Guidance for All Nmpas

Guidance for all NMPAs

Working as a non-medical personal assistant (NMPA) can be a very rewarding task, if some basic guidelines are adhered to. In addition to this sheet, you should also read the guidance specifically relevant to the task or tasks you are performing.

·  You will be expected to adhere to the original job description. If you have any concerns about what the student is asking you to do and you are unable to resolve this directly with the student, you should approach the person who matched you with that student. This will usually be a School Disability Coordinator, but for some roles may be a Disability Adviser.

·  Punctuality and reliability are essential. If you will be unable to make a particular appointment with a student, please inform the student as far in advance as possible.

·  If you are unwell and unable to attend a session with a student at short notice, then please notify your point of contact (e.g. School Disability Coordinator, Disability Adviser) as soon as possible.

·  If you attend for a session that a student does not turn up for, then you will still be paid for that session. If a student frequently misses sessions, please inform a Disability Adviser. (Email: or telephone 273935)

·  If a session is cancelled at short notice (the same day), you may be paid for one hour’s work.

·  If you are aware that the support provided to the student is not operating effectively, please make your concerns known to a Disability Adviser.

·  All discussions between you and the student are strictly confidential. Please do not discuss students outside the working environment.

·  You should take guidance from the student as to how they would like you to perform your role. Ensure you have regular discussions with the student about the way things are going.

·  Payment will be made on the basis of a time-sheet which should be signed by the student and returned to Mrs Brenda Mackie, Room 4, University Office. Mrs Mackie will ensure that all paperwork related to your employment is completed.

·  It is expected that, as far as possible, you will be available for the agreed hours for each week of the half session.

·  Basic training sessions will be provided for NMPAs. This will be a paid session and all NMPAs are expected to attend as soon as possible after they are appointed.

Guidance for student assistants

·  The Student Advice and Support office is responsible for arranging student assistants, who will normally be postgraduate students and, if appropriate, will be from a relevant discipline or school.

·  Your role is to provide assistance to the individual student; the precise nature of this support will be explained to you by a Disability Adviser. Many different roles come under the umbrella of student assistant. Examples include:

·  Assisting a wheelchair user to move around the campus;

·  Assisting a student in a laboratory with holding or fetching equipment, or ensuring instructions have been understood and are followed;

·  Assisting a student on a field trip by ensuring that instructions are adhered to, or assisting with moving around a site;

·  Assisting a student in the library;

·  Mentor work, e.g. providing guidance to a student with dyslexia or Asperger’s Syndrome on issues relating to time management and organisation;

·  You should not become a personal tutor to the student or provide academic support in any form.

·  After a Disability Adviser has explained your role, you should arrange to meet with the student to discuss how best to carry out the role. You should take the lead from the student and be aware that it may take some time for a good rapport to build up.

·  If, at any point, you become concerned that the student is developing a dependency, please discuss this with a Disability Adviser (, telephone 273935). There is a fine line between the good rapport and high level of trust that is required for this role, and the beginnings of dependency.

Guidance for note takers

·  School Disability Co-ordinators are responsible for arranging note-takers for disabled students, normally appointed from the postgraduate student body of that School.

·  Your role as a note-taker is to provide the student with an accurate and full account of the information conveyed in the lecture/tutorial/practical.

·  Your role as a note-taker is one of communication: you should not tutor the student or provide academic support in any other form.

·  Your notes should be clear and legible.

·  Although it is not likely that you will be able to take a verbatim account of what the lecturer/tutor says, do not over-summarise or make assumptions that the information is not relevant to the student. If you have missed something that was said, indicate this in your notes.

·  Check regularly with the student that s/he is happy with your notes – different students may have different preferences in respect of style etc. Discuss with the student what s/he prefers in terms of structure and amount of detail.

·  The notes should be given to the student as soon as possible, preferably straight after the lecture.

·  If you are typing up notes for a student / students, check how the student wishes the notes to be presented. For example, does the student prefer bullet points or paragraphs? You should type up the notes and email them to an agreed email address as soon as possible and certainly within three working days of the class. In the unlikely event that this is not possible on a particular occasion, it would be beneficial to inform the student(s) of the likely delay.

·  You will only be paid to type up notes for a student if it has been agreed that this will be the procedure.

·  If you are taking notes for several students, you should discuss with the School Disability Coordinator how the notes will be disseminated e.g. photocopying of hand-written notes or typing up of notes.

·  When emailing notes to students, it would be helpful if you could keep copies of the messages in an ‘outbox’, so that you have a record of when notes were emailed. You may also wish to use the ‘read receipt’ facility on your email, so that you can be sure a student has picked up the notes.

·  You should take guidance from the student about where to sit in the class. Some students will choose to sit with you and others may prefer to be with their friends. This will not be meant as an insult but probably an expression of the student’s wish to remain inconspicuous.

·  When taking notes, don’t ignore practical information, such as room changes, tutorial topics etc.

·  If you are concerned about a student missing classes that you take notes for, please contact a Disability Adviser who will judge whether the absences are likely to be for disability-related reasons or not, and will advise you accordingly.

Guidance for scribes in examinations

·  A scribe (or amanuensis) is someone who writes down or types a candidate’s dictated answers to questions, under examination conditions. It is essential to record accurately only the words dictated by the student.

·  Scribes are appointed by Mrs Melanie Viney-Richards (), tel. 272047) in Registry and payment is made on the basis of the number of hours worked.

·  A scribe should normally have a basic understanding of the subject in which they are scribing and is normally recruited from the postgraduate body of the relevant school. The scribe should not normally have worked as a note-taker for the same student or be a close friend or relative of them.

Before the exam:

·  If you are unable to attend an examination for which you were appointed, please inform Mrs Viney-Richards or Miss Foote (tel.273324) in Registry immediately. If you are unsure of the time or place of an exam you have been allocated, please ask the relevant School in plenty of time before the exam.

·  Please check your email daily during the exam period, in case of changes to times or locations of exams. Email is used as the main means of contacting scribes.

·  If you are scribing in a language exam (e.g. any course in French, German, Spanish etc.), it is important that you speak to the course coordinator prior to the exam. The School Disability Coordinator for Language and Literature (Mrs Pam Thomson, tel. 272550 or Dr G. Sharman, tel. 272486) )can put you in touch with the correct person.

On the day of the exam:

·  Reliability and punctuality are essential. It is recommended that you arrive 15 minutes before the start time of the exam.

·  Don’t forget to take several pens, a pencil and an eraser with you.

·  You may be acting as invigilator as well as scribe/reader in the exam, so you should be aware of the correct procedures – if in doubt, ask the School for guidance.

·  Before the start of the examination, check with the student how they wish to use your support. It is important to adopt the approach and pace as preferred by the student.

·  You should ensure that your mobile phone is switched off for the duration of the exam and that alarms on watches are silent.

During the exam:

·  When scribing in an exam, you may be asked to act also as a reader. In this case, you should read out questions and/or answers as requested by the student. You should not, however, explain the meaning of questions or words.

·  You should only converse with the candidate to clarify his/her instructions, if necessary.

·  A scribe should write precisely what the student dictates and should not alter the content in any way. Abbreviations should not be used without the agreement of the candidate. A scribe must not give any indication to the student of the appropriateness of their answer. Everything written by the scribe or the student should be submitted at the end of the examination.

·  You should obviously try to keep up with the pace of the student, but it is ok to ask them to slow down, as many students get ‘carried away’ when speaking and forget that writing takes longer than speaking. Your writing should remain readable throughout the examination!

·  Discretion may be used regarding spelling, punctuation, etc. except where technical or scientific technology is required or where there is doubt regarding responses in a foreign language. At the start of the examination, it may be useful to clarify with the student how they feel about being asked to spell particular words along the way. Where the student is uncomfortable with this and you are unsure of the spelling of a particular word, you should indicate this on the script.

·  It is important to stay awake throughout the exam – snoring can be very distracting!

After the exam:

·  Please ensure that you are aware of where to return the script to at the end of the exam. It is vital that it is returned to the arranged place immediately.

Guidance for proof readers

·  The purpose of proof-reading support for disabled students is to help to ensure that a student’s impairment does not needlessly affect their academic performance in an adverse way.

·  School Disability Co-ordinators have the responsibility for arranging proof-readers for disabled students. They are normally appointed from the postgraduate student body of the relevant School.

·  It can be useful for proof-readers to have a basic understanding of the subject, though the work you do will be of a generic nature and you are not expected to comment on the academic quality or accuracy of the work you are reading.

·  When proof-reading material, you must not contribute to or alter the academic content in anyway. Your comments and changes should relate only to grammar, spelling and the structure of sentences or paragraphs. You may comment on the overall layout and structure, such as the order of paragraphs, and on stylistic qualities appropriate to academic writing in the subject area.

·  It is important that you agree with the student a deadline by which you will complete your work and that you stick to this.

·  You should agree with the student the format in which the completed work is preferred. Some students will prefer a hard copy and others will prefer that the work is returned to the student electronically, with tracked changes.

·  Copies of the written work should be kept at every stage so that they can be made available to the examiners if required.

General pointers when proofreading a piece of work:

a)  Correctly identify errors of the following types: spelling, grammar, sentence and paragraph structure, overall layout, and infringements of recognised rules of academic writing within the subject area.

b)  Draw errors to the attention of the student in an agreed way. Lots of red pen can be very disheartening!

c)  You should not rewrite the student’s work, though it may be useful to indicate possible alternatives – e.g. ‘It is not clear whether you meant to say x or y’.

d)  If you are unclear what the student means, you may have to point out that their meaning is unclear and ask them to try to explain what they wish to say.

e)  Pointing out types of errors that occur frequently may be helpful, as may suggesting a means of remedying such errors.

f) The student may wish for you to make minor alterations, such as adding a comma or a capital letter, yourself. This is something that you should agree with the student as you begin to proof-read a piece of work.