University of Bristol TEF 2023 result
Nicole Antoine, your Undergraduate Education Officer, explains the TEF, the University’s result, and why SU involvement is and continues to be so important.
The Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) is a national scheme run by Office for Students which assesses and rates universities and colleges for excellence above a set of minimum requirements for quality and standards over the previous four years. Providers that take part receive an overall rating which lasts for four years, alongside an underpinning rating for student experience, and one for student outcomes.
There is an opportunity for students to submit their views on the quality of their educational experience and outcomes through a student submission. This was coordinated by Bristol SU to help represent your academic interests, and accompanied the University’s submission. I was the lead student representative and also held a seat on the University’s TEF steering group.
We reviewed a huge amount of data from the last four years and focused on three themes where the University is below, or significantly below benchmark. The themes were student voice, academic support, and assessment and feedback. We also worked with 20 students to undertake in depth interviews over three days to explore these themes more – especially related to international students and disabled students.
Bristol retained its Silver ranking in the TEF 2023. The University’s Student Experience was deemed to be “typically very high quality” and was awarded Silver, while its Student Outcomes were judged to be “typically outstanding”, for which it was awarded Gold.
It’s great that Bristol has retained its silver rating and that we can celebrate the excellent work happening across the University.
We hope that our submission can support the university to think proactively about the areas of improvement still needed and we look forward to working collaboratively with the university to address this.
Partnership with the SU is critical to improving the student experience, and student voice and representation is crucial in enabling the University to succeed. We will continue to lobby and influence on the areas we highlighted in our TEF submission, making sure students academic interests are at the heart of what we do.
Academic Experience is one of our collective officer priorities so you can expect to hear more about the progress we make in this space throughout the year.
