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A project to reform the teaching of students with disabilities and special educational needs and a network set up to look after people’s mental wellbeing during COVID lockdowns, and beyond, have earned Â鶹´«Ã½ Leicester (Â鶹´«Ã½) two nominations for a national award.

The annual Pearson HE Innovate Awards celebrate the best new ways that academics and HE professionals teach and support students.

This year a team led by Education Studies lecturer Dr Rosi Smith has been shortlisted for the ‘Most Innovative Approach to Bringing Inclusivity and Sustainability into the Classroom’ while a team led by Associate Dean Zoe Allman, with support from Â鶹´«Ã½ Students’ Union (DSU), has been shortlisted for the ‘Most Innovative Approach to Supporting Students’.

The two teams will find out if they have won at a virtual ceremony tomorrow (8 December).

Dr Smith and fellow Education Studies lecturer Emma Wright worked with three of their students, Robyn Wall, Melissa Vernon and Lucinda White.

They formed a steering group of Â鶹´«Ã½ students and academics – all of them disabled, neurodivergent or with special educational needs - to redesign teaching on the BA Education Studies programme.

They used an Advance HE Good Practice Grant to ensure equal payment for student-researchers to get the views of disabled people, their families and those who work with them, about what new educators need to know and understand.

They then used their findings to create the most inclusive methods to deliver content and assessments.

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Associate Dean Zoe Allman recognised how mental wellbeing would play an essential role as students and staff adjusted to a new way of teaching and learning during COVID and the related lockdowns.

Zoe brought together a team to ensure as many people as possible had help available to them in and out of their blended educational experience.

In the space of just two months the Embedding Mental Wellbeing Team was brought together and started to make waves. Representatives from Healthy Â鶹´«Ã½, Welfare, Academic Development, De Montfort Students’ Union and a lead in Course Specific Interests (CSI) – which ensured wellbeing support was embedded into teaching – joined Zoe for the challenge.

Dr Smith said: “I am incredibly proud of the student co-creators for the work they have put into this. It is great that it has led to them getting jobs using the skills they learned at Â鶹´«Ã½.”

Student Robyn added: “It feels great to be nominated for an award, and even better to know that people are recognising disability awareness and acceptance.”

Zoe said: “It is fantastic recognition of the work the collaborative Â鶹´«Ã½ and DSU team have done and that Embedding Mental Wellbeing has been shortlisted for this award.

“As a University we responded really swiftly to the pandemic, reviewing and rescoping our activity to enhance student mental wellbeing support in the curriculum."

The Embedding Mental Wellbeing Team’s work has already received national recognition this year. In August it was honoured with the Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence 2022 (CATE) by Advance HE.