Holding sessions

In holding sessions, the personal supervisor is responsible for:

• scheduling two meetings per supervisee in each of Semesters 1 and 2 for all taught UG and PGT students;
• offering at least one meeting per semester on an in-person and individual basis: the other meeting in the semester can be delivered on an individual or group basis and may be conducted virtually (e.g. over Zoom);
• holding meetings for approximately 15 minutes;
• scheduling personal supervision meetings over the summer if required by their department / school to meet the requirements of the Student Academic Engagement and Wellbeing policy;
• keeping a record of meetings in e:Vision, with records made not later than two weeks after the scheduled meeting.

Guidance on holding sessions

1. Meetings and communication

There is no expectation that personal supervisors will be available at times outside normal working hours, or that you will schedule more than two meetings per semester. To ensure students are clear about the limits of the personal supervisor role it is useful for you to:

• consider the appropriate timing of scheduled meetings to take account of anticipated student needs such as timing of assessments or feedback;
• explain how students can contact you outside of scheduled meetings, for example by using the ‘office hours’ system;
• set appropriate expectations about email responses and be mindful of department/school arrangements for this;
• make use of ‘out of office’ notifications and inclusion of emergency support links for students in crisis outside of normal working hours. Your department may have a standard template for out of office emails, if this is not the case you should insert the following text into your out of office email:
  
  “Students: If you need wellbeing support, contact Open Door on opendoor@york.ac.uk; or if you are in York and experiencing a mental health crisis or feel you are at risk of harming yourself please contact the NHS Crisis Team on 0800 0516 171 or see our In crisis now web page for more information: york.ac.uk/students/health/crisis”

2. Content for sessions

Personal supervisors are uniquely placed to support the whole student journey, from arrival and induction to graduation. To ensure session content is appropriate and timely it might be useful for you to:

• share your experience and expectations of personal supervision with supervisees early on;
• be mindful of where your supervisee is in their academic ‘journey’ and what might be expected of them at this point; 
• build rapport with your supervisees by asking about their life outside York and their academic interests - finding things in common can help put students at ease;
• have some regular check-in topics for each session such as academic progress; personal wellbeing; non-academic activities or future plans so that supervisees know what to expect each time you meet.

It is not expected that all of the check-in topics will be covered in depth at every meeting and the areas of focus and level of depth will depend on the needs of individual students and will differ depending on the level of study and the time of year. Your department/school might provide checklists that you can use as a prompt for sessions.

3. Keeping records

Personal supervision sessions should be recorded in e:Vision as part of the University’s Student Engagement and Wellbeing Policy. There are three elements to keeping records you should be aware of:

a. Recording attendance

The minimum requirement is for student attendance at a scheduled meeting to be recorded on e:Vision as part of the Student Engagement and Wellbeing Policy. This must be done within two weeks of the meeting (preferably on the day the meeting takes place). Please note that the record created in e:Vision is now integrated with the Check-In system, providing a complete overview of student engagement. It is, therefore, important that personal supervision sessions are recorded promptly and accurately.

b. Keeping notes

Detailed notes are not necessary, but recording key points from discussions can be a really useful way to keep track of student progress and allows for a much smoother transition to a ‘new’ or ‘temporary’ supervisor. Remember, though, that these notes won’t notify or flag any issues to any other support services. You will need to do that separately.

c. Follow-up action

Being clear about any follow-up action you have taken is essential, especially where students are experiencing difficulties or you have referred them on to specialised services.