Our Vision

We aspire for the University of Reading to be an environment that respects and supports the needs of individual learners from all diverse backgrounds and in doing so enriches the wider collective student experience.

At the individual level, this means that we are committed to respecting diversity, enabling participation, and removing barriers to educational engagement and attainment. Simply put, it means that we recognise all students as individual people and treat them as such.

At the collective level, it means that we appreciate the diversity of our community as a source of opportunity. Our approach does not mean that we seek to ignore or conceal our differences, but that we are committed to building an inclusive community in which we learn from each other for the benefit of all.

Achieving our vision of inclusive teaching and learning at Reading requires an integrated and holistic approach taking account of: the different challenges students face in transitioning to university life and study; curriculum content; how teaching delivery and learning opportunities are designed; support for learning, assessment and feedback; fostering belonging and connectedness among student cohorts; and supporting learners into graduate careers.

Why does inclusion matter?

The creation of a diverse and inclusive learning community is at the very core of what it means to be a university. We take it to be self-evident that learning requires openness to new ideas and to different ways of thinking about and experiencing the world. Universities are places of learning. They are at their best when they bring together different sources of knowledge and experience and provide a supportive environment that enables and encourages everyone to contribute new ideas, insights and innovations.

This webpage and its resources affirms our aspiration to become a more inclusive learning community, and articulates what such an aspiration looks like in practice.

Teaching and Learning is inclusive when:

• All students feel safe and secure in their learning environment, with a sense of belonging, connectedness and agency.
• Staff understand, and seek to remove, barriers students may encounter in relation to any aspect of their studies. This includes the acknowledgement of any biases within the discipline, and appropriate handling of these.
• Programmes and modules are designed to reflect the perspectives and needs of a diverse range of students.
• Staff are willing to design (and refine) their teaching in consultation with students from a diverse range backgrounds.
• Learning activities and materials are designed to be relevant and accessible to all students. This includes placements, fieldwork and project-based activities as well as studio, lab or classroom-based teaching.
• Learning outcomes and assessments are designed so that every student has the best possible chance to demonstrate their learning.
• Feedback to students is provided in a timely, constructive and accessible manner.
• There are no persistent or unexplained differences in the experience or outcomes of students from different social, ethnic or cultural backgrounds.