Introduction

This chapter focusses on how to deliver student success. At its core, it argues that success is not just delivered in the lecture hall, seminar or tutorial rooms. Rather, success comes from the students' total experience of the university.

The piece suggests that contemporary approaches to delivering student success challenge deficit models or assumptions about students and, crucially, emphasise partnership working between academics and student support professionals.

In developing this perspective, the chapter argues that to deliver their own goals, widening access and participation policies need to be linked directly to matters of success, and the quality of academic and support provision. In basic terms, this lies at the heart of widening participation, though that aspect of the approach has been lost over time.

To make the linkage just referred to, a ‘Strategy for Making Excellence Inclusive’ requires, as a minimum: reflective practices, a whole institution approach and policies which do not simplify student experiences for the sake of expediency.