Dear all 
I'm sending this again so that you can all see that it is a 'bare bones'
description of what happens here, the purpose of which was to share the
management system we have in place to ensure fairness for all including
the support workers.

I am sorry I didn't add flesh and have ruffled feathers. 

It would be easy to refuse to apply a system and not monitor the
situation for each student. Often if a student is beginning to disengage
there is a reason which can be about their learning, not just the
disability, in that instance it is important that the people who are
responsible for their learning - the tutors- are aware. If we were to
'cover up' by sending in support workers the real reason for the
absences might never be known, the student misses out on the learning
experience and fails or gets poor grades, not desireable from anyone's
point of view!

Of course the individual students circumstances are taken into
consideration, of course there is discussion about the cause of absence,
frequency, prognosis for the year etc etc. What I am keen to do is to
encourage the student and their tutors to maintain the relationship they
are here for , to be taught and to have an equitable experience. What we
are not here for is to encourage dependency and in doing so disable the
student further by encouraging them to withdraw from class contact. It's
a very fine line to tread, anyone who knows me on this list - and over
the past ten years there ought to be some knowledge here - will be
laughing to think that I have been described as heavy handed! But my
shoulders are broad and I have been called worse (and the opposite!)

Students have been involved in the design of the support here at every
stage, they have the opportunity to request individual notetakers they
feel they work well with and reject ones they don't work well with. They
are also entirely free to organise their own support but I do try to
discourage this as they have enough to do being a disabled student in HE
- I know I was one!
 
Good to see that ther are so many new keen advocates for disabled
students, I welcome it, and interesting to see the knee jerk response
stills works here so well!

Now I must go and brow beat a few more disabled students into to-ing my
corporate line so do excuse me!
:)
Chris

-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion list for disabled students and their support staff.
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Baxter, Chris
Sent: 11 January 2005 16:22
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: payment for missed tutorials/lectures


You do need to have a management system in operation to ensure you do
not allow 'no shows' to push the students bill high. At NTU we have a
'three strikes and you're out ' rule for each notetaking session that a
student should attend, if they fail to attend three in a row we remove
the support for that session, if there are problems within the session
the student really needs to deal with them with the academic staff and
should not get notes taken in absence (which is something we rarely do
and has to have 'good grounds' for).

For dyslexia support the rule is two strikes and you're out...vital
expensive resources that we can't afford to waste on students who don't
turn up and don't tell us why. All the above is written into guidelines
which students have a copy of at the start of the year.

Since operating in this way we have seen abuse of the support
workers/tutors diminish and the system seems fairer all round.

Hope this helps

Chris Baxter 
Disability Service Co-ordinator 
The Nottingham Trent University 
Burton Street 
Nottingham 
NG1 4BU 

0115 8486163 voice and minicom

[log in to unmask] 
www.ntu.ac.uk/sss/disability/index.html 
[log in to unmask] 

 

 

 



-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion list for disabled students and their support staff.
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Michael Trott
Sent: 10 January 2005 17:50
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: payment for missed tutorials/lectures


This was discussed at QAG and there was some advice but I can't recall
what it was. I THINK it was that the DSA could pay for 3 missed sessions
but it might have been more. This is probably less of a problem with
dyslexia tuition than with more intensive support. It might be in the
guidelines on the DfES website.

Mick Trott

In a message dated 10/01/05 11:56:18 GMT Standard Time,
[log in to unmask]
writes:

<< payment for missed tutorials/lecturesDear Kirsty. I gather this is an
issue where LEA procedures and employment law clashes. We ve been told
that casual tutors would be paid for a month after a student decides to
leave (with or without notice) as we will need to give them a month
notice. Leas, apparently, would not be happy to pay for sessions the
student did not attend so Universities would have to pick up the costs.
Pls let me know if you have any news that refute the above positions.
Regards, Andy
   ----- Original Message -----
   From: Kirsty Mackenzie
   To: [log in to unmask]
   Sent: Thursday, December 23, 2004 2:09 PM
   Subject: payment for missed tutorials/lectures


   Hi all,



   Apologies for going over old ground, but I've done a quick search in
the dis-forum archives and failed to find anything conclusive...

   Can anyone advise of the DfES line on LEAs paying for booked
note-taking or learning support sessions the student didn't attend (for
reasons not relating to their disability)?

   Now that we send LEAs student-signed timesheets when we invoice for
DSA-funded support it will be clear which were attended and which not,
so obviously we want to make sure we're getting it right, and know
exactly how much notice should be given in order for the support worker
not to claim... Also, is there an upper limit on the number of missed
sessions the LEA should fund?

   All the best,

   Kirsty >>


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Nottingham Trent University has taken steps to ensure that this email and any attachments are virus-free, but we do advise that the recipient should check that the email and its attachments are actually virus free.  This is in keeping with good computing practice.