Quality Assurance and Enhancement
Quality Assurance and Enhancement is a top priority in the School, ensuring that our teaching practices are at a high standard and continually improving.
Practice worth sharing
Practice Worth Sharing, led by Dr Deborah Holt and Dr Paul Kelly, was founded with the aim of sharing effective teaching and learning practice between Moray House School of Education and Sport staff. Fortnightly lunchtime sessions are aimed at promoting discussion and sharing advice on practice that has worked well. These are open to all staff and PhD students involved with teaching in the School, whether academic, support, technical or professional services staff.
We are proud our work in Practice Worth Sharing was recognised with the CAHSS Engagement Champion Award.
Achievements celebrated in College awards
Quality and standards
Quality and standards in UK Higher Education are overseen by an independent body called the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA). In Scotland, responsibilities are devolved to QAA Scotland, whose distinctive approach features 'Enhancement Led Institutional Reviews' and 'Enhancement Themes'.
The University of Edinburgh adheres to the QAA’s UK Quality Code for Higher Education. This set of expectations enables us to safeguard our academic standards while improving student learning opportunities.
Moray House School of Education and Sport's practices articulate with the University of Edinburgh's Quality Assurance structure and processes.
Our University’s quality assurance structure and processes
How we assure and enhance quality
At Moray House School of Education and Sport we gather information on teaching and learning through four principal channels.
- Student Views, through course evaluations and Staff Student Liaison Committees (SSLCs) and student survey
- Staff Views, through course monitoring and annual programme monitoring / reviewing
- External Examiner views, through their annual reports
- Teaching Programme Reviews (TPRs) and Postgraduate Programme Reviews (PPRs), which are formal, periodic reviews involving a panel comprised of external examiners, staff from other parts of the University, and current students
- Quality Assurance and Enhancement In addition to working with student reps, the Director of Quality Assurance and Enhancement offers drop in sessions for Course Organisers and Programme Directors. These are opportunities for our COs and PDs to drop in to ask questions, make suggestions/share good ideas or request support for any of the QA processes on their programme or course. No appointment necessary. For latest dates contact the Quality Team.
Some programmes are also accredited by professional / statutory bodies.
Further to the above mechanisms for assuring the quality of teaching and learning, there are other ways that staff and students contribute to improving practice. For example:
- Individual student views are always welcomed by course organisers and programme directors
- Programme Reps gather views on behalf of the cohorts they represent and feed these back to programme directors
- Student Staff Liaison Committee meetings
- The School’s Quality Assurance and Enhancement Committee (SQAEC) - comprises of a range of staff and student representatives who work together on such items as the School's annual QAE report
College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences' Quality Assurance and Enhancement
Annual report
The four priorities for 2021-2022 identified through the 2021 Quality Assurance and Enhancement annual report were:
- Continue to prioritise staffing.
- Continue to improve initiatives from the Co-ordinator of Accessible Learning with members of staff, and to improve the number of students with disabilities receiving support or information rom the new Disability Contact role in the school. Enhance the School strategy to ensure there are no barriers to including all students.
- Continue our focus on student wellbeing and community building. Developments for 2021/22 will be: rolling out training for personal tutors on the school escalation procedures; developing procedures for support of students on a repeat year or returning for authorised interruption of study; developing methods of gathering student feedback on personal tutoring; and we also hope to run ASIST suicide intervention training for staff; beginning to prepare for the move to the new university-wide student support system. We will build on the work of the community intern and the student rep/champions intern to work further towards enhancing students' sense of belonging to the School and develop further the reach and impact of initiatives introduced in 2020/21 to support students.
- Student Voice. Continue to enhance our SV processes, including roll out of new School SV policy. We need to build on the work of the student voice intern and focus on developing students’ awareness and understanding of SV. This includes reviewing our approaches to student communication and student voice. To build on momentum in terms of student community.
Read the report in full from our School's Annual Quality Assurance and Enhancement (QAE) Report.
Quality Assurance and Enhancement on the staff intranet
Quality Assurance and Enhancement staff intranet pages
Contact us
The Director of Quality Assurance and Enhancement at Moray House is Dr Deborah Holt. She welcomes your questions and comments regarding quality assurance and enhancement.
If you are a student who wishes to lodge a formal complaint or appeal to a body outwith the School of Education, please contact Academic Services.