Whole Provider Approach

The whole provider approach at Leeds Conservatoire is an emerging area of work. Since our last submission, we have begun further embedding access and participation values throughout our institutional activity. Leeds Conservatoire Leadership is committed to ensuring Access and Participation is an intrinsic part of the makeup of the conservatoire, as can be seen in our current strategic plan and in our Learning and Teaching strategy.

Internally, access and participation activity is reportable to our Equality, Diversity, Inclusion, Access and Participation Committee (EDIAPC). Membership of this committee comprises staff from across the conservatoire and external members from our evaluation provider (SEER) and from the education group we are a subsidiary of (Luminate Education Group).  This committee feeds into our Executive Leadership Committee or our Board of Directors, as relevant. We also maintain an EDI and A&P presence on all of our committees to ensure that these agendas and any key risks or impact are always considered.

In addition, we seek to build partnerships with external organisations that share our values and support our efforts to improve our student experience. We’re proud to be the first education partner of Black Lives in Music, an organisation which champions and platforms the experiences of artists and performers from the Global Majority. We’ve worked with Black Lives in Music for the last few years and continue to engage with them as critical friends and a source of advice. 

On a day-to-day level, staff and students are increasingly aware of both access and participation and EDI activity at the conservatoire and proactively seek the guidance and support of our A&P and EDI professionals to ensure that APP and EDI are embedded and aligned with ‘business as usual’ activity. We are striving for an approach where both access and participation and EDI are “invisible” within our institution, because they are coherently embedded and intrinsic to our activity. We believe that our ethos and approach to everything we do should have inclusion at its core.

As such, we continue our journey towards fully inclusive policies and strategies. Some instruments are easily within our sphere of control as an individual provider; others are policies we contribute to developing as part of the wider Luminate group, and require effective navigation and alignment of both OfS and Department for Education requirements. Key policies relating to our staffing are made in line with the Equality Act 2010, and as part of our recruitment processes all interviewees are asked an EDI question at interview. We also deliver high-quality EDI training to our staff as part of our induction process.

We are a TEF Silver provider, successfully maintaining our status in 2023, showing an innovative and exciting curriculum delivery model which prepares our students well for their future career paths. Additionally, we garnered excellent results in the most recent National Student Survey, ranking highest among the 11 Conservatoires UK members for Organisation and Management, and Assessment and Feedback, as well as surpassing the sector average in a number of areas. 

Despite the challenges of being a small institution, we have an excellent ability to be flexible and responsive to our student body, with practices in place to listen and co-develop meaningful ways to enhance the student experience. Additionally, as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Luminate Education Group, we can easily network, share best practice and showcase our achievements on a substantial internal platform. The group host a rich and valuable teaching and learning conference where we are able to platform our early findings and prepare to share them with the wider sector. 

Our staff and student engagement with our access and participation activity is developing; we have several existing approaches and practices that are inclusive without being explicitly linked to Access and Participation, and we are progressing this to reach consistency across the conservatoire. Particularly in our academic schools, we employ a high number of part-time and fractional staff, which present some challenges in embedding institutional priorities. Engagement of these staff is critical to achieving consistency. Our student body also has variable scheduling, so whilst all students are informed of EDI and access and participation agendas, and associated activity, during induction week, some of our courses have higher numbers of contact hours so students may not be able to engage consistently with additional activities.

Our management staff are all aware of our policies and procedures in regard to access and participation and EDI and know who to liaise with when expert advice is needed. We provide updates throughout the year for managers to disseminate to their teams; this may be information around celebrations and awareness days or training opportunities.

Our student body, through their representatives and the student union, regularly engage with and hold the conservatoire to account. We host two student-staff forums each academic year, where students can raise issues and ask questions of key staff members. The SU President and other representatives sit on all of our committees, including our Board of Directors, ensuring student voice is captured at all levels and so that students are aware of the rationale behind decisions made by the conservatoire.

As can be seen in the Student Consultation section, we do have some mechanisms in place that allow us to involve students in the design of our activities. This is an approach we are developing, particularly through our access and participation work, as we know it will aid us in ensuring that all of our activity is needed and right for our students. 

Operationally, our full suite of access work is overseen by our access and participation manager, who supports the design, monitoring and evaluation of intervention strategies that are delivered by appropriate teams throughout the institution. Our Student Recruitment team leads the majority of our access work through their schools and colleges liaison activity, evidenced in IS1. Having this activity live here allows for an embedded approach to our recruitment and admissions practices – thus leading to a reflexive and consistent approach to applicant queries, issues and concerns, whilst proactively seeking to embed common questions and misconceptions into our information resources. 

Our on-course provision is a combined effort from our academic, student support and learning enhancement teams. Our Student Support offer highlighted in IS3 is open to all students regardless of background, with specific elements available should they meet relevant criteria. 

The majority of our progression work is looked after by our Employability and Enterprise team. This activity is largely available to all students, with additional specific funding opportunities available for access and participation students. All students are eligible for representation through our agencies; Music students may choose to enrol on our booking agency to secure bookings for professional events, and our drama students are automatically enrolled on our books to enable them to secure auditions for professional work without having to fund a private agent. Drama students also receive free headshots and showreels to use on their professional pages. Third-year target students may also apply for funding for lifetime membership for PRS for Music, the Ivors or the first year of representation on Spotlight, which will enable them to access work opportunities and claim payment or royalties for their work.

In addition to this, all students may access high-quality career guidance sessions provided by the National Careers Service, as well as support to find professional opportunities and funding, options for postgraduate study and support with setting up as a freelance artist. These services remain open beyond graduation and accessible through our progression portal.  Our student support services are all tailored to the needs of artists and creatives, ensuring that we help to develop our students as holistic and well-rounded performers and professionals.

We regularly engage with sector networks and membership bodies, working closely with other higher education providers both within our region, nationally and internationally. Through our memberships, our staff contribute to and benefit from sector best practice and innovation. We often have to be smart with our practices, both from a capacity and a financial perspective, which has led to us sharing some of our work at conferences and symposiums.

Our communications around academic and support matters are generally well-considered and as jargon-free as possible. We aim to ensure students are aware of what is on offer to them with as little fuss as possible. Our online student handbook, alongside our online learning platform, houses the most up-to-date student information and is regularly maintained for accuracy.

We communicate with our student body in several ways depending on the purpose. We have an online student opportunities platform which allows us to share both internal and external opportunities and information regarding masterclasses and events. We utilise a mass messaging service to send urgent messages to students' mobile devices, and our principal sends out a weekly newsletter to share updates as well. Our ability to assess engagement with our student body through our communications channels is somewhat limited; however, our Learning Enhancement team are exploring our learner analytics functionality at the time of writing this plan.

Last year, we completed a significant project to overhaul our student records system. This allows us now to efficiently centralise the information we collect through the multiple services a student may interact with. This development should help us to better spot areas and students in need of support.

Our data capability is often limited and is in development. Our data management team are highly skilled; however, being a small institution, resources are stretched.

We have engaged the Specialist Evidence, Evaluation and Research (SEER) team from Applied Inspiration as our external evaluators for Access and Participation. Their team provides a wealth of experience and expertise that we would not normally have access to in-house. Already in the last few years, significant progress has been made towards improving our practice, and we have begun to share some of this learning in other areas of the conservatoire.