What is the Lord Rootes Fund Reflection?

The Lord Rootes Fund reflection is your opportunity to celebrate your successes and reflect on your learning and establish the legacy of your project. A submission of a satisfactory reflection is required to release the final 20% of your award.

What is the purpose of the reflection?

Each project of the Lord Rootes Fund encourages self-discovery, exploration, and self-development. Having the opportunity to document your journey and reflect on your learnings is incredibly important to demonstrate the skills you have learned during your time. It is also a great asset to share with prospective employers to ‘show not tell’ your capabilities, and to add your project to your professional portfolio.

How should I produce my reflection?

You can choose how to produce your reflection. We recommend producing it in a way that makes sense for the industry you’re looking to enter. If you’re an aspiring filmmaker, submitting a reflective video essay would be highly recommended. If you’re looking to break into the world of design, a case study would be recommended, and so on.

If you are producing a visual reflection (film, presentation, etc) we do recommend producing a supplementary written report to ensure that all points are covered as part of your reflection. If you are not sure what is the best format for your reflection, please feel free to come along to a drop-in session or book a 1:1 with a member of the team.

Do you provide a template for the reflection?

We don’t provide a template for the reflection, as we want each reflection to be personal to you and unique as each project. However, we do provide guiding principles down below that your report should cover.

What are the guiding principles of the reflection?

While there is no one single way to produce a reflection, below are some guiding principles that should help schedule and navigate

Provide a brief overview of your original project proposal

The committee haven’t seen your project since you first applied for the fund, so it is best practice to establish context and explain what you initially set out to achieve, including how long you were planning on the duration of the course and what actions you were planning on taking. Even if the project you intended to delivery is slightly different from your final delivery that is totally fine! You can expand on this in greater detail later.

What did you do as part of the project?

This is where you tell us what you did as part of the project. What are the actions that you took and how long did each action take? As part of this, why did you make the decisions you made, and why did you take the actions that you did? Make sure to explain how long you spent on each task, as projects can vary in length substantially.

What are some of the areas that went well? What are some of the skills that you developed through this process?

This is your opportunity to celebrate the areas that went well as part of the project. What are some of the skills you found you were strong at? What is something that pleasantly surprised you? Was your project well received? Remember, it is important to talk about the success of the project but to also talk about the personal success you enjoyed, linking it back to the self-development aims of the Lord Rootes Fund.

What are some of the areas that didn’t go well or didn’t go as intended? How did you pivot your project in response? How did you adjust your project to accommodate?

As well as celebrating successes, it is important to recognise the challenges that came up, and how you overcame them. What was harder than you first thought? How did you overcome this challenge? What are the skills and behaviours that you demonstrated to overcome these challenges?

If you didn’t overcome the challenge, how did you pivot the project to match your understanding of the problem? Remember, it is okay that your project may be slightly different in its goals and outputs than what you originally proposed, as long as you are detailing why you pivoted and in what direction you pivoted.

What have you learned as part of the project?

What have you learned about yourself? How have you developed as an individual? What are the skills, behaviours, and attitudes you have practiced and developed within the project? We want to learn how you have developed as an individual and what you have learned throughout the duration of your project (if you find yourself using the word ‘I’ lots, you’re on the right track)!

What is the legacy of the project? What are you going to do next?

An important part of the Lord Rootes Fund is inspiring action for future generations, both for you taking up further action and inspiring others to do the same. How are you going to carry on with your project beyond the fund? Are you going to use this project to move into your desired career? Alternatively, if you have decided that you want to do something else or want to pursue a different career as a result, tell us! Think about how you might leave the door open for other students to take similar action.

Financial Statement

Let us know how you have spent the award and what you have spent it on. For large purchases, please include receipts removing any card information or other personal details.

Visuals

Show us some pictures! We love seeing what students do during their time, so make sure to include photos and or videos of what you got up to during your project!

How do I make my reflection stronger?

Below are some top tips that you can utilise to strengthen your reflection. It is important to consider these things while writing.

Make it personal to you

The Lord Rootes Fund project should highlight your achievement and unique contribution to the world, and your reflection should do the same. Feel free to experiment with a voice and medium that feels authentic to you, with the guiding principles helping establish the type of content.

Remember your audience

Your content should be accessible to a non-specific audience. This means that your project should be understood by an individual not in your field. Where possible, remove or explain acronyms and key concepts related to your project. Communicate in the active voice where possible.

Utilise the S.T.A.R method to structure your answers

The S.T.A.R method is a popular way of highlighting the behaviours and actions that you took and what was the impact in each situation. Each letter of the acronym stands for a specific part of constructing your answer.

S – Situation (10%)

This is where you provide background context for your project and the specific moment you want to reflect on.

T – Task (10%)

What was it that you set out to do? This bridges the gap between the wider context (established in the situation) and what you were doing.

A – Action (60%)

This is the chunk of your response. Tell us what you did. What was the timeline? What conclusions did you draw? What actions did you take? Who else did you get support from?

R – Result (20%)

What was the consequence of the action that you took? Is this quantifiable? If the action didn’t lead to the desired response, explain why.

During this section, you may also wish to include an in the future section. This demonstrates how the action that you have historically taken will determine the action that you take in the future, thus showing how you have learned from your project.

Utilise self-reflection and metacognition

These are two concepts that are often linked together but are two separate things. Self-reflection is the process of thinking about your own thoughts, actions, feelings, and behaviours. Comparatively, metacognition is the ability to think about one’s own thought process, as well as thinking about how one approaches and understands the world around them.

Both our useful components as self-reflection allows you to understand your own thoughts and feelings and learn more about how you have developed and grown during your time. Metacognition, on the other hand, can help you learn about other potential strategies to explore and how you think about approaching a problem.

How long should my reflection be?

There is no established length since the medium can be different. It should also reflect your career ambitions of what a prospective employer would like to see in a portfolio. As a guiding principle, most reports are 3,000 words and above. For videos, they are typically 5 minutes and above.

Can I do more than one medium?

Of course! However, do make sure you’re not mistaking quantity for quality. A clear and concise single report is more effective than multiple mediums that repeats content. The important point is that you’re hitting all the guiding principles above and deeply reflecting on your learning.

Do I need to do a written piece?

If you are doing a non-written piece, it is generally recommended to have a supporting document that covers all the guiding principles above, if any are missed out in the non-written report.

How much of the money do I need to have spent?

By the time you are reflecting, you should have spent all the awarded funding or near to it as possible. If you still have large amounts of funds, the committee will withhold the remaining 20% until the full amount has been spent.

How do I submit my report?

I still have questions, what should I do?

If you still have further questions, please feel free to reach out at rootesfund@warwick.ac.uk or book a 1:1 via our Innovation Community.