Dudley Students’ Union is relatively rare in the FE sector in terms of its autonomous structures and truly learner led approach. Headed up this year by Sabbatical President, Kelly Russell, she has been one in a list of inspirational and hard working Presidents over the last 7 years since a sabbatical role was introduced.

Over that 7 year period the SU has transformed from an NUS Extra Card/Student party one stop shop to

a strong representational organisation that students recognise as ‘their Students’ Union’ consistently advocating on their behalf for an ever improved student experience at Dudley and delivering on their behalf, most importantly with them including them in the journey.

So the vision has been a union working hard for members, representing members and including members. Which on paper sounds simple and what all unions should be about but the reality to achieve a union which encompasses all of these things is and has been a challenge, and will continue to be a challenge but we’ve made massive progress over the last year to realising it.

At the centre of any decision we make we ask ourselves does this support us in achieving our vision, which in itself has been tremendously helpful in empowering us to support members to make decisions based on a common direction.

We recognise our breadth of stakeholders not only students studying at our college and staff but also local community organisations and other students within our borough, we also include parents as stakeholders which we have recognised since working with more students from an LDD background. It is clear to us that strong relationship with our college and sixth form are vitally important. Having strong relationships with college management is really key in being able to support the needs of our members and represent them effectively.

We have a number of organisations that we partner with including local charitys, the youth service, youth council, trade unions, campaign groups, MP’s and so on whom over this past year we’ve been able to do some really fantastic work with.

Yearly planning starts with elected executive manifestos, the executive team takes time to develop individual action plans based on their promises to the electorate. This is reflected against the unions key performance indicator plan triangulated with the learner involvement strategy (which the union wrote and monitor termly). The Executive are held accountable to the members every term at Council. The Exec also table motions to ensure member buy in for campaigning and decision making. We moved away from a once weekly meeting of the exec to a once monthly meeting, allowing for at least one training session and two activity sessions in between meets which we have found to be more beneficial in achieving goals.

We are very proud of the strong level of honesty and accountability maintained throughout our processes in obtaining student feedback. The SU are responsible for all areas of learner led student representation including the class rep system. From training reps to facilitating and minuting meetings to following up on cross college actions and ensuring that actions are followed up in a timely manner by management. We find that learners having ownership of the systems rather than management or staff is key. We have seen an inflated number of complaints through the office this year that we have supported students to mediate with the college on and resolve disputes. Even staff direct students to the SU for support with grievances.

This has definitely been the most successful year in engaging and involving more members than ever. There have been a number of ways in which learner voice has manifested as more central to Dudley students lives, demonstrated by involvement and awareness. For the first time all executive posts were filled and stayed filled for the full academic year, which included the creation of 3 additional posts for Campus reps which reflected the changes to the college structures. 189 reps were formally trained and a further 171 took up deputy positions. This was an increase from the previous 3 years where the total numbers of main and deputy reps peaked at only 250.

Student Council saw a turnout of 98 reps in the first term which was an amazing accomplishment as previously numbers have always been 50 and below.

In the recent college OFsted inspection the Students’ Union and their role in supporting strong learner voice mechanisms was identified as ‘outstanding. Managers and staff have an excellent record of listening carefully to learners and acting on the views to promote improvement. Learners’ representation is an impressive feature’.

There have been a number of successful learner led clubs including an LGBT group and ‘We Socialise Too’ LDD group. The Union have worked hard to be as inclusive of all members of possible and have achieved this through a wider variety of trips and activities, relevant campaigns and a focus on underrepresented and liberation groups.

The SU ran an extremely successful campaign in partnership with the TUC around youth unemployment in the Black Country which attracted national attention and culminated in a Youth Unemployment Summit where MP’s, Councillors, Trade union officials and members of the community came to debate related issues including work experience, job guarantees and advice and guidance. We have also campaigned on No2FEFees, Bring back EMA and AOC No free lunch campaign. We’ve emailed lobbied, face to face lobbied and submitted petitions to 22 different MP’s over the academic year. Dudley SU have a strong background in campaigning and we are proud of the work we do in this area.

The key and most relevant way the Union is contributing to the student experience is by ensuring that we put members’ needs first and we are not compromised by the college in doing so. It’s taken us a long time to build up the level of respect from students, staff and management to achieve this but we are now there and this has supported the major increase in involvement.