WAPTE winners

As the personal tutor for the Computer Science PGCE students, Jonty provides an outstanding level of commitment to their professional learning.

Jonty enables students to transition between subject disciplines (Computer Science and Education) and make the step up to Masters’ level writing.

Jonty has also made a significant contribution to championing more authentic and inclusive modes of assessment on the PGCE course. Jonty also draws on personal experiences to support students with emotional well-being in the challenging context of early career teaching as well as signposting students to university support where relevant.

Jonty has worked for a number of years as a mentor to new colleagues within the department, particularly those with no prior HEI teaching experience.

Jonty has also worked to enrich his tutoring through wider engagement across the university community, for example through public outreach events and engagement with national subject associations to support the community of practice that our students enter on gaining employment in schools.

The Primary PGCE course makes significant demands on students, both in terms of stepping up in academic level to Masters work, and in the resilience needed to work successfully with primary age pupils. As Deputy Senior Tutor for CTE, Sally managed the additional support given to students with an individual support plan. This entails providing an additional level of support to students based on the need for reasonable adjustment.

Sally champions a respectful and caring approach to tutoring among the tutor team in CTE more widely. Sally is an exemplary role model for new colleagues in CTE supporting the transition from primary to adult education.

Sally is also co-leading work to develop more inclusive practices in teacher education at Warwick. With the department lead, Sally is developing stronger relationships with the University occupational health and disability services to provide more effective and targeted adjustments to students with disabilities to enable them to flourish in a school environment.

Sally is instrumental in embedding student voice in self-identifying the need for additional support, developing more accessible and inclusive access to academic support and producing resources to encourage early disclosure of additional needs to allow for more targeted and effective support.

David has an overarching focus on inclusion, including around Widening Participation, and he has played a central role in embedding relevant approaches within the personal tutor system in Philosophy.

David is an exceptional personal tutor who consistently goes above and beyond what is required of him. He very regularly meets with his personal tutees and provides them with excellent support around academic, pastoral, and career matters. He also inspires them to develop academically by discussing their philosophical interests with them and taking an active interest in their development as philosophers. He has an excellent knowledge of the various sources of support available to students around the University, and signposts very effectively, also regularly advising other personal tutors.

During the 2023–24 academic year, David chaired the Philosophy Department’s Equality and Welfare Committee, which included sensitively handling student concerns and supportively relaying them to personal tutors. David’s concerns in the area of personal tutoring are focused on inclusiveness, and his roles in advising and supporting personal tutors in Philosophy have included work developing trans inclusive practice, support and guidance around support for students with disabilities, and developing a departmental strategy around Widening Participation, including attention to challenges around belonging, and the role of the personal tutor system in helping us to meet those challenges.

Eloise has been a visible advocate for the importance of student wellbeing, learning the names of all 200 students in the cohort. Eloise has consistently been involved in projects around diversity and inclusion in the School, including a welcome event for disabled students, cost of living projects and active work to reduce the awarding gaps in the School. Eloise has also contributed to the anti-racism module in the School. Aware of the need to provide regular updates to personal tutors, Eloise created a single Teams space for personal tutors to access information and news updates. Eloise has been active in the development of personal tutor coffee mornings to share practice and issues relevant to the student body and in 2019 launched the Clinical Teaching Fellows Network to provide an opportunity for clinical teachers to demonstrate innovative teaching. Eloise is also a proud judge of the Warwick Doctor Awards, recognising the importance of humility and kindness in students. Eloise has had a significant impact on the student learning experience through her work on personal tutoring. As one student noted, ‘Eloise has been incredibly supportive and informative, going above and beyond and it's been incredibly appreciated.’ Congratulations Eloise!

Rebecca seeks to provide regular and proactive contact with personal tutees, offering the space to meet and listen to students. Indeed, as one student said, ‘Becky never makes me feel like I am disturbing her, and always takes time to talk things through with me.’ Rebecca emphasises the need to develop meaningful relationships with students and to establish boundaries in the personal tutor role. As the Widening Participation lead for the department, Rebecca understands the importance of belonging to students and helps to foster this sense of belonging through her proactive approach. Rebecca founded a student peer mentoring scheme to improve student support mechanisms in her department. Rebecca has also sought to support and develop other personal tutors in the department including through sharing her personal tutoring approach. One colleague noted that Rebecca ‘has answered questions about confidentiality, advised me when an issue should be escalated to the senior tutor, explained support mechanisms, and signposted me to relevant structures in the university’. Rebecca’s support for students and staff, embedded in the importance of belonging and building community, was a common theme of her nominations for the award. Congratulations Rebecca!

Deborah developed a module in CTE which enables trainee teachers to take ownership of their own professional development. This approach encourages students and mentors in the department to work together to ensure students make the best use of their time on placement.

Deborah has led on liaising with central services to open these up to non-traditional students, especially PGCE students whose working lives may not correspond to the ‘typical’ Warwick student. In addition to providing excellent individual support to students, Deborah has also led on a research project designed to improve student workload in the department and has actively supported colleagues with how to approach personal tutoring.

Deborah designed a personal tutor information sheet to help to frame personal tutor meetings in the department and has placed an emphasis on supporting all students to achieve their best outcomes, including through tailored support for English as an Additional Language students. One personal tutee commended Deborah for her always ‘wanting the best for the tutees under her wing.’ Congratulations Deborah!

Gioia was Senior Tutor for GSD from 2018-2021. As department Senior Tutor, Gioia took pride in working with personal tutors to provide the best support for students developing a GSD Personal Tutor handbook which is tailored to the GSD curriculum.

Gioia describes her main objective as a personal tutor ‘to empower my students to accomplish their academic objectives, as well as their wider plans beyond university’.

Her commitment to encouraging students to work towards independence, building on their existing skillsets, has led her to undertake a one-year part-time postgraduate certificate in Coaching, to enable her to develop materials and resources to share elements of coaching with colleagues and students.

Gemma was recognised for her welcoming and inclusive approach to personal tutoring. She engages with tutees pre-arrival through a Padlet, introducing herself and encouraging students to do the same, an approach which she has shared with other personal tutors in her department. She encourages tutees to be honest about areas they find difficult and has developed a series of skills support sessions for students in the department to support essay writing and general academic skills advice.

Through her work on supporting disabled students, Gemma adopts a person-centred approach, appreciating the individual impact that a disability can have, and providing reassurance and guidance on approaching academic work with this in mind. Her experienced supporting students has led to an IATL-funded project exploring the experiences of students with Long Covid and/or chronic illness, with the view to creating supportive resources, both for students and their personal tutors.

Bryan’s commitment to fostering the “growth needs” of the student, through an inclusive and supportive approach is appreciated by his tutees and contributes to student success.

Building on this approach, Bryan has developed a range of video content for new students in Welcome Week, and co-created with students a Study Skills and Community Moodle page, providing support for assessments, skills development, and helpful resources across the entire course.

As Senior Tutor, he champions personal tutoring excellence at the departmental level by encouraging the development of his peers. An example of this was an away day that he led for colleagues in collaboration with Wellbeing Services and the Faculty Senior Tutor to encourage staff to reflect on successes and challenges in the personal tutor role and to learn how to better facilitate conversations around wellbeing.

In this role, she has shown her commitment to personal tutoring and supporting students through the development of new departmental mitigating circumstances webpages, tailoring personal tutor meeting forms to each cohort and setting workload models for Year Tutors.

Amira is dedicated to student wellbeing and has introduced, in collaboration with the pastoral team, daily pastoral drop-in sessions and the design of a student welfare survey. These contributions have improved the department’s NSS scores for academic support provision.

This commitment has led to Amira’s role informing departmental decision-making on academic and pastoral support provision. She has actively brought forward solutions such as developing videos and guidance on successful study routines and habits to improve engagement during online learning.

Michael has since strengthened the undergraduate community by helping to establish a weekly ‘Physics Café’, regular staff student lunches, and a finalist event.

As the sole Senior Tutor for the Department, Michael supports over 700 undergraduates and 50 tutors, and oversees the tutorial system. His devotion to student welfare and progress is widely recognised by colleagues, including through his involvement in the Physics Welfare and Communication Group, the SSLC, and the Mitigating Circumstances Committee.

With eight years of experience as an English for Academic Purposes Tutor and Teaching Fellow, Cleo is acutely aware of the challenges that international students face when arriving at Warwick. This experience has allowed her to become a role model for her colleagues and an important source of pastoral and academic support for students.

Cleo has supported students with complex issues ranging from severe mental health issues, immigration problems, grief and stigma surrounding neurodivergence. As well as supporting Personal Tutors, Cleo co-runs a peer mentoring scheme which allows alumni studying at undergraduate level to support current foundation students, which has received positive feedback from students and the WIHEA peer mentoring learning circle.

Cleo has also supported student wellbeing through setting up a new Moodle support page on wellbeing issues, organising live events and creating audio visual guides to help students understand the University Mitigating Circumstances policy.

Through this role, Nigel has helped to ensure the sharing of good personal tutoring practice, supporting both staff and students in the School of Engineering as well as his home department WMG.

He takes a leading role in student induction and encouraging students to engage with the support and opportunities available at Warwick from the start of their degrees.

Nigel has a particularly strong focus on employability and has developed strong links between the Careers Team and Personal Tutors to help students develop their career choices and work on CVs and personal statements. He organises Professional Body talks for students every year and actively encourages students to engage with their future profession and commit to becoming responsible professional engineers.

Tilly works closely with colleagues to build personal tutoring for their undergraduate provision. Tilly’s clear commitment to personal tutoring and building community is recognised by staff and students alike, and is reflected in metrics such as NSS scores.

Her approach combines pastoral support, an emphasis on social integration in the department and university communities, and academic and professional development for all students.

Tilly has a deep understanding of support available in and outside the university, which she uses to guide students and works collaboratively with services to enable all students to perform to the peak of their abilities without compromising their overall wellbeing.

Amongst her colleagues and students, Tilly is known as the ‘heart and soul’ for community cohesion and wellbeing initiatives and colleagues in the department acknowledge her consistently excellent contribution.

Julie has a hugely positive impact on students through her leadership of the programme and her facilitation of the experiences which students have in schools. Her awareness of the diverse needs of students, many of whom are career changers, has led her to develop a range of personalised provision opportunities for the students, including professional practice support and academic writing workshops and she works proactively in collaboration with a range of support services to co-lead tailored sessions.

Sessions are supplemented with a carefully planned 1:1 tutorial programme and regular drop-ins for additional support throughout the PGCE year. As Primary Mentoring Lead for CTE, Julie has worked in partnership with schools to support school-based mentors to transition from traditional mentoring to a coaching approach, with positive impacts for students and staff.

Student feedback is impressively positive and welcoming, including requests from students whose ‘home department’ is not SMLC for access to their provision.

David’s grasp of the scope of the role and of students’ and colleagues’ needs is excellent, as is his sense of how best to share out workloads and focus specialist knowledge, leading to a stellar support programme for students.

He has achieved this through a three-part approach: personal tutoring on an everyday basis, development of personal tutoring practice in the Modern Languages department, and development of personal tutoring practice across the University.

Leanne’s work included the use of focus groups and surveys to identify core learning needs that aid the students to adjust from A-level to Year 1 UG and from Y1 to Y2.

This work has had a significant impact on support and tutoring, resulting in additional pastoral tutor support and training, a personal tutor toolkit, as well as the development and implementation of Science 101; a module that helps students develop core learning skills that are essential for their studies.

This work has been lauded both internally by students and staff, and nationally by the Royal Society of Biology and the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance (AQA).

Students need and value friendly support to help them identify their strengths and make the adjustment to university life. Zahra’s approach positions personal tutoring as an essential conduit, guiding students through the plentiful support which is available, and encouraging them to make the most of every opportunity.

As Head of Department, Zahra has led on implementing the new Personal Tutoring Framework, working closely with colleagues to renew the department's existing procedures and supporting staff in implementing them, to put student wellbeing at the heart of Classics’ provision.