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Education President

Matilda Copley

Education President

Your Education President is responsible for improving your academic experience at St Mary’s! 

educationpresident@stmarys.ac.uk

Get to know Matilda...

What I studied 

I studied BSc Psychology

My favourite thing about St Mary’s 

My favourite thing about St Mary’s was being part of an amazing community

What I’m looking to achieve this year  

I am hoping to ensure students have fun within their education, have a manageable workload and have the best academic experience.

One tip for making the most out of St Mary’s 

One tip to making the most out of St Mary's would be to get involved in everything you can! Even if you have never played a sport before or had an interest in a particular hobby or society, now is your time to try something new.

My best Simmie memory 

My best simmie memory is scoring a goal on varsity and going out to celebrate that night. It was such an achievement from never playing football before university to ending my experience on a high. 

My manifesto aims 👇

Improving Mental Health Services

  • Advocated from 4-6 counselling sessions where students can get even more if a necessity
  • Currently doing the training for wellbeing skills for student leaders – once I have done this I can delivery workshops to the student leaders
  • Helped with promoting student services well being activities, especially in wobble week
  • Hosted mindful colouring for mental health awareness day – not very successful due to lack of promotion 
  • Hosted a Dodgeball Tournament for Dyslexia Awareness Day to fundraise for the British Dyslexia Association
  • Personal tutors now use STEP which should help students and them see when they need to meet up etc and they can track how their students are doing
In Progress

Increase Faculty Socials

  • These were held in induction weeks – very successful. Currently in the middle of planning one for Christmas but we are working out the budgeting etc.

  • I want subject Chairs to attend socials where possible – this would be great for them to get feedback but also connect with students they are representing. 

  • There will be faculty socials in Reconnect Week and potentially end of the academic year socials. 

In Progress

Ensuring Fair Workloads

  • Have not brough in the EC guaranteed policy yet because students now have the fair submission policy so not sure whether the guaranteed EC is needed.
  • Ensured deadline dates are not the same time as other academic commitments as policy for academic staff is that they have to send out all assignments etc for that semester, 2 weeks into the semester. This allows staff to see if they need to change the dates of assignments if they clash and also allows students enough time to prepare and time manage. 
  • Targeted interventions for those with learning disabilities or whose first language isn’t English – there are library sessions on this but I have not done anything with this. 
  • Have yet to discuss seminars being drop in tutorials for upcoming assignments 
  • Regarding workshops of how to use AI ethically – there is a new AI policy that is standardised across courses of what students can and cannot do with AI so students are being treat the same no matter the course. This will hopefully be less confusing to students. I have not planned to do workshops yet, I will discuss this with our Student Advisor and host these in smart study week, which is 2nd February 2026. 
In Progress

Improve Student Feedback

  • Close feedback loop via Student Voice Newsletter – the aim is that if a petition ever becomes successful etc then students are made aware of the change. Last year there was technical issues with having a newsletter so I will see if this is possible and if not, what other ways it can be made known to students like posting on insta etc. 
  • 100% course rep recruitment – we currently have very high numbers of course reps which is great to see. Need to push some extra to ensure 100%. 
  • Need to make a WhatsApp group chat with each school and their subject chairs along with course reps. An email with a link to join will be sent out and everyone who receives this are encouraged to join the GC. This will make it much easier for course reps to bring up any issues that occur and subject chairs can then pass that onto me.
  • Drop in sessions with myself. Now we have all course reps recruited this is something I want to organise. This will be a drop-in session so students, course reps etc can come to me with any issues, if they need advice or just a private talk. 
In Progress

Expanding Postgraduate Opportunities

  • Postgrad career day – not done 
  • Support postgrad VP achieve their manifesto – not done 
  • I have yet to do anything for this manifesto point so any ideas or suggestions would be extremely useful in terms of how to do this.  
Not Started

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