Helping Students Have the Best Time OUR STRATEGIC PLAN 2022 - 2025
Our Purpose WHY ARE WE HERE?
We are your students’ union. We are here for you. We are on your side. We’ll champion you, support you and help you to realise your potential. Our top priority is making sure students at the University of Reading have the best time.
Our Vision
WHAT DO WE WANT TO BE? We are a strong, inclusive and dynamic Students’ Union that is central to the student experience. We are always innovating – ensuring students have the opportunity to be active members of the students’ union and the wider community. We will achieve our vision by delivering services for students and by empowering them to do things for themselves. As a student-led, independent charity, students are at the heart of all our activity. All of the money that is spent in RUSU is reinvested back into the services we provide. We will focus on building communities, facilitating opportunities and harnessing the collective voice of students to effect positive change.
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Our Values
WHAT IS IMPORTANT TO US AND HOW WE DO THINGS
V3: INCLUSIVE We seek to challenge inequalities and create diverse spaces, activities and services that are accessible for all students from all backgrounds. V1: STUDENT-LED We put students at the heart of everything we do, they shape our work and we empower them to improve their experience.
V2: PURPOSEFUL We are bold, principled and strive to be a force for good. We are relentlessly focused on students and are not afraid to challenge the status quo.
V4: SUSTAINABLE We will champion sustainability in all that we do and harness opportunities to collectively make a difference.
V5: ACCOUNTABLE We will ensure that we are transparent and fair in what we say and do. Democracy drives us. We will be honest when we get things wrong and always seek to learn from each other.
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Our Strategic Themes WHAT WILL WE FOCUS ON?
S1: BEING THE VOICE OF STUDENTS We will ensure an effective voice on the issues facing students and harness the collective power we have to achieve positive change. 1. Improve the academic experience 2. Campaign on the key issues impacting students 3. Proactively seek the voices of underrepresented groups and provide a challenge to shape the work of your students’ union and the University 4. Utilise research and evidence to support our representatives and to develop our representative structures
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S2: SUPPORTING STUDENTS TO SUCCEED We want to help students on their journey. We do this through providing support, advice, employment and personal development opportunities. 1. Supporting and advocating for students through our advice service – both via direct casework and through supporting changes to policies and practice 2. Prioritise enhancing the physical and mental health of students 3. Provide worthwhile developmental opportunities for students and student leaders 4. Prioritise students in all our employment opportunities, making them partners in our delivery
S3: CREATING A SENSE OF BELONGING AND COMMUNITY We will facilitate opportunities for students to come together and encourage participation in our activity. It takes time to feel part of a community and we recognise our role in helping make this happen in an inclusive way. 1. Broaden our offer and increase student engagement in student groups 2. Connect more students with Reading and the surrounding areas, through a revised volunteering and community engagement offer 3. Support the development of academic community, through the growth of academic and academic related societies 4. Develop a stronger sense of community in halls of residence and develop the relationship between halls and the students’ union
S4: MAKING UNIVERSITY LIFE FUN We want to ensure students have the best time here at Reading, making memories for life. 1. Provide space and opportunities for students to meet, have fun and build friendships through safe and inclusive social events across the academic year 2. Work with students and student groups to create a diverse programme of activities and sport 3. Upgrade our spaces to support more students to come together 4. Collectively celebrate key moments and recognise the successes of students
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Our Foundations TRANSFORMING THE WAY WE WORK
F1: PEOPLE & CULTURE
F2: WELLBEING
We will ensure your students’ union is a great place to work, with all our staff and students being supported, developed and motivated to deliver our purpose.
We aim to enhance the positive wellbeing of our students and staff through embedding a strategic approach to mental health and wellbeing.
We will clearly articulate and embed a culture and set of behaviours that reflect our vision and values.
F3: DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
F4: ENGAGING COMMUNICATIONS
We will use digital technology to support your students’ union to be as efficient and as effective as possible.
Through a greater understanding of our students we will create more meaningful and relevant engagement.
As a digital first organisation we will ensure our we deliver our services and engage students in the way they works for them.
We will better articulate what we are about, the work we do and the impact we have.
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F5: RESOURCES & INFRASTRUCTURE
F6: PARTNERSHIP
We are ambitious, which means we always want to do more. This in turn requires more funding. We will review our financial model and infrastructure to ensure it enables us to deliver on our strategy and ambitions.
The students’ union is an essential part of the University community. As our main funder, we will continue to work with and are accountable to University of Reading on the delivery of key aspects of the student experience.
Our services will balance the need to generate a surplus to reinvest, with a requirement to give students value for money.
We are proud of our independence and will challenge and disagree where needed, but do so in a constructive and productive way. We recognise that sometimes we are best placed to deliver activities and sometimes activities will be better delivered in partnership or by others.
F7: ENGAGEMENT & OUTREACH
F8: GOOD GOVERNANCE & DEMOCRACY
We will review our services and activities and ensure what we offer is of high equality, with increasing levels of engagement and meet the needs of our diverse student body.
We are a complex organisation – we are a students’ union, part of the University community and a registered charity.
We are more than a building. We will work with students and partners across Reading to develop a more diverse portfolio of touchpoints, thus increasing our reach and engagement.
This requires our governance to be robust, professional and transparent. As a studentled organisation we will seek to create opportunities for students to shape our priorities and the work we do.
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Measuring our impact Our impact will be measured and monitored through a range of Key Performance Indicators that link to each aspect of our strategy. Our two overarching measures of success will be: 1. % of students that agree we have had a positive impact on their life during their time at the University of Reading 2. % of students that are satisfied with the students’ union To help students have the best time at the University of Reading we will plan our activity utilising our theory of change model, and we will use a segmentation approach in order to better understand our diverse membership. This will enable us to allocate resources to maximise impact for more students. OUR INTENDED RESULTS
OUR PLANNED RESULTS
Inputs
Activities
Outputs
Outcomes
Impact
What do we need?
What do we do?
What happens?
What is the effect?
What is the benefit to students?
OBJECTIVES
MEASURES OF SUCCESS
This plan will operate over three years, with annual review points in line with our change of elected leadership.
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