Hi everyone, 

Standing as course representative for year one taught me many things throughout the year and I've taken the decision to stand again because I loved being the year's rep and I hope I could fufil the position even better this year if I am to be elected again. As course rep I attended SSLC meetings where the years' opinions were voiced and changes made in order to improve student satisfaction and in January 2020 I stood as the student rep on the Curriculum Approval Event for the School of Allied Health, where I voiced opinions on the course and its structure, in particular with regards to the Skills for Study module, which has now been adapted for the new students joining ARU.

If I am elected again I will have three main focusses for the year: the first being with communication between the lectures and students as this is a key area to which many people feel the course could be improved upon, in particular with the personal tutors and the use of tutorials are there seems to be variations in how each tutor communicates with their group. Secondly, something which I think will be highly important throughout our careers, but in particular with COVID-19 and how it has impacted our course, is mental health, looking at getting some talks (social distanced/online of course) from mental health professionals to provide information on how best we can maintain a positive mental health and how to manage when we perhaps are faced with obstacles whether that be on placement or outside of university life and by improving issues that arise within the course throughout the year to make our second year as positive as we can. The final aim is in regard to CPD events, when speaking to some of our year I think building our CPD portfolios is something that could be spoken about more and the year informed about where to find courses and what events may be held within the university by societies and through the college of paramedics, as completeting courses will be different in the coming months with the majority being online due to the impact of COVID.

Caitlin