The 2018 Director Team were responsible for hiring the 2019 Director Team. Applications were open from the 11th of April 2018 to the 24th April 2018. Applications were reopened on the 26th of April 2018 and officially closed on the 4th of May 2018. The decision was made to reopen applications due to the limited pool of applicants. The 2018 Director Team believed potential strong applicants were hesitant to apply due to uncertainty about their own suitability for the role and therefore the decision was made to encourage identified strong potential applicants to apply by reaching out to them. This proved to be very effective and the applicant pool significantly increased in the second application period. Interviews were held from the 8th to the 16th of May 2018, before the selection decision was announced to applicants on 19th May 2018. The opening of the position was publicised on the VCESS website, UMSU website, and to past VCESS tutors via Facebook networks. A position description was made available, as was the 2018 Directors Report which was considered vital to the application process. Director candidates were required to submit a CV, as well as a 500 word statement addressing their suitability for the role, and vision for the Program. Interviews were scheduled by the 2018 Director Team and each interview was attended by the outgoing Director Team, a student representative of the UMSU, and the then Volunteering Coordinator, Goldie Pergl. Concern may be expressed at the size of the interview panel, however the 2018 Director Team strongly believe that it is necessary for the decision-making process for the entire Director Team to be present. It should be noted that in past years it has been possible that UMSU student representatives who attended Director interviews could later apply to be a tutor on the Program, and therefore interviewed by a Director Team they had helped appoint. This could have potentially resulted in a situation where the student representative had to work with an unsuccessful candidate on the Program. To avoid this issue, the 2018 Director Team requested that the UMSU student representative who attended the interviews be a student who has no intention of applying for the 2019 program. The VCESS Director selection procedure is known for valuing confidentiality and privacy of the candidates, especially those who are unsuccessful as they almost always continue their involvement in the Program. This is carried out to the extent that the incoming 2019 Director Team was not aware of the unsuccessful Director candidates. The 2019 Director Team recommends that this confidentiality be continued as a highly prioritised element of the process as it contributes to a culture of accessibility and growth within the program. The 2018 Director Team unanimously agreed to appoint Jeremy Waite and Sabina Xiao to join Chelsea Griffiths and Isabella Verrocchi, the returning Directors, as the 2019 Director Team.

Opposition to the candidates chosen by the Director Team has been expressed in the past due to candidates being students of other Universities. While this was not an issue during this recruitment it remains the view of the 2018, 2019, and many previous years’ Directors that the involvement of non-UoM students as volunteers of VCESS is vital to the program’s mission and quality of delivery and that discrimination against non-University of Melbourne students at the Director level would be harmful for the program. It should also be noted that the Director honoraria are paid for from VCESS student fees, and are thus not part of the allocation provided to VCESS by UMSU. The 2018 Director Team reviewed and determined Key Selection Criteria ( Availability, Ability to work independently and as part of a team, Organisational skills, Relevant experience, and Interpersonal skills) against which all interviewed candidates were given scores by every member of the interview panel. These Key Selection Criteria made clear the appointment of the aforementioned team. The 2019 Director Team would recommend retaining the Key Selection Criteria for future Director recruitment processes.

Director Induction and Training During May and into June the 2019 Director Team began meeting to discuss program aims and timelines as well as begin official induction. The official Director induction provided by UMSU included an introduction to UMSU, its departments and staff. In previous years incoming Directors were provided with Volunteer Management and Finance and Budgeting training which was found to be beneficial and is recommended to be provided in future years. The absence of this training as well as delays in providing office and IT access to the incoming Directors hindered the productivity of the team and the induction process. It is recommended that this process is improved in following years. A number of further training sessions were provided by UMSU throughout the year, these included Disability Awareness Training, Mental Health First Aid Training as well as Interview and Recruitment Training and Child Safety Training provided internally by the UMSU HR Manager. The Disability Awareness and Mental Health First Aid Training were overall beneficial and recommended for future Director Teams. Interview and Recruitment Training was conducted in the weeks leading up to the interview process and assisted in the development of a thorough and consistent recruitment process. Child Safety Training was also provided in the lead up to Tutor Training events and was utilised so the 2019 Director Team was able to present a modified version of this training to all tutors. It is recommended that the Director Team seek out Child Safety Training and also consider engaging external training providers that are more specific to the high school student age range.

Director Handover The Director Handover process consisted of meeting with the 2018 Director Team to discuss the successes and potential improvements that could be made to future programs. Discussing

and working with the past team enabled essential knowledge to be passed on and the program goals to be continued. It was found that publishing the 2018 Directors’ Report as part of the selection process was very beneficial to the handover as incoming Directors already had strong knowledge of improvements to and issues being faced by the program.

Team Management The 2019 Director Team implemented an initial plan to organise the time and workload of various projects throughout the year. Strong communication enabled the 2019 Director Team to remain informed of all aspects of the program. Weekly 2-hour office meetings were held on Wednesdays to provide a structured working time for the team. This weekly structure was kept throughout the less busy periods of the year. However, the workload increased to full days, weeks and some weekends during busy periods such as interviews, tutor training and the 2 months leading up to the program. It is recommended that the consistency of a weekly meeting is retained as this structure allowed the 2019 Director Team to stay organised and consistently work towards projects. A plan was also considered for handling emails to the Summer School account. Many methods were trialed and a roster in which Directors are each responsible for one weekday was established as well as a flagging system to signify which Director is responsible for emails in the inbox. The 2019 Director Team was able to maintain a fast email turn-around throughout the program. Slack messaging software was used to organise discussions within the Director Team and it formed a means of separating conversation into different channels of relevance. The 2019 Director Team also began using Trello this year to organise tasks to do into sections and assigning Directors responsible for respective tasks. This software proved to be extremely useful for organising and keeping track of the large number of components and tasks that make up the VCESS program and is strongly recommended for future teams. A change in the separation of tasks compared to the 2018 program was the clear delegation of tasks and responsibilities between the tasks. In 2019 two Directors were allocated ‘Tutor Directors’ and two Directors allocated ‘Student Directors’. This smaller team of two managed all the responsibilities and tasks required for their respective group of program participants. Special Role Teams were also allocated to a Director and this relationship was made clear to the teams so they knew which Director to contact with issues they had and were able to form strong working relationships. This approach worked well for this team but it is recommended that future teams make their own decisions about delegation and responsibilities based on their individual team dynamics. The 2019 Director Team worked to support each other throughout challenging and busy periods that each member faced. Team unity enabled strong communication, work efficiency and the interests of the program to be held central to program decisions.

Notes on UMSU Volunteering Department and Policy

The 2019 Program was run as a part of the UMSU Volunteering Department and supported by the Coordinator of Volunteering. The 2019 Director Team would like to express their gratitude for the support provided to the program by the Department, and in particular by the Coordinator of Volunteering, who was at all times an invaluable source of advice and support. During 2018, the UMSU Volunteering Policy was also introduced. The 2019 Director Team held concerns about whether the aims of the policy aligned with the aims of the program. These concerns were largely focused on the restriction placed on Volunteering Programs’ ability to recruit participants from other Universities. It is the opinion of the 2019 Director Team that tutors from a diverse range of Universities are vital to the positive culture of the program, as it contributes to exposing the students to the many tertiary pathways and opportunities available to them which is one of the primary goals of VCESS. These concerns were addressed by UMSU, in future programs the VCESS Director Team will submit an approximate proportion of tutors from other Universities expected to be recruited before the interview process to be approved by the UMSU CEO. This was deemed to be an acceptable method by the 2019 Director Team. One of the largest and most valuable forms of support provided by the Volunteering Department was in the form of volunteer appreciation. With the support of Coordinator - Volunteering the 2019 Director Team were able to provide tutors with coffee vouchers, catered training and catered social events which was very appreciated and was seen to have a positive effect on tutor culture.

The 2019 Director Team continues to have some concerns about the Volunteering Department. The primary concern is the lack of privacy as a result of the shared office space. For many years before the creation of the Volunteering Department, the VCESS Director Teams were provided a private office space by UMSU/MUSUL. This was valuable for a number of reasons: it provided secure storage of the program’s resources and documents, a focussed workspace, and most importantly, allowed the Director Teams to maintain confidentiality in all team discussions. For these reasons, the 2017 Director Team strongly opposed UMSU’s request they move into a shared Volunteering Office. Unfortunately, whilst the 2017 Director Team’s feedback was sought in the office development, UMSU did not take this opposition on board, and in May 2017, at the commencement of the term of the 2018 Director Team, required VCESS to move into a shared office. There have been both positive and negative aspects to this move. The current Volunteering Hub Ofice has better facilities and helps VCESS present a more professional image. The provision of the VCESS Director Team with laptops and monitors provides more flexibility than the previous provision of desktop computers, and access to a printer in the office space is also very useful. The number of whiteboards in the office and meeting rooms was also found to be very useful by the 2019 Director Team. It is also positive to build a sense of collective community amongst the different Volunteering Programs by sharing an office space, and this has resulted in a higher crossover between volunteers at each program.

There are two key challenges in working in a shared office space: different working schedules and schedules of different programs, and confidentiality requirements. Due to the different timelines of the different Volunteer Programs that share the office, there are often periods where one program has a high workload, causing stress and the need for a quiet and focussed workspace, whilst another program is at a period of lower workload and prefers a more relaxed and social workspace. Balancing these differing needs can be a source of tension and one that will require management into the future. The primary concern, however, is that of confidentiality. Sensitive information about the VCESS’s volunteer tutors and largely underage students is at the core of the work done by the Director Team. Discussions amongst the 2019 Director Team about tutor selection and management occur extremely frequently, and it is impracticable for Directors to move to a confidential meeting room each time they wish to discuss or even quickly confirm a sensitive detail, for example, whilst replying to emails, or following up with a tutor about a deadline, or quickly finding a tutor to fill a suddenly vacant tutor position. All of these discussions ought to remain confidential between VCESS Director Teams, and, where necessary, the Volunteering Coordinator. Issues arise here because many of the Directors of other Volunteering Programs, and volunteers of other programs in the office on the business of these other Volunteering Programs, are themselves tutors at VCESS, and may overhear discussions sensitive in nature whilst in the Volunteering Office. This is an even greater concern when it comes to dealing with sensitive information of our students, most of whom are underage. VCESS Director Teams are often required to have conversations about students’ medical information or other sensitive information over the phone to the student or their parents, which must take place in the office as the phone provided to VCESS is anchored to the wall. All of these frequently arising situations raise concerns about VCESS’ ability to adhere to UMSU’s Privacy Policy, and it is the hope of the 2019 Director Team that future Director Teams will be able to work with UMSU to improve the program’s ability to adhere to privacy practises. Finally, the harmonisation of the branding of the different Volunteering Programs has the potential to be a concern for the VCESS program. The 2018 and 2019 Director Team have been fortunate to work with the Communications Department to create individual branding for the VCESS Program including logos and colour schemes. It is the recommendation of the 2019 Director Team that future teams continue to utilise and develop this branding as it has a positive impact on the image of the program and assists to distinguish between the different Volunteering programs, allowing them to express their individual aims and culture.

Tutors Every year VCESS relies on approximately 200 volunteer tutors to run the program. The 2019 Director Team would like to thank all of the volunteers for their dedication and incredible enthusiasm towards the 2019 Program.

Tutor Recruitment, Selection and Training

Marketing Marketing for Tutor Recruitment commenced in July 2018, and ran through the application period of the 9th July to the 3rd of August. Prior to opening Tutor Applications, Position Descriptions were edited to reflect the requirements and duties of each role, and were uploaded on the VCESS website. Promotional Material was released progressively over a range of platforms; including emails (to expression of interest lists, past tutors, past students and faculty newsletters), Facebook posts (from VCESS’ Facebook Page and on past Tutor and Student Groups) and Instagram posts. As expected, these different avenues had differing levels of efficacy. The 2019 Director Team attended the 2018 Winterfest, which had been identified as a valuable opportunity promote the program to potential volunteer tutors. However, this marketing opportunity provided quite a low level of interest from attendees, receiving 19 Expression of Interest sign-ups. A challenge that was noted during this event was that participants of Winterfest were commonly exchange students who were not available for the 2019 Program. It is thus recommended that future Director Teams attempt to attend Winterfest if time permits, however it is not as valuable as other methods of marketing. An additional source of Tutor Recruitment was UMSU affiliated Clubs and Societies. Historically, tutors coming from Clubs and Societies have played a significant role in the program. Despite challenges with communication, the 2019 Director Team placed a strong emphasis spreading the word about applications through contacting larger clubs to seek potential tutor applicants. The 2019 Director Team recommends that future Director Teams continue to explore this avenue of recruitment, and investigate more systematic methods of reaching club members.

Application Process: Online Form Tutor Applications were collected via an online application form. In order to reduce the work required by applicants, the process was brief in order to reduce time burden. Those interested were required to fill out their personal details, preferred subject areas as well as answer two questions. These two questions were ‘Why do you want to be involved in VCESS?’ and ‘What skills or experience do you have that would make you an ideal candidate?’. An addition that was made to the 2019 Online Application Form was a tick box section which allowed applicants to

nominate their past experience in camps/programs similar to VCESS. This list included: UMSU Host Program, UMSU Mentoring Program, Destination Melbourne, Trinity Young Leaders Program, YMCA Camps, Western Chances and Kwong Lee Dow Programs. Data was not collected about whether or not applicants had been involved in the VCESS Program before as either a student or tutor. This was an oversight during the application process and thus it is recommended that future Director Team collect this information as it is useful in Tutor Management. The total number of applications received by the closing date was 357. This was a fantastic result and the 2019 Director Team were happy with the increase seen since 2018. This breaks the trend of reduced numbers of applications for the 2017 and 2018 program. The 2019 Director Team believes this increase in applications may be related to closing applications at the end of the first week of the University’s second semester, which was a week later compared to 2018 Tutor Recruitment. Therefore, it is encouraged that Director Teams strongly consider the closing date for applications as this factor can affect the number of applicants. The 2019 Director Team believes that having a large number of applicants creates larger diversity of applicants which connects back to one of the aims of the program.

Application Process: Interviews The answers provided during the online application form were used to assess an applicant’s ‘fit’ with the program. Based on this assessment, successful applicants were emailed an invitation to attend an interview. In total, 323 applicants progressed to the interview phase. Most interviews were completed with all four Directors present, although depending on other time commitments many also were completed with three Directors, and in rare cases two Directors. During interviews the Director Team also began collecting evidence of applicants’ Working With Children Checks (WWCC). This was effective as it removed an additional step within tutor data collection and it is recommended that future Director Teams collect WWCCs in interviews. It should be noted that WWCCs were deleted in the case of an unsuccessful outcome. Prior to the commencement of the interviews, the 2019 Director Team was given an opportunity to disclose any conflicts of interest they felt with regards to any applicants. Given the highly social nature of the program the 2019 Director Team felt this was a vital step in the selection process. Directors disclosing a conflict of interest were then not expected to participate in interview for that tutor, and the conflict would be taken into account in making any decisions. Interviews were scheduled in the Meeting Rooms in the Volunteering Office in Union House for the period of the 13th to the 24th of August. A similar system to the 2018 Program was used to schedule tutor interviews. A specialised Google Form was used to allow applicants to choose their own interview time. This approach was successful and glitches in the process from 2018 were improved most likely due to updates in the software and a reduction in the number of sections present in each form, forms were separated by weeks.

All interviews were judged against a set of standardised Key Selection Criteria, developed by the 2019 Director Team prior to the start of interviews. These were decided by brainstorming the ideal qualities of a VCESS Tutor. The Criteria were as follows:

1. Motivation 2. Reliability 3. Awareness of Disadvantage 4. Interpersonal Skills 5. Knowledge

Applicants received a score for each KSC. In 2019, the ‘Awareness of Disadvantage’ KSC was added to more explicitly address the program’s aims. In addition to this, applicants for Special Roles or Subject Coordinator positions were given a separate score for each additional position. The scores were all based on the same four-point scale, with the scores determined as follows:

SCORE EXPLANATION

1 Applicant does not meet requirements

2 Applicant partially meets requirements

3 Applicant meets requirements

4 Applicant exceeds requirements

These scores, along with additional notes and comments were recorded after each interview, allowed the 2019 Director Team to make the most informed decisions possible. The KSC framework used was largely adequate for the purposes of deciding whether applicants were fit to undertake a role within the program. The majority of selection decisions were made after the conclusion of interviews. The primary exception to this was for applicants who had been shortlisted for Residential Tutor positions after their initial interview. These applicants were required to attend a second-round group interview. For the 2019 Program, there three group interviews; one on the 27th August and then two on the 29th of August. The Residential Second Round Group Interview consisted of 2 components. The first component was a task involving evaluating an activity that was provided and the second component was responding to welfare scenarios in a debrief. After the conclusion of these interviews, outcomes were emailed to all applicants. 221 offers were made, however the final count of tutors for the 2019 Program was 181 tutors. This final

number is lower than the original number of successful outcomes sent out, due to tutors withdrawing before the start of the program. It is likely that this phenomenon is to some degree unavoidable, given that tutors have a large range of additional commitments such as part-time work, intensive study periods or other extra-curricular activities which can arise during the summer period. Nevertheless, future Director Teams are encouraged to investigate ways of reducing pre-program attrition, as it can prove highly disruptive. The 2019 Director Team recommends placing an emphasis on time commitment during the Interview Process and perhaps adding a question that addresses potential commitments that will clash with the Program including summer subjects, internships and pending applications.

Tutor Training

Summary of Training Options VCESS delivers comprehensive training to its tutors. The goal of this training is to ensure the quality of service provided to students, and to add valuable professional development to the volunteering experience for tutors. It is therefore necessary for each Director Team to think critically about the implementation of training, and how it can be valuable to tutors of all levels of previous tutoring experience. Tutor Training is compulsory for all tutors, regardless of whether the tutor has volunteered with VCESS before and regardless of their existing level of tutoring experience. Tutor candidates were informed that a condition of their recruitment was attendance at either Training Day on the 22nd of November, or Tutor Training Camp on the 30th November - 2nd of December. This was conveyed in position descriptions published during recruitment, and again in person at the end of their interview. Tutor Training Camp is compulsory for all tutors with Special Role positions, although all tutors are encouraged to attend the camp due to increased opportunities for socialising with fellow tutors.

Training Schedule & Attendance A summary of all training provided by VCESS is listed below.

Date Session Attendance

26th September 2018 Subject Coordinator Facilitation Training

31

30th September 2018 Subject Coordinator Facilitation Training

10

1st October 2018 Subject Coordinator Facilitation Training

22

22nd November 2018 Tutor Training Day 66

30th November - 2nd December 2018 Tutor Training Camp 102

19th December 2018 December Tutor Training 11

3rd January 2019 TSO Drop-In Session n/a

● Subject Coordinator Facilitation Training was advertised to the 79 Subject Coordinators,

however alternative methods of training were used for circumstances where availability or timing presented as an issue. (ie. online training)

● The above table excludes training, induction or planning sessions organised by Special Role Coordinators for their Special Role Team, i.e. the Residential Team training session organised by the Residential Coordinator in December. These training sessions are incredibly useful and foster a productive, cohesive and effective team and their expansion across most Special Role Teams would benefit the program. The 2019 Director Team encourages future Director Teams to consider this possibility in consultation with future Special Role Coordinators.

Training Content & Delivery Tutor Training Day and Camp were delivered by the 2019 Director Team in conjunction with the Tutor Support Officer (TSO) Team. The first half was prepared and delivered by the Director Team, covering VCESS and UMSU Policy. This ran for approximately three hours, including short breaks. The second half was prepared and delivered by the TSO Team and focussed on teaching practises tailored to a VCESS context. This drew on both the teaching and program expertise of the team. Tutors at these sessions were provided with a comprehensive written resource pack. The variety of short sessions presented by a range of speakers made the Training more engaging and effective for tutors. In addition to this, it allowed for some sessions to be run concurrently for new and returning tutors, increasing the value and relevance of these sessions. The highly interactive, small-group sessions run by the TSO Team in the afternoon also ensured tutors were familiar with members of the TSO Team and aware of the services they offered to tutors. During both of these training events, tutors were given time to meet with their Subject Coordinator, or if the Subject Coordinator was absent, other tutors from similar subject areas to discuss course content, lesson planning and activity ideas. The TSO Team helped facilitate

these sessions, although the specificity of these sessions was limited by the fact Subject Booklets had not yet been finalised and distribution to tutors. In addition to training provided, the 2019 Director Team worked in collaboration with Teach for Australia (TFA), a program that has similar aims and values as VCESS. Historically, VCESS has organised a representative from TFA to train the tutor cohort about ‘Disadvantage in Education’. This initiative was welcomed back into the program in 2019 after being absent from the 2017 and 2018 Programs. Unfortunately, the representative could only attend Training Day, and the 2019 Director Team facilitated a similar session at Camp in consultation with TFA. An online quiz was provided to tutors to refresh their knowledge after training. The 2019 Director Team believe that providing this option was a beneficial way of reminding tutors of policies and their responsibilities.

Training Camp Logistics Tutor Training Camp was held at Log Cabin Creswick again in 2019, continuing a longstanding relationship. Tutors were allocated into car pools as their means of transport to the campsite. This encouraged new and returning tutors to socialise and begin meeting each other. An optional Scavenger Hunt was given to each carpool complete on the way down to camp. This served as a conversation starter and icebreaker for tutors in their carpools. The Camp followed the following schedule: Friday 30th of November

12.30pm Meet on South Lawn to meet carpool group

3pm Cars arrive and Icebreakers

4pm Meet Camp Groups and Afternoon Activities

6pm Dinner and Welcome Speech

8pm Evening Activities: Card Games, Board Games, Banner Making and Biscuit Decorating

Saturday 1st of December

9am Breakfast

10am - 4.30pm

Tutor Training (including Lunch Break)

4:30pm Camp Activities: Canoeing, Giant Swing, ZipLine

6pm Dinner

7pm Evening Activities: Card Games, Board Games, Banner Making and Marshmallow Toasting (Bonfire Night)

Sunday 2nd of December

10:30am Brunch

11:30am Pack up and head back to Melbourne

Food at Camp: Tutors were provided with meals throughout the Camp. Food was ordered by the Director Team from Coles Online and delivered to the Campsite. This was very convenient and saved space within the Director Cars. It is recommended that Coles Online or a similar method is used again. The Director Team cooked for the 102 campers using the Industrial Kitchen Facilities. Activities Groups doubled as Duty Groups and campers were required to do a set-up or a pack-up around meal times. This should be organised and communicated to campers during the Welcome Speech. The Meal Plan was as follows:

Friday Night Pasta (Meat and Vegetarian Option) 4 Directors preparing

Saturday Breakfast Porridge or Toast 2 Directors preparing

Saturday Lunch BBQ 2 Directors preparing

Saturday Dinner Vegan Lentil Curry 4 Directors preparing

Sunday Brunch Eggs, Baked Beans and Leftovers 2 Directors preparing

The 2019 Director Team recommend that:

● One dinner meal is Vegan/Vegetarian for everyone, as this significantly lowers the cost of food, simplifies dietary requirements and reduces waste

● Laborious Food Preparation is avoided - purchase foods that are canned or pre cut as this saves a lot of time.

● Food requirements are overestimated, estimations that were accurate for other events proved to be inadequate in a camp context.

● Time requirements for cooking and preparation are also overestimated to ensure food is delivered at an appropriate time for campers.

Cooking and preparation of food requires almost all available time for Directors on camp, alternative food preparation options should be investigated and considered.

Training Feedback Two surveys were collected from tutors of the 2019 Program. A Tutor Training Feedback form was distributed directly after Training Day and Tutor Training Camp and received 19 responses. A general Tutor Program Feedback form was distributed after the conclusion of the 2019 Program and received 15 responses, this represents a significant decrease from 40 responses following the 2018 program. The Tutor Training Feedback Form collected highly detailed information about each of the sessions run at each training event. A summary of the results from these surveys is provided below. Tutors were given statements and asked to provide a number from one to five, where one indicated “Strongly Disagree” and five indicated “Strongly Agree”. The following results are averages over all responses received. It is important to note that the 2019 scores from Values of VCESS/VCESS Policy relate to a section of the training which largely involved the word-for-word oration of VCESS Policy. The 2019 Director Team believes this is an important process to ensure tutors have understood all policy details, but invite future Director Teams to consider more engaging methods of delivering information on VCESS policy.

Tutor Training Feedback

Session

I learned new

things in this

session. 2018

I learned new

things in this

session. 2019

I found this

session engaging.

2018

I found this

session engaging.

2019

I thought this session

was necessary

2018

I thought this session

was necessary

2019

Average

2018

Average

2019

Prepared

&

Welcome to VCESS! 4.30 4.60 4.50 4.46 4.60 4.60 4.47 4.55

Welcome 3.80 4.25 4.00 4.12 4.40 4.12 4.07 4.18

delivered by

2019

Director Team

Back!

Child Safety 4.20 4.36 4.20 4.19 4.67 4.36 4.36 4.30

Volunteer Rights & Responsibilities and Emergency Procedures 4.07 4.36 3.87 3.81 4.53 4.36 4.16 4.09

Disadvantage in Education 4.83 4.18 4.00 4.14 4.53 4.18 4.46 4.13

Values of VCESS & VCESS Policy 4.60 4.19 4.47 3.73 4.60 4.18 4.56 4.03

Special Role Introductions 3.80 4.09 4.20 4.18 4.47 4.09 4.16 4.12

Average (Director presented) 4.23 4.29 4.18 4.09 4.54 4.27 4.32 4.21

Prepared

& delivered by

2018

TSO Team

Intro to VCESS 4.20 N/A 4.00 N/A 3.90 N/A 4.03 N/A

Practise Teaching 4.00 N/A 4.20 N/A 4.00 N/A 4.07 N/A

Time and Classroom Management 4.30 N/A 4.60 N/A 4.60 N/A 4.50 N/A

Lesson Planning and Activities 3.93 N/A 3.93 N/A 4.40 N/A 4.09 N/A

Differentiation 4.54 N/A 4.38 N/A 4.38 N/A 4.44 N/A

Lesson Objectives and Goals 4.43 N/A 4.57 N/A 4.14 N/A 4.38 N/A

Subject Area Meetings 4.00 N/A 4.00 N/A 4.67 N/A 4.22 N/A

Average (TSO presented) 4.20 4.36 4.24 4.45 4.30 4.45 4.25 4.36

Total Average 4.21 4.33 4.21 4.27 4.42 4.36 4.28 4.29

Average: 3.8

Responses to: What could have been added to training to help you better teach your class?

● More engagement with other tutors from the same subject - lesson planning together ● An early meeting with my subject co-ordinators. ● Activity Ideas (meeting with specific tutor subject groups) ● More stress that you don't need to teach heaps of content and more that you just want the

students to be excited and confident about the subject. Maybe have a demo activity of what you can actually do in a class.

● More time with our specific subject tutors to share ideas and plan activities ● More subject meetings for negotiating key content knowledge to teach esp for new tutors ● To get students more aware of tutoring outside of class, before or after class

TSO Feedback

Average: 1.3 times

Average: 3.90 On the whole, feedback about Tutor Training was extremely positive, with almost all statements receiving average responses of “Agree” or higher. No individual session received an average statement response of less than “Agree”. TSO-delivered content was highly regarded, and Director-delivered content was viewed as highly informative. This suggests that a good balance between Director- and TSO-delivered content has been achieved. The 2019 Director Team strongly recommends that future Director Teams retain this format for training, as they believe it was effective in helping tutors provide high quality services to students. Training fostered a proactive and professional development mindset in tutors, as evidenced in the significant increase in number of tutors accessing TSO services during the program.

Further formalisation of VCESS policy An important innovation for the 2018 Program was the decision to formalise several long-standing VCESS Tutor Policies. In the past these had been explained to tutors as standards of behaviour, but in 2018 they were explicitly formalised in policies, and tutors were asked to confirm that they had read and agreed to follow the policies. This was intended to improve tutors’ understanding of key VCESS practices and to provide a reference document which tutors

could refer back to after any official training sessions. The three policies produced were the VCESS Absence Policy, the VCESS Fraternisation Policy, and the VCESS Social Media Policy. In 2019, the VCESS Fraternisation Policy was expanded into the VCESS Acceptable Conduct and Relations Policy. This was to include behaviours that were not explicitly “fraternisation”, but still considered highly inappropriate in a VCESS setting. Furthermore, the expansion of the policy served to supplement existing Child Safety protections already implemented by VCESS. It should be noted that the expansion of current policy has to led to a level of duplication between policies, meaning that similar provisions appear in multiple policies. It is therefore suggested that future Director Teams streamline these policies. Future Director Teams are also encouraged to retain the written policies, and continue to adapt or improve them as circumstances change.

Changes to Special Roles Each year, changes are made by the Director Team to Special Role Team responsibilities, team sizes, or new roles are created. These are made in order to increase the program’s ability to meet its core values.

Indigenous Mentor The role is a broadly-defined as one that provides support and mentorship to the indigenous students on the program, of which there are usually several. The role of Indigenous Mentor has existed since VCESS 2016. Despite this, the role has never been filled. This year, the role was advertised on the VCESS website alongside other position descriptions, but no applicants were received. The 2019 Director Team reached out to both Murrup Barak and the UMSU Indigenous Department by email, however received no response from either department. The 2019 Director Team suggests that future Director Teams reach out to external, Indigenous organisations to advertise the position.

Welfare Team: Queer Representative The Welfare Team: LGBTQIA+ Representative was a role created in light of the 2018 Director Team’s commitment to ensuring students and tutors on the program who identified as LGBTQIA+ were included and supported as best as possible. The responsibilities of this role included providing welfare support to LGBTQIA+ identifying students and tutors, as well as, in

consultation with the 2018 Director Team, identifying ways the program could make itself more inclusive to LGBTQIA+ students and tutors. The position description was advertised on the VCESS website, which included the statement that candidates for the role should identify as LGBTQIA+. A large number of applicants were received for this position, and selection was very competitive. The 2019 Director Team therefore chose to appoint two Representatives. In consultation with the two LGBTQIA+ representatives, the position title was changed to Queer Representative. The reasons for this were:

● To bring VCESS in line with UMSU terminology regarding Queer and Questioning students

● To simplify the position title ● To acknowledge the view of both Representatives and the 2019 Director Team that the

term “Queer” can be viewed as more inclusive than the alternative “LBGTQIA+”. The two Queer Representatives, in addition to their normal responsibilities as members of the Welfare Team:

● Gave a 5-minute presentation at Tutor Training Camp on why their role exists and how the role assists Queer and Questioning students and tutors at VCESS

● Held a successful Queer picnic, which was attended by over 20 tutors and students. We encourage future Director Teams to explore greater Queer-led student engagement opportunities, as this has worked effectively.

IT Representative There was some discussion the previous year prior to applications opening as to whether this role should continue to exist, given the nature of the TMS (see section: TMS), and whether or not to incorporate this role into the Operations Team. The 2019 Director Team decided not to extend the IT Operations team into the 2019 Program. Instead, the role of Operations Team Member: IT Representative was established. This role involved managing all IT-related queries from tutors and students, which were previously dealt with solely through other Operations Team Members.

Tutor Social Events The 2019 Director Team made tutor social events a priority. From the point of tutor recruitment, it was believed that a positive culture among tutors benefits the program greatly as well as increases tutor retention. The 2019 Director Team ran several social events to allow tutors to meet each other and form connections within the program. This was in addition to the monthly Tutor News Editions which provided information to tutors and maintained channels for communication.

The first ‘Meet and Greet’ event was held on the 22nd of September and including an afternoon of games, get-to-know-you activities and afternoon tea. The invitation to this event was sent out with the tutor acceptance emails and was determined to be very successful with a turnout of approximately 60 tutors. On the 19th of October, VCESS organised a Picnic in the Park social activity. This event was our most accessible for tutors who prefer more laid-back and smaller social settings, and this variance among events was taken into consideration. Roughly 20 tutors were in attendance, making it our lowest-attended tutor social event. While the event was intended to be a much more minor occasion compared with other tutor social events, the attendance was perhaps hampered by taking place in the evening of the last day of Semester 2 when there are often other end-of-semester celebrations and commitments for students. Future Director Teams should continue to actively reflect on the timing of events within the university timetable, especially for larger-scale occasions. On the 12th of December, the 2019 Director Team held a Trivia Night in the Ida Bar with food and a drinks tab funded by UMSU. This event was a huge success, with a turnout of approximately 60 tutors. The Trivia Night highlighted the enjoyment and benefit volunteers can receive through being involved in the VCESS community, as well as strongly positioning VCESS as an UMSU Program. This year the program received a large amount of support from UMSU, in the form of funds provided by the Volunteering Department. At a variety of different tutor training and social events, the Volunteering Department provided food, such as cupcakes, which was strongly appreciated by many tutors who conveyed this through informal feedback. It is recommended that future Director Teams continue holding regular tutor social events and include a variety of activities to ensure all tutors are included.

Students

Student Recruitment Student applications opened on the 17th September 2018, and officially closed on the 7th of December 2018.

Student Application Form The 2019 Program split the student application form into to parts compared to previous years, which only consisted of one part. The first part consisted of information that students could fill in

independently and conveniently without the assistance of a guardian or parent. The second part comprised of sections which required additional information which may have required guardian or parent assistance such as medical information, health insurance etc. This decision to split the form up into two parts was done for several reasons. It was designed to make the application process easier and more convenient for students, as they were notified upon completing Part One, that they would require additional information or assistance to complete Part Two. This resulted in 404 completed Part One applications and 378 completed Part Two applications by the end of the 2019 Program compared to 350 completed student applications for the 2019 Program. Students who only completed Part One of the application form were accepted into the 2019 program, conditional upon completion of Part Two. To ensure that the 2019 Program would be able to cater for any potential students, arrangements were made based on Part One application form numbers and details such as subject booklet printing and timetable generation. Whilst having two parts to the application form did encourage and result in a greater number of student applications, there were some difficulties and additional complications that came as a result:

● Details across both forms had to be matched to respond to students. This was relatively fault free as names and birth dates were used to match the two forms. However there were difficulties faced when students made mistakes or used different details in the two forms. The 2019 Director Team often had to manually correct entries.

● The 2019 Director Team had to remind some students to complete Part Two of the application form on many occasions. This was particularly challenging when upon program commencement when the Operations Team and Directors had to meet with the students in person to complete the form.

● There were a greater excess of materials than previous years, in particular subject booklets than previous years. There were also a greater number student absences in classes, this was also a concern to tutors as it had not been effectively communicated to them to expect a small amount of absences.

The two part application form was largely successful and resulted in a greater number of applications compared to previous years. The 2019 Director Team recommends that future Director Teams initiate a similar application process. However, the components of what is in each part of the application form should be evaluated and considered.

Marketing The student recruitment process began in September 2018. As was the case during tutor recruitment, a wide variety of media were used to reach potential students. In addition to number of ‘tried and tested’ marketing avenues, the 2019 Director Team investigated a number of new opportunities, with mixed results. Some of these avenues will be covered in more detail below. The figure below details the answers to the question “How did you hear about the VCE Summer School?” from Part One of the student application form. Figure 1:

As has been observed in previous years, the most commonly nominated information source was “Friends or family”. Given that this likely represents largely word-of-mouth information, this highlights the importance in maintaining consistent student branding on VCESS marketing materials, to ensure that people who have encountered the program previously can continue to recognise it. The importance of word of mouth marketing is further highlighted by other sources such as: ‘a past participant told me,’ ‘from a homework club I go to,’ ‘my tutor,’ ‘student helper recommended.’ The 2019 Director Team sought to encourage past participants (both tutors and students) of the program to spread the word to any potential participants. All communications to participants encouraged them to spread the word and offered to send out information packs with brochures and additional information to anyone that was interested.

Social Media The 2019 Director Team also sought to improve previous Director Teams’ effort to bolster VCESS’s visibility on social media. This was done through pursuing a more engaging and active social media strategy to leverage VCESS’ social media audience. A more diverse range of content was created, such as memes, videos and other image based posts. This generated a greater level of engagement with VCESS’ content. Engagement was also also bolstered by the ability to use the program’s relationship with the University’s External Relations department to obtain “shares” on the University’s Facebook and Snapchat accounts, as well as shares and promotions by UMSU’s social media channels. This resulted in vastly increased visibility (measured in post engagement and ‘views’) compared to previous years, however ultimately it

seems that these did not translate into applications, with the number of students including social media in their response rising decreasing from 6% to 3% from VCESS 2018 to 2019.

Open Day A more successful avenue pursued for the 2019 Program was attending the University’s Open Day in August, which was mentioned by 4% of students. The 2019 Director Team recommends that future Director Teams continue to use this event as an opportunity to market directly to students and parents. The 2019 Director Team also ensured that 2019 student brochures were available before this event as this was beneficial on the day and is recommended for future teams. 3 parents who were past VCESS participants, including a past Director approached the VCESS Stall at the University’s Open Day. It should be noticed that VCESS has an extensive network dating back almost 50 years that could be explored upon as an avenue for student recruitment, and developing a formalised network. University Alumni Relations could be pursued as a potential means for student recruitment in future years.

External Organisations The Program’s partnership with external organisations (Western Chances and the University’s Kwong Lee Dow Young Scholar Program) were a valuable contributor to student recruitment. 11% of students indicated they heard about VCESS via Western Chances, and 5% of students from the Kwong Lee Dow Young Scholar Program which was an increase from the 2018 Program. This highlights the importance of maintaining relationships with external stakeholders and organisations for future Director teams. It is recommended that future Director Teams work to maintain and strengthen relationships with external organisations to promote student recruitment.

Discount Following recommendations from the 2018 Director Team, the 2019 Director Team chose to revise the group discount implemented for the 2018 Program. Instead of a group discount, an early bird discount was available for Day Program students. Students who completed both parts of the application form and paid for the Day Program before 15 October 2018, were eligible for a $20 discount. 26 students used the discount prior to this date, which is a greater number of payments compared the same point in the 2018 Program. The 2019 Director Team recommends that future Director Teams explore further discount options and actively promote earlier and more consistently to encourage further early payments and enrolment.

Mail Out Previous Director Teams have compiled a list of schools with contact details and addresses. However, this list often comprised of addresses that were not valid and often resulted in returned mail. The 2019 Director Team compiled a new list which comprised of accurate contact details through sourcing data from the Victorian Department of Education. This resulted in substantially less mail returns compared to previous years. This result was relatively successful, with approximately 17% of students receiving information through the school environment generally (eg. teachers, student portal) and 7% of students stating they received the brochure specifically at school. The mail out included a letter from the 2019 Director Team outlining the program and its benefit for students, as well as several 2019 Program brochures. The 2019 Director Team followed the previous team’s recommendation to change the format and size of the brochure to letter size to reduce postage cost. This was largely successful and the 2019 Director Team recommends maintaining brochures’ letter size.

Calling Schools In the final two weeks of student applications the 2019 Director Team called as many schools as possible from the mail out list to speak to VCE or Transitions Coordinators about VCESS. The aim of the phone call was to inform the Coordinators of the purpose of VCESS and how it could benefit their students. The Director Team offered to provide the schools with further information and marketing materials. This process had varied success, as it proved difficult to get hold of teachers given most had only a small window of availability between 8.00AM and 8.45AM. If the 2019 Director Team were unable to reach the relevant teacher, a message was often left. While this was a long and difficult process, Coordinators were usually very responsive when reached and would promptly respond to any messages left. The call often resulted in multiple students from that school attending the program. It was also found that Coordinators often had valuable insight into which students at their school would benefit most from the program and were able to target these students. The 2019 Director Team believes it would be valuable to pursue relationships with certain under-represented schools, as such relationships would be of significant benefit for many programs to come.

Other schools’ contact The 2019 Director Team leveraged connections to further assist in student marketing. Directors and tutors were encouraged to leverage their personal connections at schools and promote VCESS. Two in-school visits were made during the student marketing period. One Director spoke at a Seymour College Presentation where there were other organisations also in attendance. This was very successful, as there were a substantial number of Residential Program applications with students from Seymour College and the Seymour area.

A group of tutors who attended Bayside College also spoke at an assembly to promote VCESS, and answer any student queries. This was also successful. The 2019 Director Team recommend that future Director Teams engage in further in school promotion and visits through leveraging any Director and tutor personal connections to any schools, as schools are typically more receptive to alma mater, or known acquaintances rather than an unknown third party.

Melbourne Graduate School of Education (MGSE) One of the broad aims of VCESS is outreach and ensuring that students who require the program are able to access it. In an attempt to grow knowledge about the program, the 2019 Director Team reached out and organised a meeting with MGSE in July 2018 to discuss the possibilities of marketing the 2019 Program to schools that have long standing partnerships with the University. The outcome of the meeting was an email sent out to direct contacts in schools. Discussion was raised for a stronger partnership between VCESS and MGSE to be developed in future years, thus it is encouraged that future Director Teams investigate the possibility of resources and sponsorship from MGSE.

VCESS Branding VCESS utilised the marketing and brand material developed by the 2018 Director Team and the UMSU Communications Department in 2019 marketing and communications. The material featured a purple/teal/white colour scheme as well as a hexagonal tile in order to visually reference other Volunteer Hub branding whilst maintaining a distinct branding identity as seen in the figure below.

Figure 2: VCE Summer School Branding examples

Program Mascot : Cassie the Cassowary The design for the Australian animal to represent VCESS 2019 was created by a past VCESS tutor. The 2019 Director Team would like once again to thank the tutor for creating the design. Designs of the animal were hand drawn and then converted and further edited to be used in

digital program publications by the UMSU Communications and Marketing Department. It is encouraged that VCESS animal design continues to be an opportunity for tutors to be involved in program marketing. Cassie the Cassowary was used on Subject Booklets, T-Shirts, Lanyards and some internal resources.

Figure 3: ‘Cassie’ the Cassowary Mascot

Program T-Shirts Following research and exploration by the 2018 Director Team, the 2019 Director team chose to continue the relationship with Bluegum in making the 2019 T-Shirts. Communication with Bluegum was efficient. Numbers for T-Shirts were pre-emptively predicted before the close of student applications based on 2018 Program numbers. This proved to be effective, as T-Shirts were delivered before Union House holiday closure and close of student applications. T-Shirt Design: The UMSU Communications Team designed the Program t-shirts after receiving a brief from the 2019 Director Team.

T-shirt designs were similar to designs drawn up in 2018. T-shirts signified program participants as either a ‘Student’ or a ‘Tutor’ with the accompanying “VCESS 2019” and mascot. This element was added onto the back of the t-shirt. The design was continued in the style of more plain in an attempt to encourage students and tutors to wear their t-shirts in non-Program settings, as a potential marketing avenue for the Program. Please see below for the t-shirt design. The selected colour of the student t-shirt was royal blue. Tutors’ t-shirt colours were separated into red for tutors, purple for Special Roles Teams, for the Welfare Team and orange for the Director Team. T-shirt colours are depicted in the image below. 453 ‘student’ T-shirts were ordered and 250 ‘tutor’ T-shirts were ordered. Figure 4: VCESS Tutor and Student T-Shirt Designs

Student Demographics 352 VCE students participated in the 2019 VCE Summer School, of which 83 attended the Residential Program. The majority of students were completing Year 12 in 2019, although 28% were in Year 11 and 3% were in Year 10. As in previous years, VCESS continues to draw students from a wide range of schools across Victoria. In total the 2019 Program had students from 176 individual schools. While a majority of schools only had a single student attend, a substantial minority had two or more. Future Director Teams are encouraged to consider further ways to engage with those schools which have had large numbers of students attend. Figure 5: VCESS 2019 Student Year Levels

352 students is almost identical to the 2018 program however represents a drop in the total number of students attending the Program from years previous to this. In 2018, the program had 350 students and in 2017 the Program had around 390 students. This decrease is worrying, as sustained drops in student numbers will threaten the financial viability of the Program. This is particularly so because the decrease was primarily concentrated in students of the Day Program, not in the relatively more expensive Residential Program where a significant increase in applications was seen. VCESS must also consider its place in a changing VCE education landscape. As the number of professional organisations offering VCE tutoring services continue to increase, VCESS will need to find ways to distinguish itself in an increasingly crowded market. One avenue which the current Director Team recommends may be pursued is to attempt to strengthen and maintain ties with individual schools, to aid recruitment by ‘going through’ Careers or VCE Coordinator staff who have direct access to students. The 2019 Director Team believes that an increase in direct relationships with schools and partner organisations such as Western Chances is the best way to counteract this drop.

Addressing Educational Disadvantage A primary goal for VCESS is to combat educational disadvantage in Victoria. As such, Program marketing is heavily directed towards schools on the Melbourne Under-represented Schools list. A change was made to the application form this year and data was not collected about the students under-represented school status, however has been in previous years and is

recommended for future teams as it provides a useful metric for measuring the effectiveness of the program and it’s marketing In 2019 0.9% of program participants came from Indigenous Australian or Torres Strait Islander backgrounds, a level of participation which is slightly above population parity for Victoria but a decrease compared to the 2018 program. Reaching out to and re-establishing communication between VCESS and Murrup Barak to ensure VCESS is reaching out to students from Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander backgrounds in an effective way.

Program

Academic Program The academic program is perhaps the core of VCESS The academic program relies on Subject Coordinators creating subject booklets and subject tutors adapting these booklets to their classroom teaching using the support of the Tutor Support Officer Team. Additional academic support outside the classroom includes guided private study and one-on-one tutoring.

Student Enrolment Day Student Enrolment Day was held on Friday 4th January from 10am until 3.30pm. Students arrived at different times to collect their materials and to meet their group members before the start of the program. It is recommended that these staggered enrolment times are continued in future years. Email notification was sent to students to confirm their required time of arrival and Group Leaders were provided with the phone numbers of students in their groups to contact them before the day. The day was led by the Operations Team with help of many other tutors to enable students to collect their T-Shirts, Lanyards and name tags and Subject Booklets. Group Leaders came to meet their group of students on this day and ran icebreakers with them, supported by their Group Leader Coordinators. Residential Students were not required to attend enrolment day. In sum, Student Enrolment Day was successful due to thorough organisation and the involvement of many tutors. These aspects made the process smooth for students. Group Arrival Times

A 10.00 am

B 10.15 am

C 10.30 am

D 10.45 am

E 11.00 am

F 11.15 am

G 11.30 am

H 11.45 am

I 12.00 pm

J 12.15 pm

K 12.30 pm

L 12.45pm

M 1.00 pm

N 1.15 pm

O 1.30 pm

P 1.45 pm

Q 2.00 pm

R 2.15 pm

S 2.30 pm

T 2.45 pm

U 3.00 pm

V 3.15 pm

Figure 6: Layout of the Operations Room for Student Enrolment Day

Subject Coordinators and Subject Booklets: Subject Coordinators produced a combined 82 subject booklets – an increase from 76 subject booklets in 2018. New subjects offered at VCESS for the first time included Politics: Units 1 & 2 and Texts and Traditions, as well as the return of subjects such as Vietnamese and Product Design & Technology which had not been taught at VCESS for several years. The Subject Booklets act a resource for students and a guide for tutors for the content in each subject offered at VCESS. The process of creating subject booklets started with Subject Coordinator Facilitator Days which were held on September 26th and 30th as well as the 1st of October. An Online Training option was also provided. All Subject Coordinators undertook a form of training, which was an improvement on last year where most, but not all, received training. Factors which enabled this were the scheduling of 3, rather than 2, Subject Coordinator Facilitation Days, and the addition of an Online Subject Coordinator Training Module for those who were overseas, became

Subject Coordinators after the facilitation sessions or otherwise unable to attend the in-person times. Returning Subject Coordinators and Tutor Support Officers were present at these sessions and were useful in mentoring new Subject Coordinators in the effective creation of their booklets. Tutor Support Officers ran a more ‘hands-on’ component to the training sessions, which was well-received. It is recommended that Tutor Support Officers continue to be involved in Subject Coordinator Facilitator Days. All Subject Coordinators were given a resource detailing the physical requirements of the booklet, including how to approach the booklet, what to include and emphasis was placed on providing students with skills that they can take into VCE. This resource was heavily updated for this program’s Subject Coordinators to add clarity to the process, given that the overwhelming majority of Subject Coordinators were new tutors and Subject Coordinator Facilitation takes place well in advance of Tutor Training Day and Tutor Training Camp. Every Subject Coordinator was emailed an editable copy of their subject booklet from the 2018 Program during September. Subject booklets were created with a deadline of November 5th set for tutors. This deadline was over a month earlier than the print deadline set by External Relations. However, this buffer time was needed in order to chase incomplete booklets and to merge the designed subject booklet covers onto these documents. Additionally, many Subject Coordinators asked for extensions on this deadline due to University examinations. It was hence beneficial to have an early deadline set with possibility for extra time to be granted, as otherwise ‘chasing up’ a large number of booklets in December directly before the printing deadline would be an incredible challenge for the Director Team. Path Dependency in Subject Booklet Creation and Challenges for Subject Coordinators The process for the creation of Subject Booklets and the training of Subject Coordinators has remained largely unchanged for a number of years. This has unfortunately led to a large degree of path dependency in the process for booklet creation, where the process to support Subject Coordinators has not evolved to provide them with adequate support in producing booklets to a high standard1. A large number of students who attend VCESS do not have access to other resources outside of their schoolwork, and thus rely on their VCESS Subject Booklets throughout the year, including for exam preparation. This is particularly relevant for smaller subjects where subject-specific materials are not available online, and the VCESS Subject Booklet may be the only affordable resource for the student. Hence, the importance of ensuring booklets are up to a high standard cannot be stressed enough. 1 However, it must be stated that in spite of these challenges, the 2019 Subject Booklets were made to a very impressively high standard, with many booklets being entirely re-written or developed by continuing Subject Coordinators, and Subject Booklets receiving excellent feedback from students in the QoT Surveys available as part of this report.

To ensure a high academic standard of Subject Booklets, it is vital that Subject Coordinators are part of a process which isn’t overly arduous. The current system is that a sole Subject Coordinator is responsible for the creation and/or editing of a 40-page booklet on their own. This is objectively a major undertaking, especially when combined with university and/or work commitments. Having input and suggestions from other tutors on the booklet would reduce the workload for the coordinator, and make the task of editing not only easier but more in-line with the shared academic standards of multiple tutors. Additionally, it may make the role of Subject Coordinator more appealing, particularly if its function is more of an editor role. The current process is compared with a proposed option with improvements in the flowcharts below. Figure 7: Current Approach to the Creation of Subject Booklets

Figure 8: Proposed Approach to the Creation of Subject Booklets - Changes to Process in Green

Analysis and Recommendations for the Creation of Subject Booklets: Providing feedback to Subject Coordinators is beneficial in enabling resources to develop and progress from year to year. On a whole, feedback suggests that students were satisfied with the quality of their subject booklets and tutors (See QoT feedback section for data). However, in the creation and editing of Subject Booklets, the Subject Coordinator is often required to produce a large amount of content with little direction and advice from the tutors who will be using the booklet in class. Receiving tutor-generated feedback the booklet which would reduce the workload of the Subject Coordinator. For example, it may highlight which areas of the booklet needs the most improving or maybe further ideas on content which could be included. Moreover, the collaborative effort on booklet would raise the academic quality of the booklet, and reduce instances where tutors are dissatisfied with the booklet from which they will be tutoring. Changes to English Subject Booklets in 2019 A large amount of changes and improvements were made to the English Subject Booklets for the 2019 Program. These booklets received excellent feedback from students and tutors. However, in conversation with English Subject Coordinators, the absence of a Subject Booklet for English as an Additional Language (EAL) was a challenge for both tutors and students in those subjects. The rationale for the absence of this booklet has been that it was never needed in the past, however it is imperative that the suitability of Subject Booklets are constantly examined. EAL students have long used the corresponding VCE English booklet, however the examination, SACs and content in these subjects are vastly different. This has led to content creation for EAL occurring outside the usual mechanisms for content creation, that being the

Subject Booklet process, which is an additional challenge for EAL tutors during the program. It is thus highly recommended that an effort is made to create a dedicated EAL booklet for the 2020 Program. Adaptation to the role of Subject Coordinator: The 2018 Program Report suggested that the role of Subject Coordinator is consistently hard to fill due to the workload of the role. It also suggested that future VCESS Director Teams consider how academic quality can be enhanced. Future Director Teams should strongly consider how the above recommendations to the process of Subject Booklet creation could help achieve these aims.

Guided Private Study Extra academic support beyond their allotted classes is structured into the timetable for students. Consistent with previous programs, the two Guided Private Sessions were compulsory for students. The first session was held on Tuesday 8th January and the second on Thursday 17th January. Finding space for all 300-400 students to meet at once continues to be an issue with guided private study, though it was improved from the previous year issues were still faced specifically in Maths subjects. The sessions were split between in the Alan Gilbert Building, John Medley and Sidney Myer Asia Centre. It is preferable to instruct all students to go to the same location, however, it was not feasible to place all students in a similar location due to room availability and maintenance works. Tutor involvement continued to be compulsory to attend one of these sessions as per their position description. The success of these sessions relies on a high rate of tutor involvement and generally there were no issues with having enough tutors at sessions however future teams should consider investigating assigning tutors to sessions.

One on One Tutoring Students are able to receive one-on-one tutoring during their Independent Study Blocks. This year a significant increase in the student involvement in this area was seen, most likely due to the change in the sign-in system. This year, a Google Sheet was displayed on an interactive screen on Level 2 and students and tutors were able to indicate their availability. This aspect of the program works towards VCESS’ values of ensuring that all students deserve access to high quality tutors. In addition to signing up to one-on-one tutoring, many students scheduled to meet their timetabled tutor during their Independent Study Blocks. This suggests that students find it beneficial to have options to receive extra support from their tutors on a more individual level.

Extra Curricular Program

Workshops Workshops were held 4 times throughout the program – on January 8th, 10th, 15th and 17th. Tutors created and presented these workshops voluntarily. Students received a choice of 42 different workshops and were required to enter preferences into the TMS. Students were notified by lists that were placed up on Level 2 of Union House of the Workshop they had been allocated to. Group Leaders were also given information to distribute to their students on the days that workshops ran. The following workshops were devised and run by tutors at VCESS 2019: Probability and Statistics Crash Course (Maths Methods Edition) Mathematical Methods: How to use your calculator Circular Functions for Beginners Navigating VTAC Introduction to Russian Robogals Workshop Beginner Magic You’ve got a Jam in Me (Disney Music Jam Sesh) Dance 101 Salsa Dancing Workshop Tarot 101 Ballooniversity Parkour 101 Transforming Trash Applying for SEAS Origami VCESS Presidential Election 2019 Introduction to the Australian Political System Greek Mythology

Chinese 101 Intro to Spanish Intro to Indonesian Learning Auslan 101 How I got my Dream Job How to do a tax return Tips for moving out of home How to be on point for VCE Study Skills Life in a Residential College Navigating Financial Assistance Knitting Meme Making Debating Public Speaking and Presentation Skills How to write a CV Creative Writing Feminism 101 Dax Centre Visit How to Code Mindful tea party Reading alone together

Some workshop ideas were proposed by the Director team upon signup based upon previous years’ workshops. This allowed tutors who did not necessarily have their own idea for a workshop assist in running one. Moreover, it reduced the complexity for the Director Team in deciding which workshops to run, should multiple tutors propose a workshop with a similar idea. However, whilst this assisted with idea generation and garnering assistance, there was greater work required to coordinate tutors. It is suggested that in future years, that tutors who volunteered to run the same workshop coordinate amongst themselves. Workshop sizes were variable with some workshops being much smaller than others. It is recommended that tutors are notified of an expected number of students for their workshop (or provide a realistic

maximum that can be facilitated in their workshop) so they can plan to have more tutors present as helpers if required.

Seminars A number of seminars are also held throughout the program. Seminars are larger talks or workshops, which aim to give students exposure to different topics that are related to their age group or interests. Both tutors and external providers run seminars, and students can select which seminar they would like to attend. Seminars were held on January 9, 16 and 18. Detailed below are the topics that were offered to students on each day, and a blurb about each seminar provided to students. Research Methods (facilitated by Program Tutor) Research methods is now a key part of all VCE science courses, with a major SAC and exam questions allocated to it each year. Despite this, many of you will hate it with a burning passion. This interactive seminar will deal with the foundations of Research Methods, teaching you how to think through complex research questions and preparing you for this challenging part of your VCE course! Studying from a Psych Perspective (facilitated by Program Tutor) Looking at psychological understandings of memory and how this impacts the way you approach studying and learning. We'll also be providing some brain hacks and hot tips on how to cram (as a last resort). Understanding the ATAR: (facilitated by Program Tutors) Study scores! ATAR! These numbers seem pretty scary - in this seminar we'll break it all down and run through the basic baths that's involved. We will also demystify and learn about all the lingo - graded assessments, scaling and normal distributions! Safer Sex and Relationships (facilitated by representative from Family Planning Victoria) Understanding consent, the latest in contraception and STIs and using medical services to your benefit. What is LGBTQIA+? (facilitated by representative from Thorne Harbour Health) A representative from Thorne Harbour Health will talk about queer identity and the resources for queer and questioning students. University of Melbourne Information Seminar (facilitated by representative from UoM) Find out about what makes the University of Melbourne’s Melbourne Model unique and how it prepares students for successful employment in a competitive global environment. Come along and learn about the course structure, majors, minors and breadth subjects. Learn about the enormous range of activities students can get involved with to enhance their studies, including study overseas as well as the entry requirements and possible scholarships Pathways Panel (facilitated by Program Tutors)

On the 17th of January, a Pathways panel was held and students selected main areas that they were interested in and were able to hear from tutors who had studied these different courses and areas.

The areas were: Arts (including Education and Law)

Fine Arts (including Music and Fine Arts) Science (including Mathematics and Engineering) Health Science (including Medicine, Dentistry etc.)

Business and Commerce (including Accountancy, Economics)

The Pathways Panel seminar was organised by a VCESS tutor for the 2019 Program, rather than by the Director team as in previous years. Delegation of this organisation proved successful, with the seminar running smoothly for all parties involved, as well as reducing Director workload during program. It is recommended that future Director teams explore or pursue a similar method to managing organisation of this seminar in future programs.

Activities Program The Activities Program at VCESS includes BBQs, 3 large scale activities and for the first time in 2019 included an Activities Space on Level 2 Union House. All students were required to attend the 3 large scale activities offered, however involvement in the Activities Space was voluntary. These aspects of the program were organised and run by the Activities Team. Group Leaders were required to lead their groups during activities. Finally, the 2019 Director Team recommend working along the Activities to ensure that all materials are organised and accounted for. Due to the large scale nature of this aspect of the program it is recommended that one Director works closely with this team. Changes to Activities at VCESS in 2019: Order of the Activities Discussions with the Activities Coordinators led to a change in the order of activities in comparison to previous years. In previous years, the order of events was Trivia in Week 1 and Scavenger Hunt and Mystery Activity in Week 2. In 2019, a new order was trialled with Scavenger Hunt being the first event in Week 1, followed by Mystery Event and Trivia in Week 2. Reflecting on this change, the 2019 Director Team believe that this change had a positive impact on the social dynamic within groups. Facilitating an opportunity for groups to work together in Week 1 allowed students to develop strong bonds with their peers. It is recommended that this order change continues into the future. The only challenge that this change created was the combining of Trivia with a BBQ Lunch during Week 2, which involved more planning and organisation that anticipated. These activities will be further explored individually below.

The Activities Space Mary Cooke A and B were used as Activities Spaces at VCESS 2019. This idea was brought about in response to an increasing number of students using the Welfare Space in 2017 and 2018 as a ‘Games Room’ and removing the calming nature of this space. The Activities Space provided an option for students who wanted to ‘hang out’ rather than study during their Independent Study Blocks and Lunchtimes. The Space was supervised by the Activities Team Members. The Activities Space was designed as a social space; full of card games, board games, colouring in, lollies and studmuffin voting. This space was appreciated by students, however was not as popular as expected. This year, this space also doubled as an office for the Activities Team to meet and discuss activities. It allowed the Activities Team to have an area that was dedicated to the planning of their activities. It is recommended that the Activities Space continue to develop as a space for students to enjoy. The 2019 Director Team recommends that future Director Teams explore increasing student involvement and leadership within this space.

Barbeques There were 3 BBQs held throughout the program. BBQs relied on extra helping tutors to be able to set up, cook and serve program participants. BBQs were held on January 7th, 15th and 16th. Some recommendations for BBQs include:

● Working closely with the Activities Team to ensure that food orders are completed early and cater to dietary requirements

● Organising BBQ training for Activities Team members who are not familiar with UMSU equipment

● Setting a start time for the BBQ after the Tertiary Expo as this encourages students to participate rather than solely attend for the food.

Large Scale Activities VCESS 2019 also included three large fun events for students. These served as a great chance for students to bond and work together as a team. The Mystery Event was not a team-based event, but all students were required to attend.

Scavenger Hunt The Scavenger Hunt was held on Wednesday 9th of January. In 2019, the Activities Team chose to incorporate an Olympics Theme. This event was well received by students and there were many who enjoyed the theme and range of activities. The idea of competing for medals was a fantastic addition to the Scavenger

Hunt and increased competitiveness as students were aware of how they were going throughout the activity. The activity incorporated a range of both physical and intellectual challenges which were located around the Campus. Improving on the recommendations from 2018 surrounding a structured lunch break, placing this event into Week 1 enabled students to attend their Group Meeting to eat their lunch and organise themselves for the activity. This was communicated to all students and tutors as well as printed on Student Timetables. This change ran smoothly. The 2019 Director Team recommends that the Activities Team Coordinator takes a large role in managing the organisation of this event with the support of their team. It is believed that this is logistically the most difficult event due to the high number of students and large number of stations/challenges required.

Mystery Event In 2019, the Mystery Event took place on South Lawn on Monday 14th January and was themed “Primary School Games”. Marquees were set up on South Lawn to segregate zones for different activities. The UMSU Communications and Events Teams were consulted to hire the Popcorn Machine, Fairy Floss Machine, Giant Jenga set and Chess Board. This activity was well-received by students, however due to extreme heat conditions many students did not make full use of the planned activities. The 2019 Director Team believes that events on South Lawn during the Program should always include a range of activities, including some that are in the shade, and others that are in the large open spaces. It is also encouraged that the Activities Team have alternative room bookings and plans for extreme weather conditions. This event continues to have the lowest attendance of the activities. This could be attributed to students not being required to check in with their groups or the impact of the hot weather on this particular event. The 2019 Director Team recommend that this event continue to be adapted to encourage greater student participation.

Trivia Trivia was held on the Wednesday 16th of January in the Grand Buffet on the Mezzanine Floor of Union House. The Trivia ran very smoothly, however started much later than expected due to holding a BBQ with this event. This meant that students did not complete all rounds, however this was not a large issue. In previous years, Trivia was held in North Court, however in 2019 the Director Team explored alternative locations with air conditioning due to heat. Booking Wilson Hall was explored in October 2018, however, this was not possible. Wilson Hall would allow for students to work on tables and chairs rather than the floor which is the current arrangement. It is recommended that future Director Teams explore large spaces within the University and consider their suitability for Trivia. In 2019, AV equipment was sourced from Radio Fodder for both the Trivia and Closing Ceremony. The 2019 Director Team would like to thank Radio Fodder for their support and

recommend that future teams explore using this equipment again as it was a far more economical approach.

Residential Program The VCE Summer School offers a Residential Program for students who live too far from the city to be able to commute to the University of Melbourne each day for the program. This is a valued part of the program as students in regional and rural areas face a unique type of educational disadvantage and any effort to combat this aligns directly with the goals of VCESS. The cost of the Residential Program this year was $520. This year, VCESS again continued its relationship with St. Hilda’s College and held the Residential Program on its campus from Sunday 6th January to Friday 18th January. The students were provided accommodation in individual rooms and provided with three meals a day including snacks. The majority of students depart on the Friday afternoon of the middle weekend and return the Sunday afternoon before classes resume on the Monday. Students who require weekend accommodation are required to pay $70 each night. It should be noted that the cost per student increased again this year despite having less access to grounds, lower general access to the buildings and no access to onsite parking due to renovations. The construction and renovations occurring had a large impact on the program as students were only able to access the dining hall by walking on College Crescent from their individual rooms and noise had a large effect on the comfort and sleep of students. Over 90 applications were received for the Residential Program, which was a significant increase from the previous year, possibly due to a Director visiting Seymour College and tutors visiting Bayside College to promote the program. If possible, it is recommended to continue and expand this initiative. At the close of applications 88 students were offered a position on the program. There were a large number of student withdrawals this year resulting in a final enrolment number of 82. A very small number of students were rejected due to to not meeting the criteria for the Residential Program, however many of these students were still able to attend the Academic Program. Excepting school visits, marketing strategies for 2019 did not differ greatly to those in 2018, efforts were made to reach out to select under-represented regional schools in person, by email and over Facebook also. In future years, it would be beneficial to continue to focus on building relationships with schools as well as reaching out to regional schools the program has never reached. The students on the program were looked after by a team of 8 Residential tutors led by their Residential Coordinator. Given that the program capacity was originally increased to 11 students per tutor and then decreased this meant that student teams were uneven and varied in size. This did not present a significant problem however it is recommended that an even split is maintained where possible. The tutors were also offered formal Mental Health First Aid Training before the program as well as a curated Residential Tutor training, which covered mandatory reporting requirements and welfare based problems that occur on the program and allowed tutors to discuss the most fitting responses to these. This training was led by the Residential

Coordinator, the Residential Team were also required to plan the Residential activities’ program prior to the program. The Residential Program features a wide array of activities throughout the two weeks and each year incredibly positive feedback is received about these activities and the opportunity they provide the students to make connections with each other. The timetable used this year is shown below. An important feature of this is the daily group debriefs where tutors take the opportunity to check in with their students.

Figure 9: Residential Program Timetable Week 1

Figure 10: Residential Program Week 2

Special Roles: Program Responsibilities The VCE Summer School would not run without the dedication and hard work of its tutors, especially the crucial roles the special roles tutors carry out throughout the program. Each role carries out specific tasks which develop each year as the program grows.

Activities Team The Activities Team is made up of 8 tutors led by an Activities Team Coordinator. In 2019, 2 more members were added to this team in comparison to 2018. The 2019 Director Team believe that this was a positive change as it decreased the workload for individual Activities Members. This team is responsible for the Program’s wide range of social activities. During the 2019 Program, these consisted of a Trivia Competition, a Scavenger Hunt and a ‘Mystery Event’. The Activities Team was also responsible for planning, organising and running the 3 barbeques during the Program. The Activities Team also managed many other volunteer tutors who assisted the running of the activities and barbeques as well as the Activities Space. It is recommended that the Activities Team meet as early as possible to begin planning for the program. Ideally, it should commence before the December break. It is important that clear deadlines for event plans are developed by the Director Team in conjunction with the Activities Coordinator.

Group Leaders In 2019, a total of 44 Group Leaders each led a group of approximately 6-10 students. Group Leaders were managed by 2 Group Leader Co-Coordinators. The Group Leaders were responsible for reaching out to their students before the program began, meeting with their groups each morning from 11:00AM-11:30AM and leading their students during large scale activities. Group Leaders took a more active role in the program this year most likely due to the increased training, social events and communication by the Group Leader Coordinators. It is recommended to encourage following Group Leader Coordinators to continue and develop this approach.

Operations Team The Operations Team involved 6 tutors (including the IT Operations Representative) led by their Coordinator This team used Graham Cornish A as an office and was the point of call for tutors and students with logistical problems ranging from lost timetables to issues with classroom access. The Operations Team was also responsible for running Student Enrolment Day (Friday 4th January) on Level 3 Union House and completed this in a professional and efficient manner. During program hours, the Operations Team were also responsible for handling phone calls and acting as the first point of call for any external party. The IT Operations Representative was responsible for any IT related enquiries in the Operations Office. This included TMS timetabling changes, and any AV related issues tutors had.

Residential Team The Residential Team is primarily responsible for the organisation and care of the Residential Students. Further information on the Residential Team can be seen in the section: Residential Program.

Subject Coordinators Subject Coordinators were primarily responsible for the creation of each subject booklet before the beginning of the program which included attending the relevant training and adhering to a strict printing deadline. The Subject Coordinators are unique in that they do not act as a team, and have a Director functioning as their coordinator. Many Subject Coordinators also took on the role of mentoring subject tutors within their subject, organising and facilitating team tutoring as well as providing specific advice on lesson planning. The 2019 Director Team believe the expansion of the role enriched the VCESS experience for the tutors involved and recommend that Subject Coordinators in future years are encouraged to take similar steps.

A more detailed analysis of the role, including recommended changes, can be viewed in the Subject Coordinator section of the report.

Tutor Support Officer (TSO) Team The TSO Team was made up of 6 tutors and 2 Coordinators. This team is also unique in that it is the only team whose role is solely to assist tutors. The TSO Team planned and ran training sessions at both Training Day and Tutor Training Camp. During the program, they made themselves available in the TSO Office (Joe Napolitano B) and most significantly visited every new tutor to the program during their first lessons, to provide advice and feedback. The TSO Team followed up and provided extra support to tutors where necessary. This was the third year that this process was carried out and the 2019 Director Team believe that it is an incredibly vital part of tutor development, bringing a level of professional development for volunteers that carries great value.

Welfare Team In 2019 the Welfare Team was made up of 8 team members, including 2 Queer Representatives and led by a Welfare Coordinator. The Welfare Team is responsible for the wellbeing of all students and tutors and make themselves available in the Welfare Space held in Training Room One (Level 3 Union House) for participants of the program to seek support at any time. The Welfare Team made a conscious effort to ensure all participants of the program were aware of the services they offered and were perceived to be approachable and accessible. On top of this, the Queer Representatives ran a highly successful Queer Picnic in North Court during the program. Future Director Teams should continue to ensure the Welfare Space is accessible and comfortable for all program participants, and that the space is being utilised appropriately by tutors and students so that its resources can be safely accessed by those who may require them.

Zine Team The Zine Team included 5 tutors led by their coordinator and were responsible for creating ‘The Zine,’ updating VCESS public social media channels and creating the MegaZine. The Zine is a daily publication which includes reviews, updates, important information and student artwork. The Zine Team is responsible for creating, formatting and finalising all content for the Zine as well as encouraging and mentoring student contributors, this also included the Pre-Zine, an online publication sent to students and tutors prior to commencement of the program that informs. To encourage student content in the Zine, they were responsible for running the Creative Writing Workshop which ran every workshop session. The Zine Team were also responsible for updates on VCESS social media channels during program. This primarily was the VCESS Facebook Page and Snapchat channel. Snapchat was

used in conjunction with the Zine to engage students and tutors in daily challenges. Furthermore, they were responsible for the University of Melbourne Snapchat Account takeover which was previously arranged with UoM External Relations. The Zine Team also creates the MegaZine, a yearbook style publication commemorating the VCESS Program.

Finance

Sponsorship and donations VCESS relies on sponsorship and donations in order to be able to offer the program at a price which is accessible to students, particularly students experiencing financial disadvantage. By covering some of the program’s costs, funds gained through sponsorship allow the program to lower the cost to students. In addition to this, sponsorship agreements with like-minded organisations give VCESS the opportunity to provide students with valuable contacts, information and resources which may help them throughout the year. The 2019 VCESS program received sponsorship as follows, please see below for more details:

Sponsoring Organisation Nature of Sponsorship

The University of Melbourne $16,770 cash + $3,300 printing credit + in kind sponsorship

UMSU $18,000 + $8,100 + $3000 underwritten

Western Chances Sponsored 51 student places ($11,740)

Nelson Alexander Real Estate $500

Melbourne Zoo Free passes

Some sponsorship arrangements will be discussed in detail below. A new team member in the Communications Department, Advertising and Sponsorship Team Member has been vital in the increase in donations and sponsorship for the 2019 Program. Having a dedicated staff member fulfill this role has been a highly positive experience for the 2019 Directors and would recommend continuing a strong relationship for the 2020 Program. Donations received from organisations were as follows:

Donating Organisation Nature of Donation

Yochi Free vouchers

Strike Bowling Free vouchers

The University of Melbourne Italian Students Society

$150 cash

In addition to this the program also received a total of $590 in donations from students and their families. As has been the case in previous years, VCESS struggles to obtain donations due to the organisation not being eligible for charitable, and thus tax-free donation status.

VCESS Charitable Status The VCE Summer School has consistently faced difficulty in receiving sponsorship and donations due in large part to the fact that it is not eligible for charitable, tax-free donations. During 2018, the 2019 Director team requested that this possibility be investigated and were informed that the Finance Department were in the process of determining if it was a possibility for the program. Nothing further has been received in regards to this issues however the 2019 Director Team strongly recommends that future Director teams continue to follow up and explore eligibility for charitable, tax-free donations to encourage a greater amount of donations.

Sponsorship on the Residential program The VCESS Residential Program provides disadvantaged students from rural and regional Victoria with a set of evening activities, intended not only to support the students in their academic endeavours but also to give them a taste of life in Melbourne. One such event is the “Gelato Crawl”, where students are taken to ice-cream parlours on Lygon Street to experience a quintessential Carlton delicacy. Historically the cost of these ice creams is covered by ‘sponsorship’ in the form of free ice cream obtained by Residential Tutors approaching individual ice cream parlours. Issues were faced this year with receiving donations from ice-cream parlours, this resulted in covering part of the cost in the VCESS budget and part covered by a donation from the Italian Club as unfortunately no donations were received. It is possible that this may have been changed by a different approach, approaching establishments before the holiday break or working on forming relationships with staff members at these stores. However this is reflective of a general trend, finding sponsorship for this event has become increasingly difficult over the last few years and alternative methods may have to be sought for future years. Issues had been faced in the past where UMSU informed the VCESS Directors that they were not to approach establishments themselves instead leaving this job to professional UMSU staff. Due to issues faced with this process in the past and the valuable experienced gained by the tutors who are allowed the opportunity to seek sponsorship, the 2019 Director Team recommends that in this specific case the sponsorship should be sought by VCESS tutors, with support from appropriate UMSU staff.

University of Melbourne Sponsorship deal The University of Melbourne has generously sponsored VCESS for several years. This arrangement has been very beneficial for the program. The original sponsorship arrangement was developed by the 2016 Director Team who approached members of the University’s External Relations department. The final deal was negotiated in conjunction with the UMSU’s Communications Team. In the lead-up to the 2019 Program, most of the negotiations were handled by the Communications Team with feedback from the 2019 Director team. While the 2019 Director team felt as though they were more included in the process this year it is felt that it would be beneficial to further increase transparency in the communications between UMSU and the University of Melbourne . In total the University’s sponsorship amounted to $16,770 in cash and $3,300 in print credit. In return, VCESS provided the University with a number of opportunities to advertise to VCESS students, as well as discounted places for students participating in the University of Melbourne Kwong Lee Dow Young Scholars and Melbourne Connect Programs. While the program benefited greatly from the University’s cash sponsorship, the 2019 Director Team experienced limitations with the print credit received as part of the sponsorship deal. University print suppliers are only able to match a few of the VCE Summer School printing deadline requirements. Following on from previous years’ recommendations, the 2019 Director Team emphasised deadlines for subject booklets and the Megazine. University suppliers were able to meet these deadlines, as these publications had a relatively longer timeframe to be completed within. However, University suppliers were unable to meet the deadline for publication of the Daily Zine, as more than 400 copies of double sided A3 sheets were required within a day’s notice. As a result, the 2019 Director team used printers located in Union House to complete this printing, as well as other immediate printing by the Directors and Special Roles Team. This printing was connected to Directors’ University of Melbourne staff cards, which is connected to the UMSU Administrative Budget. The sponsorship print credit was unable to cover all of our required printing costs that could be covered by University suppliers as there was a greater number of subject booklets printed compared to previous years. The balance was covered by the UMSU Administrative Budget. In future years, it is recommended that future Director Teams explore negotiating for greater print credit to cover the maximum amount of print costs as possible. These issues notwithstanding, the partnership with the University of Melbourne is valuable in its own right due to the opportunity it provides to build relationships with the University’s External Relations Team. For the 2019 Program, this provided opportunities for highly valuable cross-promotion, and for VCESS content to be featured on official University of Melbourne websites. In addition to this, the VCESS Zine Team engaged in a University of Melbourne “Snapchat takeover”, where they were able to post to the University’s Snapchat account for a day. These opportunities produced both valuable exposure for the program as well as professional development experience for VCESS tutors. The 2019 Director Team highly recommend that these relationships be further cultivated into the future.

Printing Printing that is unable to be covered by the University of Melbourne Sponsorship deal was covered by the UMSU Administrative budget, as this account was linked to Directors’ staff cards. This proved incredibly valuable and useful for the program. However, there has been uncertainty regarding how this expense will be recorded by the Director team, as no printing links to any of VCE Summer School budget codes. It is recommended that future Director teams seek greater clarification on how to account for this in future programs.

Teach for Australia Sponsorship A mutual sponsorship deal was sought with Teach for Australia during the lead up to the 2019 program. The 2019 Director Team felt that TFA would be able to offer valuable marketing opportunities to potential tutors and students, informative training based on disadvantage in education and advice and mentoring on application and outreach processes. An initial meeting with members of the TFA team indicated that they would also benefit from the marketing opportunities we could provide, specifically to our tutor base for their program. Given the similar aims of these programs both the VCESS and TFA teams felt this would be a valuable partnership. Unfortunately, due to a change in staff in the TFA team this partnership was not formalised during this program. Although a TFA representative attended Tutor Training Day to deliver “Disadvantage in Education” training to our tutors which received very positive feedback from tutors. The 2019 Director Team recommends that future teams continue to seek a mutually beneficial partnership with Teach for Australia.

Bursaries The VCE Summer School aims to ensure any student who wishes to attend the Program is able to, regardless of their financial situation. One method in place to allow this to happen is the Bursary Program. Students are prompted upon applying to indicate if they require financial assistance and are further prompted to indicate whether they would be able to attend the program without this support, this allows up to prioritise and select students for scholarship positions such as Western Chances. Within a week of applying students are sent an initial Bursary email which prompts them to send out a letter or email to their local Rotary or Lions Club with a draft letter supplied. This method is used as it has been found that, in the past, organisations are more receptive to being approached by individual, local students than by the VCESS Director Team. Students were followed up with a second email at the end of the application period as a reminder and prompt to ensure students contacted the VCESS office with any concerns. Many students or families opted to pay the fee themselves and the 2019 Director Team believes this is because it is not made clear in the application that students will be required to seek out the bursary through community and if future application forms explain the process clearly, a more thorough self-selection would occur. There was also a number of students or families who were able to utilise

the payment plan option. It should be noted that no student is turned away from the Program due to their financial situation, the student or family are prompted to contribute as much of the fee as they can without causing significant financial strain and the remainder of the cost is absorbed by the Program. The 2019 Director Team believes this approach matches with the values for the Program and recommend continuing this in future Programs. The Director Team also recommends, however, that more intensive work be undertaken with these students in assisting them to find bursaries before, during and after the program. An increase in the number of bursaries found, particularly early in the application period was seen and this is most likely due to the initial emails being sent out earlier in the application process. 115 students who attended the Program applied for a bursary in 2019, this represented a significant increase since 2018 possibly indicated the program is increasingly engaging with students who are facing educational disadvantage. 24 of these students were able to complete payment themselves, 57 of these students students had their fees covered or supplemented by Western Chances, the Kwong Lee Dow/ Melbourne Connect Programs, the Residential Scholarships or a combination of these. 13 students were successful in finding community support which also was a significant increase since 2018. This left 20 students who had their fees absorbed by the Program, this fell within the expected amount of approximately 10% which is accounted for when student fees are determined.

Western Chances Bursaries A fantastic addition to the 2018 Program was the support and partnership that formed between VCESS and Western Chances, this partnership continued in the 2019 Program with a small increase in numbers. Western Chances works to provides students from the Western Suburbs of Melbourne with opportunities to realise their talents and pathways through scholarships. Western Chances provided 51 students with scholarships and financial support on the program as well as providing assistance through marketing and advice. The Western Chances sponsorship has been an incredibly valuable part of the program and the 2019 Director Team recommend that this relationship is further developed and formalised in following years. Western Chances staff members also visited the program during January and the 2019 Director Team had an opportunity to host the Western Chances students and staff at a morning tea sponsored by Baretto Espresso bar.

Travel Bursaries The application process also included the option for students to indicate that ‘I will need financial assistance to be able to travel to and from the program’ to ensure financial barriers other than the Program Fee would not be a barrier to students attending the Program. The Program received a $500 sponsorship from Nelson Alexander Real Estate and it was decided by the 2019 Director Team that this amount was to be dedicated to student Travel Bursaries again. A total of 53 students indicated that they required assistance with travel expenses, each of these students was emailed to inform them that assistance was available and to email the Director Team with the amount that they would require and a short statement outlining their financial circumstances. This was used to determine which students received a travel bursary.

Fortunately, the Program was able to provide financial support to all 7 students who submitted a statement indicating financial need for the bursary. A total of $325.20 in travel bursaries was granted, which was transferred electronically directly on to the students’ Myki Cards at the commencement of the Program. It is recommended that this process is started at least one week prior to the Program in future to ensure the Myki top-up delay does not affect students’ travel arrangements.

Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander Scholarships The 2019 Director Team also sought to re-establish VCESS’ previous engagement with the University’s Murrup Barak Institute for Indigenous development. Murrup Barak had previously provided assistance in the form of advertising, which was particularly useful as it not only provided a way for the Program to reach out to Indigenous high school students, but also provided an additional network through which the Program could contact schools across the state. Murrup Barak had also provided funding to allow indigenous students to attend the 2017 Program free of charge. However, unfortunately this funding was not available for the 2018 Program. Despite this, the 2018 Director Team made the decision to continue to provide free places to Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander students and the 2019 Director Team was able to receive sponsorship from UMSU to cover all fees for Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander students. The 2019 Director team did not receive a response from Murrup Barak but recommend that future teams seek to re-establish a relationship.

Residential Program Scholarships The 2019 Director Team was fortunate enough to receive sponsorship from UMSU to the amount of $8,100 to cover the cost of tutors’ accommodation at the Residential Program. In the past this amount has been absorbed into the cost of the Residential Program, increasing Residential Student fees. Given that Residential Students are from regional and rural areas they often represent the most disadvantaged students on the program and therefore it was not ideal to have this cost a part of their student fees. The funding was received after the 2019 Program fees were set and many payments received and therefore the decision was made to instead provide Residential Scholarships to all students indicating they would require financial support. Each student receiving a scholarship received $250 off the total of their student fees, 29 students were provided with a scholarship totaling $7,160.00. The remainder of the amount was used to fund Residential Program activities to enrich the program culture and absorbed into the program costs.

Preliminary Program Budget A preliminary financial report for the 2019 program is included below. Unfortunately, it cannot be considered final as it has not been able to be compared with the University financial reports, and thus unable to with internal records

Income Expenditure Student fees $69,620.00 Director Honoraria $43800.00

UMSU Council Allocation $18,000 Consumables and supplies $216.05

UoM Sponsorship $16,770 Stationery $14.81 Additional UMSU Council Allocation $8,100 Food and Beverage $2941.00 UMSU Indigenous Scholarships $1,260

Photocopying/paper costs $0.00

UoM Printing Funding $3,300 Telephone $0.00 Nelson Alexander Funding $500 Printing $4911.00

Other $11,740 T-shirts and merchandise $7686.52

Special Projects/events $67019.42

Training and development $8400.00

Total Income $129,290.00 Total Expenditure $134,988.8

VCESS Budget Allocation from Students’ Council It should also be noted that the 2019 Director Team requested an increase in funding from Students’ Council in their 2019 Budget Proposal in November 2018. The document provided indicated a number of key areas where the Program would benefit from increased UMSU funding. UMSU funding to VCESS has typically consisted of $12,000 in budget allocation, and an additional $8,000 normally allocated by Students’ Council towards the cost of Tutor Training in a Council meeting in September. The recommendations passed on to students council included a budget for volunteer appreciation as well as an ongoing budget allowance to cover the cost of Residential Tutor living costs and therefore provide Residential Scholarships as in 2019 or reduce the overall cost of the Residential Program. The 2019 Director Team made a request of $8800 to cover Residential tutor accommodation and food costs at St Hilda’s, as well as a fund of up to $2000 to cover the cost of scholarships for students of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander background. This amount was approved by Students’ Council. Residential tutor accommodation costs have typically been covered by student fees in past programs. However, the Residential Program is a key learning and development experience for Residential Tutors and can provide university students with a unique and fundamental skill set. Yet, fulfilling the role requires a large commitment and

sacrifice from our Residential Tutors, who are university students. As a result, the 2019 Director Team believes that by having their costs of completing the program covered, this is able to allow Residential Tutors to complete their job to the best of their abilities, as well as gain as many skills as possible. The VCE Summer School has always provided students with Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander Status with a fully subsidised place at the program. In previous years, this cost has always been absorbed by other income (primarily student fees). However, the ability to provide fully subsidised places is not consistent year to year as it is dependent upon a variable source. Subsequently, the 2019 Director Team pursued this option to allow for consistency and security in the ability to provide fully subsidised student places on the program.

Logistics

Room Bookings The ‘Room Bookings’ Process was initiated in October 2018, which was considerably earlier than 2018. The 2019 Director Team contacted the University’s Venue Management Team with a request for tutorial rooms, lecture theatres and large spaces around the University. The 2019 Director Team specifically requested to be allocated rooms close to Union House to ensure that program participants could locate these rooms efficiently. The 2019 Director Team notes that it is becoming more difficult to source the spaces required to run the program. This was a challenging process as VCESS was unable to unable to secure bookings until after the Summer Subjects University Timetable had been completed. This caused the process to occur much later than expected. Despite requests, some classrooms were allocated in Alan Gilbert. Construction on Grattan St made this building incredibly challenging to reach. Finding new spaces is therefore likely to be an issue of considerable importance over the medium to long-term, as the program seeks to avoid compromising quality by increasing class sizes. In 2019, the Director Team attempted approaching faculties to gain access to specialised classrooms and request access to rooms which are not listed on the central timetable. The Director Team met with the Faculty of Arts and were able to secure 3 additional classrooms with the Arts West Building. Although this was a small contribution, it is recommended that future Director Teams continue to explore contacting Faculties to gain support in room bookings.

Timetabling Timetabling was a long process which involved catering to tutor availability as well as ensuring that classes could run at specific times to suit students’ unique subject combination. The following changes were created in the 2019 Program Timetable:

● Blocks were associated more strongly with a time of the day, including 2 morning (Block 3 and 4) and 3 afternoon (Block 1,2 and 5)

● Classes were evenly spread across the week ● The 2nd English Lecture was moved ● The order of Activities was swapped (see Activities Section for greater details) ● Icebreakers were added to Day 1

At the program, 80 subjects were offered. The table below depicts the range of subjects offered, the number of classes and the average number of students in each class. The average number of students in each class was 7.36 students. Class sizes ranged from 1 student to a maximum of 15. In some classes, there were multiple tutors allocated to provide

greater support to students. It is encouraged that future director teams continue to allocate multiple tutors to classes were possible.

Subjects Offered in 2019 Number of Classes Average size

Accounting 1 & 2 2 4.5

Accounting 3 & 4 3 8

Agricultural and Horticultural Studies 1 1

Algorithmics 1 2

Art 1 2

Australian Politics 1 2

Biology 1 & 2 4 10.2

Biology 3 & 4 11 10.3

Business Management 1 & 2 2 5

Business Management 3 & 4 3 11.3

Chemistry 1 & 2 6 12.8

Chemistry 3 & 4 11 12.8

Classical Studies 1 3

Computing 1 4

Dance 1 2

Drama 1 5

Economics 1 & 2 1 8

Economics 3 & 4 2 6.5

English 1 & 2 7 12.7

English 3 & 4 16 13.4

English as an Additional Language 1 & 2 1 12

English as an Additional Language 3 & 4 2 13

English Language 1 & 2 2 6

English Language 3 & 4 3 11

Environmental Science 1 6

Extended Investigation 1 7

Food Studies 1 11

Further Mathematics 1 & 2 3 9.3

Further Mathematics 3 & 4 11 12.3

Geography 2 7.5

Global Politics 2 8.5

Health and Human Development 1 & 2 2 8.5

Health and Human Development 3 & 4 5 11.8

History: 20th Century 2 5

History: Ancient History 1 3

History: Australian History 1 10

History: Revolutions 3 8.7

IT: Informatics 1 6

IT: Software Development 1 7

Latin 1 5

Legal Studies 1 & 2 2 7

Legal Studies 3 & 4 5 11.8

Literature 1 & 2 2 8.5

Literature 3 & 4 4 11.5

LOTE: Chinese Second Language 1 5

LOTE: French 1 & 2 1 3

LOTE: French 3 & 4 2 9

LOTE: German 1 6

LOTE: Indonesian Second Language 1 3

LOTE: Italian 1 5

LOTE: Japanese Second Language 1 & 2 1 4

LOTE: Japanese Second Language 3 & 4 1 11

LOTE: Punjabi 1 1

LOTE: Spanish 1 1

LOTE: Vietnamese 1 1

Mathematical Methods 1 & 2 9 9.8

Mathematical Methods 3 & 4 14 12.6

Media 1 13

Music Style and Composition 1 1

Music: Performance 2 11.5

Outdoor and Environmental Studies 1 7

Philosophy 1 9

Physical Education 1 & 2 1 4

Physical Education 3 & 4 2 14.5

Physics 1 & 2 3 10.7

Physics 3 & 4 6 10.7

Politics (Australian and Global Politics) 1 1

Product Design and Technology 1 3

Psychology 1 & 2 3 10

Psychology 3 & 4 8 10.8

Religion and Society 1 6

Sociology 1 4

Specialist Mathematics 1 & 2 4 10.8

Specialist Mathematics 3 & 4 5 10

Studio Arts 2 10

Systems Engineering 1 4

Texts and Traditions 1 1

Theatre Studies 1 4

Visual Communication and Design 2 10.5

The Tutor Management System The work of scheduling students into classes and producing individual timetables was done using the Tutor Management System (TMS). The TMS is a piece of software built by a previous Director, which provides timetabling systems, as well as a student and tutor “portal” onto which tutors can upload material for their students and record attendance for their classes. In 2019, as in previous years, the TMS was vital to the successful running of the program. This process was support through an external advisor, who created this system in a past VCESS. This dependence does however raise some ongoing concerns for the program. For all its utility, the TMS is somewhat unstable, and requires intensive ongoing maintenance to be able to generate timetables. This effectively means that the program requires intensive support from someone with high-level programming skills, and often, detailed knowledge of the TMS itself, something which is often very difficult to source. In order to ensure the long-term viability of this aspect of the program then, the 2019 Director Team recommends that future Director Teams investigate freely available timetabling software to replace this function of the TMS.

Data Management The primary data management tool used by the 2019 Director Team was Google Drive. This tool was effective as it allows:

● remote access across all commonly used devices ● all data can be accessed and edited by multiple users simultaneously ● data to be easily shared outside of the Director Team when required. ● data to be collected via Google Forms which can synchronise directly with core

spreadsheets is invaluable in managing large amounts of incoming data from students and tutors.

The 2019 Director Team believes that have a Google Drive is very useful and recommends that future teams use this data management tool.

Recently, there has been discussion surrounding the development of an UMSU Volunteer Management System, however no confirmation of this tool has been received. Future Director Teams should explore this system if it meets required functionality.

Tutor Communication Management All Special Role Teams (excluding Group Leaders) were invited to Slack workspaces which included and were visible to all members of the 2019 Director Team. These workspaces were created with the intention that the teams use them for all VCESS communication before and throughout the Program. Slack was used due to the channel functionality which allows for parallel discussion of a range of topics, tasks or events which is ideal for the dynamic nature of the roles at VCESS. Slack allows Director Teams to oversee all Special Role Team communication and ensure that team members and coordinators are contributing and progressing appropriately. It also ensures tutors who do not have a Facebook account are not excluded from team communications. The majority of Special Role Teams successfully used Slack communication throughout the program and the 2019 Director Team feels that this allowed smooth communication between themselves and Special Role Teams. Special Roles Teams that did not use Slack commonly had a Facebook Chat and Facebook Page. This was also an effective method of communication. The 2019 Director Team recommends the use of the Slack workspaces in future programs, and suggests providing the option to each team, however, it should be discussed with Special Role Coordinators to ensure this method is supporting their team.

Special Projects

Spring Revision Day On the 6th of October 2018 the 2019 Director Team ran the program’s third Spring Revision Day (SRD). This marked the program’s third SRD, following those held in 2013 and 2018. Originally, SRD was proposed with the aim of expanding VCESS beyond the two week program in January. The 2019 Director Team planned the day to be as simple as possible while providing students with a valuable learning experience. It was decided that four, one-hour-long sessions which included a 10-15 minute revision session run by an experienced tutor delivering content specific to exams and exam skills followed by 45 minutes of tutoring where students had the opportunity to ask any questions they had or work on practice exams provided. The Spring Revision Day ran from 10:00am to 3:00pm on campus at the University of Melbourne and followed the timetable shown below. The timetable included four revision sessions and a barbeque lunch.

Block Subjects

Revision Block 1 10:00-11:00

Specialist Maths Math Methods Chemistry Biology Psychology Private Study

Revision Block 2 11:00-12:00

Specialist Maths Math Methods Chemistry Biology Psychology Private Study

LUNCH 12:00-1:00PM

Revision Block 3 1:00-2:00

English Physics Further Maths Math Methods

Chemistry Biology Private Study

Revision Block 4 2:00-3:00

English Physics Further Maths Math Methods Biology Psychology Private Study

Table: Spring Revision Day 2018 Timetable

As evident in the table above, a variety of popular subjects were offered. However, students also had the option of private study with tutors assisting when required. Tutors who were a part of the 2018 program and had already been trained were recruited to participate in the day with a total of 18 tutors volunteering on the day. A small number of new tutors who were joining for 2019 Program for the first time were also enlisted to help on the day, however those who fell into this category were required to have a valid Working With Children Check and previous tutoring experience. All students who attended the 2018 VCESS program were emailed directly to advertise the Spring Revision Day program and were encouraged to bring along friends who had not attended the program. A total of 19 students attended the day, with a total of $380 received in fees. Student were also given VCESS promotional flyers and encouraged to distribute them to students at their school eligible to attend the 2019 Program in January. Each student was required to pay $20 in cash on the day upon registration. This fee included tutoring for the day, a barbeque lunch and printed revision materials. Feedback for SRD A feedback survey was sent out to all students who attended the program and 7 responses were received. While this is a low response rate students agreed that the revision day was useful and indicated that ‘time with tutors’ was the most valuable part of the day while the practice exams could be optimised to be more useful or relevant. Some visual representations of this data can be found below.

Issues with SRD 2018 The key issue with Spring Revision Day (SRD) is that it can be a large amount of work for very little gain and low student attendance. Attendance was not much higher than a typical Homework Club, and tutors outnumbered the students. This can be attributed to the fact that there is, as always, increasing competition for examination revision lectures in October before the commencement of the VCE Examination Period. The VCESS offering in the form of SRD is admittedly far less content-dense, and may seem to students like a more expensive Homework Club. A run-of-the-mill Homework Club at VCESS costs a gold coin donation, meaning that

Spring Revision Day is 10x more expensive for students. This may be less appealing for students, despite the provision of a BBQ lunch, prepared sessions and materials. In terms of marketing, the students attending SRD are often graduating from Year 12, and thus cannot participate in the program the following year. Although some students took brochures to their schools from SRD, there are perhaps other forms of student-led marketing that would serve this purpose better, for example, a student ambassador program. The 2019 Director Team strongly suggests major changes to SRD to draw in a larger student attendance to make the day more financially worthwhile. If no adequate changes can be made, future Director Teams should consider discontinuing SRD in favour of an alternative marketing strategy.

VCESS Homework Club2 Upon conclusion of the 2018 program, the Director Team discussed the most viable way to continue the program throughout the year in order to provide the most valuable learning experience for students. Informal feedback from the 2018 Program indicated that students find one-on-one tutoring and the opportunity to ask their own questions to be most valuable. Taking this feedback the concept of monthly Homework Club was developed. The 2019 Director Team decided to suspend Homework Club until a future decision to reinstate them occurs. This decision was made in part due to the low attendance at both SRD and Homework Clubs in late 2018. This low attendance points to a situation where not enough students are finding these sessions useful or are not aware of them running. It is recommended that future Director Teams consider alternatives to both SRD and Homework Club, for example running sessions off campus and in partnership with underrepresented schools.

Program Feedback VCESS has a well established quality assurance system, consisting of Quality of Teaching surveys which gather data on each individual class in the program, and Quality of Program surveys which address the program as a whole. Response rates vary from year to year, and have dropped somewhat since the move to an online survey format. The Quality of Teaching response rates are hard to ascertain as students can take variable numbers of classes, however assuming an average of 5 classes per student these surveys had a response rate of around 70%. It is worth noting that the response rate for residential students, who complete an

2 VCESS Homework Club has also been referred to as VCESS Study Squad both internally and in student marketing. Though predominantly the term Homework Club has been used externally to students.

additional Quality of Residential Program survey, was higher again at 80%. Unfortunately, there were no responses received for the Quality of Program survey, as the survey was not distributed on the last day of the program, and as a result there are some aspects of the Academic Program which cannot be commented on. Separately to the student feedback, the Directors also arranged post-program meetings with each of the Special Roles Teams. These meetings were a valuable way to gain feedback on procedural aspects of the program and record suggestions for protocols that may need further refinement. The results of these meetings have been integrated into various recommendations throughout this report, and are not included in detail here.

Quality of Teaching The Quality of Teaching (QoT) surveys were distributed in the final class of each block, beginning on Wednesday 16th January. They were distributed by the Operations team and additional tutor volunteers. A volunteer would go into every classroom and ask the tutor to briefly step outside. The volunteer would then provide a URL for the survey, as well as paper copies for students who did not have access to a device. Each class was assigned a code, which respondents had to enter on the survey. This made collating the data very easy, although it should be noted that a very small number of responses (<10) had to be discounted because the code was entered incorrectly. The QoTs consisted of three questions in the form of a five-point Likert-type scale measuring the respondents’ agreement with a statement about each class, with 5 representing a “strongly agree”. These questions seek to ascertain the respondents’ attitude towards their tutor, the class materials, and to what degree the class prepared them for the year ahead. The table below shows the whole of program averages for each of these questions. Overall, 2019 feedback was strongly positive (with averages consistently above 4.0), indicating students were generally highly satisfied with the academic quality of the program.

Quality of Teaching Survey responses: Whole of Program averages

I am satisfied with the quality of my subject booklet. 4.39

I am satisfied with the quality of my subject tutor(s). 4.40

Because of my tutor(s), I feel more prepared for the year ahead.

4.23

Survey breakdowns for the ten most highly-enrolled subjects on the program are also provided in the appendices. While these display some variation, they do not differ greatly from the whole of program and average QoT scores. As well as providing quality assurance, the QoTs also serve to provide tutors with individualised feedback and professional development. Once the results were collated tutors were informed that they were able to request their personal results from the Director Team and were encouraged to do so, particularly if they were considering tutoring on the program the following year. It is worth noting that the current director team received a number of requests for results from 2018 during the application period for the 2019 Program, which is both encouraging as well as a reminder of the importance of these results being reliably ‘handed-over’ to new director teams.

Quality of Program Quality of Program (QoP) surveys were unfortunately not distributed on the last day of the 2019 Program to students. QoTs and QoRs were however completed and have provided feedback, however feedback on areas outside of these surveys which the QoP was designed to cover (primarily extracurricular aspects of the Academic Program) was unable to be provided. This was an unfortunate oversight of the 2019 Director team, and it is recommended to future Director teams to place a large emphasis on this to ensure timely and accurate program feedback is provided. To prevent this from happening again, the 2019 Director Team recommends that this responsibility is passed on to the Operations Team earlier in the program to minimise the high workload of the final day. The 2019 Director Team has collated informal feedback from tutors and students to provide further direction and feedback in light of the absence of QoP data. However, this is largely qualitative and must be taken into consideration by future Director Teams.

Academic Program One on one tutoring at the 2019 Program proved more successful than the 2018 program. The 2019 Director and Operations team improved management of one on one tutoring through the use of a Google Sheets Spreadsheet displayed on a large monitor on Level 2. The Operations Team maintained this spreadsheet daily to ensure one on one tutoring was efficient and organised for tutors and students. Compared to the 2018 program, a greater number of tutors signed up to one on one tutoring and were available to assist students. It is recommended that future Director teams use a similar setup to encourage and facilitate more one on one tutoring. The 2019 Director team endeavoured to improve English lectures, after mixed feedback regarding English lectures from previous questions and discussion surrounding the value of

English lectures in the program. A new English Subject Coordinator introduced a new lecture structure and material where all English students attended the same lecture (as opposed to being split into Units 1 and 2, and Units 3 and 4). This included English Language and Literature

Residential Program Feedback The QOR (Quality of Residential Program) Survey was conducted on the last day of the Program during the Residential Group meetings. A total of 78 responses were received from the pool of residential students. The change to completing the QoR during the Residential Program rather than during the Day Program Group Meetings is likely the cause of the large response rate, this method was successful as the Residential Coordinator was able to manage the design and execution of the survey. The average responses from all questions asked are presented below, all questions received average responses well above 3 on a scale of 1 to 4, speaking to the high quality and inclusiveness of the Residential Program. The highest responses were received from the questions ‘I was well supported by my residential tutor’, ‘I would recommend the residential program to others’ and ‘I made friends and built new connections on the residential program’. Among the lower responses are ‘I was satisfied with the food provided by St Hilda’s college.’ and ‘I was satisfied with the facilities provided by St Hilda’s College’. This may indicate that stronger communication between the Director Team and the accomodation team may be required to ensure appropriate requirements are being met, particularly in regards to dietary requirements. However, it must be noted that in 2019 St. Hilda’s College was undergoing construction which while disruptive was unavoidable and is most likely being reflected in these results.

Quality of Residential Program Survey responses: Hosting and Support Averages

I was satisfied with the food provided by St Hilda’s college 3.27

I was satisfied with the facilities provided by St Hilda’s college 3.22

Quality of Residential Program Survey responses: Community and Culture Averages

I felt part of the VCESS community. 3.53

I made friends and built new connections on the residential program. 3.67

The residential program challenged me to think in new and different ways. 3.31

Quality of Residential Program Survey responses: Residential Team Averages

I would recommend the Residential Program to others. 3.78

The Residential Program was well-organised. 3.35

I was well supported by my residential tutor. 3.81

Quality of Residential Program Survey responses: Academic Experience Averages

The residential program enabled me to get the most out of the academic program. would recommend the Residential Program to others.

3.62

The residential program gave me an idea of what it would be like to study at university.

3.53

The residential program made me more likely to pursue further study in Melbourne. This could be at a TAFE or, another training provider in Melbourne, not just the University of Melbourne.

3.46

Further feedback from the QoR results indicated that the most valuable part of the Residential Program for students was the opportunity to meet other students and to form strong friendships as well as the support from their Residential Team. Many students also noted how strongly they valued the commitment of their Residential Tutor. With regards to improvements, students requested more time off, a better organised morning routine as well as better suited facilities for the warm weather. An increase in free time is common feedback from the Residential Program and Residential Teams take this feedback into consideration when planning the activities. The 2019 Director Team and Residential Team believe that the current timetable represents the ideal balance between free time and structured activities. A way to increase rest time for students may be to make the bedtime earlier and encourage students to use their evening free

time in restful ways. There was also some feedback received that students wanted more independence throughout the program, this feedback has not been received significantly before and may be considered for the next program however future Director teams must carefully consider how this can be balanced with the duty of care required for the Residential Students.

Appendices

Appendix A: Tutor Absence Policy VCESS Tutor Absence policy

The VCE Summer School (VCESS) relies on volunteer tutors to provide its classes. VCESS recognises the contribution that its tutors make to the program, and seeks to ensure that their time is used to maximise both the quality of VCESS’ classes, and the experience of its tutors. It is vital to the success of the program that tutors attend all of the classes they have been allocated, in order to provide consistency for the students in those classes. This consistency is an important component of the educational experience for our students. VCESS will always endeavour to provide as much notice to tutors as is possible with regards to the timing of their classes during the program, and the exact time commitment required for tutoring is made clear well in advance of the program. For these reasons VCESS expects that tutors will be able to reschedule other commitments including part- or full-time work to accommodate the program. VCESS also recognises however that circumstances will arise which make it impossible for tutors to attend their scheduled classes. This policy is intended to manage these situations in such a way as to minimise the impact of these absences on other students and tutors. The Policy is set out as follows

- Tutors are expected to attend all scheduled classes, as well as fulfil any additional responsibilities they might hold by occupying a Special Role. The expected time commitment of any position should be outlined in the relevant Position Description.

- Tutors are required to ‘sign in’ before they begin teaching each day. Tutors are expected

to arrive at Union House at least ten minutes before the start of their class in order to complete this sign-in. Tutors are not required to ‘sign out’ at the end of the day.

- In the event that a tutor cannot attend a class due to an unexpected reason, they must

notify the Directors as soon as reasonably possible.

- If Tutors have more than one day’s notice they must inform the Directors via email

- In cases where Tutors cannot give one day’s notice, they must notify the Directors via phone, either by calling the VCESS office phone, or by calling the Directors’ phone

- If Tutors do not notify the Directors by one of these methods, then their absence is considered an unapproved absence

- Tutors are not expected to, and must not attempt to find other tutors to replace them in

classes they cannot attend. The Directors and Special Roles Teams will be responsible for this.

- Absences are still considered unapproved if tutors attempt to give notice in other forms.

Other forms of notice include, but are not limited to: - Telling a Director verbally - Informing any other tutors, but not the Directors - Organising to “swap” classes with another tutor - Posting on facebook, or informing a Director over facebook messenger or a

similar system

- In the case of an unapproved absence, the tutor will be required to meet with the Directors to discuss the circumstances that led to them missing the class. If a satisfactory reason is not provided, the Directors may chose to take actions including, but not limited to:

- Withholding the tutor’s Participation Certificate - Amending the tutor’s Participation Certificate to show the missed class(es) - Refusing to grant letters of reference/recommendation when requested

- In exceptional circumstances, the Directors may also choose to recommend that future

Directors not allow a tutor to return to the program. Exceptional cases circumstances are to be understood as cases of repeated, unapproved absences, for which a tutor is not able to provide an explanation.

Appendix B: Tutor Social Media Policy VCESS Tutor Social Media Policy

VCESS tutors are expected to display the same behaviour online as they are asked to display during the program. This means that during the program, VCESS expects tutors to behave online as they would with other tutors and students during the day - unacceptable behaviour will not be tolerated. In addition to this general rule however, VCESS provides a number of additional guidelines which tutors are expected to follow with regard to interactions with students before, during and after the program. At all times, VCESS seeks to ensure that tutor interactions with students online are appropriate, and maintain the spirit of the program. Before the program: ● Be aware of your image online - some parents or students may look you up during the

program. Take some time before the program to look over your profiles as they would be seen by parents and students (View As... Public) and ensure only appropriate information/photos can be seen.

● It is required that all tutors disable visibility on dating apps while on the program, it is not uncommon to have students over the age of 18 and this kind of potential interaction is not appropriate.

● Returning tutors will be required to delete students who they might have as friends or contacts on social media platforms and are returning to the program.

Interactions during and after the program: ● Tutors are not permitted to accept friend requests from students before the close of the

program (this can be determined to be the time when all students have left the program). Tutors are by no means required to accept any requests they receive from students.

● After the close of the program it is expected that tutors maintain the tutor-student relationship and boundaries defined during the program. For instance it may be appropriate to ‘like’ a status update about a personal or academic achievement however personal relationship statuses or posts containing information about behaviours not appropriate on the VCESS program are not appropriate to interact with.

Appendix C: Conduct Policy VCESS Appropriate Conduct and Relations Policy (Formally ‘Fraternisation Policy’) Key Definitions

Student Any participant of VCESS 2019 enrolled into any VCE subject on the program.

Tutor Any volunteer tutor who has been recruited by the VCE Summer School to tutor a VCE subject, workshop and/or activity on the 2019 Program.

Fraternisation (commonly shortened to: Frat)

In the context of the VCESS program this term refers to any physical displays of affection, and all forms of physical contact between:

● Tutors and tutors ● Tutors and students ● Students and students

Fraternisation can include, but is not limited to:

● Hugging and Kissing ● Holding hands ● High-five-ing ● Touching other participants

In addition, VCESS includes in its definition of fraternisation any non-physical behaviour which can be construed as sexual in nature.

On Program Times at which tutors are actively undertaking their role at VCESS, or on campus at any point from the 7th to the 18th of January 2019. More specifically:

● ● Any time at which tutors are on campus, in the surrounding area, or in other locations where they might reasonably expect to encounter program students during the hours of the program.

● ● Any time at which tutors are on campus, in the surrounding area, or in other locations where they might reasonably expect to encounter program students during the hours immediately before and after the program.

● ● Any time at which tutors are in attendance at any additional days or activities organised by VCESS. For instance, Enrolment Day, Refresher Day or Spring Revision Day.

Off Program

At any time between the 7th to the 18th of January 2019 outside the hours of the program, where tutors can reasonably expect to not encounter students.

Post Program

At any time following the official conclusion of the program on the 18th of January 2019, signified by the departure of the last student from the program.

Section 1: On Program – No Physical Contact/Fraternisation Policy During the program, VCESS enforces a strict “no fraternisation” policy for all participants. In

short, this means that all participants are to refrain from all forms of physical affection and unnecessary contact while on the program.

VCESS tutors are expected to play an active role in enforcing this policy and may need to

remind students on the program of what behaviours are considered inappropriate. VCESS also recognises that the “no fraternisation” policy places a particular burden on program participants who are in existing relationships. Nevertheless, VCESS expects these participants to also follow the policy while they are on the program.

Why the No Physical Contact/ Fraternisation Section exists:

● To protect the well-being and safety of all participants

● To ensure VCESS is a program which is inclusive and open to all participants

● To acknowledge the complex dynamic between tutors and students, given the relative age and power differences and create a safe environment for this to exist.

● To consistently uphold the program’s obligations under Victoria’s Child Safety Standards

● To provide a clear child-safe guideline for tutors to follow, and to remove grey areas where tutors may inadvertently breach child safety legislation UMSU’s Child Safety Policy.

● To establish an environment in which all participants can socialise in a way all participants can feel safe and comfortable, regardless of personal circumstances and cultural or religious background or belief. Section 2: On Program – Appropriate Communication and Relations with Students During the program, VCESS also enforces its strict ACRS Policy for all participants. This policy outlines the topics that must not be discussed at any point in the presence of students. Policy Details:

● Tutors must not talk about relationships, sex or topics which could be understood by students as sexual in nature. Unless:

● It is subject specific content from a VCAA Study Design

● It is required for the students personal welfare or safety.

● Tutors must not discuss their own relationship(s) with or in the presence of students.

● Tutors must not connect with or add any VCESS 2019 student before or during the program on any social media platform including but not limited to Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook (incl. Facebook Messenger) or WeChat (unless permission is provided in writing from summerschool@union.unimelb.edu.au).

● If Tutors are provided with a student’s number or email address, they must only contact them through these means for the original purpose for which these contact details were supplied to them. For example, to send additional class materials, to contact students for the role of Group Leader or Residential Tutor.

● Tutors must not share or distribute confidential information provided to them throughout the program, which can include but is not limited to student information and contact details without written permission from summerschool@union.unimelb.edu.au

● Tutors must not enter into any romantic, sexual or unreasonably close relationship with any student during the program. Why the Appropriate Communications and Relations with Students Section exists:

● To ensure that program participants’ well-being and safety can be protected in all non-physical forms of communication.

● To acknowledge that non-child safe behaviour does not always have to be physical in nature.

● To ensure the culture of the program is one that is comfortable for all participants. Section 3: Post Program guidelines – Communications and Relations with Students After the conclusion of the program, VCESS advises that tutors adhere to the following guidelines to ensure that child safety laws and appropriate conduct are upheld in line with VCESS values.

● Tutors should not actively connect with or “add” any VCESS 2019 student on any social media platform including but not limited to Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook or WeChat. Tutors may accept friend requests or connections on these platforms after the

conclusion of the program if initiated by a VCESS 2019 student.

● Tutors should not engage, tag, or react to any posts, photos or memes by students of a sexual or romantic nature, for example a student’s relationship status or memes of a romantic or sexual nature.

● Tutors must not share or distribute confidential information provided to them throughout the program, which can include but is not limited to student information and contact details without written permission from summerschool@union.unimelb.edu.au

● Tutors should not seek to maintain inappropriately close relations with students post program.

Section 4: Reporting inappropriate or unacceptable behaviour defined in Sections 1-3

of this policy Tutors should notify the Directors as soon as possible if any tutor or student acts in a way

which contradicts any area of this policy. Note: The behaviour does not have to be explicitly not child safe but could be any act

deemed to negatively affect the program culture, students and the Program’s image. A non-exhaustive list of examples which should in every case be referred to the Directors are:

● A tutor is acting in an overbearing, intense or intimidating way toward other program participants.

● A tutor has threatened another program participant. ● A tutor raises their voice at another student or tutor in a non-emergency situation. ● A tutor engaging in physical contact with another tutor whilst On Program. ● A tutor is actively trying to seek a relationship with a student. ● A student is actively trying to seek a relationship with a tutor. ● A tutor has maintained an inappropriately close relationship with a student Post

Program.

Appendix D: Quality of Teaching Survey Breakdowns Quality of Teaching average scores for the ten most highly-enrolled subjects in 2019.

Quality of Teaching Survey responses: English averages

I am satisfied with the quality of my subject booklet. 4.39

I am satisfied with the quality of my subject tutor(s). 4.40

Because of my tutor(s), I feel more prepared for the year ahead.

4.23

Quality of Teaching Survey responses: Mathematical Methods averages

I am satisfied with the quality of my subject booklet. 4.17

I am satisfied with the quality of my subject tutor(s). 4.07

Because of my tutor(s), I feel more prepared for the year ahead.

4.00

Quality of Teaching Survey responses: Chemistry averages

I am satisfied with the quality of my subject booklet. 4.28

I am satisfied with the quality of my subject tutor(s). 4.27

Because of my tutor(s), I feel more prepared for the year ahead.

4.22

Quality of Teaching Survey responses: Further Mathematics averages

I am satisfied with the quality of my subject booklet. 4.28

I am satisfied with the quality of my subject tutor(s). 4.31

Because of my tutor(s), I feel more prepared for the year ahead.

4.16

Quality of Teaching Survey responses: Biology averages

I am satisfied with the quality of my subject booklet. 4.52

I am satisfied with the quality of my subject tutor(s). 4.53

Because of my tutor(s), I feel more prepared for the year ahead.

4.38

Quality of Teaching Survey responses: Psychology averages

I am satisfied with the quality of my subject booklet. 4.51

I am satisfied with the quality of my subject tutor(s). 4.67

Because of my tutor(s), I feel more prepared for the year ahead.

4.52

Quality of Teaching Survey responses: Physics averages

I am satisfied with the quality of my subject booklet. 4.35

I am satisfied with the quality of my subject tutor(s). 4.21

Because of my tutor(s), I feel more prepared for the year ahead.

4.03

Quality of Teaching Survey responses: Legal Studies averages

I am satisfied with the quality of my subject booklet. 4.53

I am satisfied with the quality of my subject tutor(s). 4.21

Because of my tutor(s), I feel more prepared for the year ahead.

4.11

Quality of Teaching Survey responses: Specialist Mathematics averages

I am satisfied with the quality of my subject booklet. 4.58

I am satisfied with the quality of my subject tutor(s). 4.58

Because of my tutor(s), I feel more prepared for the year ahead.

4.32