Session Outline

Co-delivered by students and the University Lead for Academic Personal Tutoring, this session explores the role of Student Academic Personal Tutoring Leads at the University of Leeds. Applying a community approach to leadership and adopting principles of reverse mentoring which acknowledges students as expertise in their lived experiences (O’Connor, 2023; Cain, et al, 2022; O’Connor, et al, 2025), we have recruited 14 Student Academic Personal Tutoring Leads this academic year to co-lead and develop Academic Personal Tutoring across the institution. These 14 students are all studying different courses, at different levels and come from a range of backgrounds and identities, creating a leadership pool of diverse experiences and insights. The students as partners literature is vast and varied (Mercer-Mapstone, et al, 2017) and there is a clear recognition across the sector of the need to embed student voices into higher education policy and development work. Despite this, the engagement of students in paid leadership roles in the context of personal tutoring has received little attention to date. This session therefore seeks to shine a light on the opportunities and benefits, as well as the challenges and risks, of adopting partnership approaches to the leadership and development of personal tutoring in a Russell Group university context. During this session, Rachael will explore the rationale behind working with students as co-leaders, as well as experiences of the recruitment and development of these new roles. The student co-presenters will shared their lived experience insights into being leaders In personal tutoring, the developmental work they have undertaken so far as a team and as individuals, their experiences of working together in partnership, as well as with colleagues across the University and how this role has impacted their own relationships, with peers, staff and personal tutors. We aim for this session to inspire attendees who are thinking about or who are already engaging student voices in their own personal tutoring transformation projects to move beyond the more conventional approaches (focus groups, surveys etc.) and begin to consider how they might work more authentically in partnership with students as co-leaders.

Learning Outcomes

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