The University of Buckingham attains Silver rating in 2023 Teaching Excellence Framework

The University of Buckingham has achieved a SILVER rating in the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) for 2023.

This means the student experience and outcomes are typically very high quality, with some outstanding features, according to the Office for Students (OfS), which organises the TEF.

Universities and colleges that take part in the TEF receive an overall rating based on two measures – one for the student experience and one for student outcomes. Buckingham was rated SILVER in both.

For the student experience, the OfS’s report noted ‘evidence of some features of outstanding teaching practices, for example in the provider’s personalised small group approach and its accelerated model of degree delivery which gives options for students that are atypical in UK universities’.

It also remarked on the way the university ‘fosters a supportive learning environment, and its students have access to a readily available range of very high-quality academic support’. Also ‘physical and virtual learning resources are used effectively to support very high-quality teaching and learning’.

As far as student outcomes were concerned the OfS noted the ‘outstanding rates of successful progression for the provider’s students and courses’ based on the ‘embedded career and employability skills, training, and reflective practices across the provision for its undergraduate body in the past five years’.

Prof James Tooley, Vice-Chancellor said:

‘I am delighted that the University of Buckingham has been awarded SILVER in the current TEF, the second highest category. This reflects the hard work and dedication that colleagues have been putting in to ensure student outcomes are of a “very high quality” and that students have a “very high quality” experience too.’

Joshua Bowden, a Politics, Philosophy and Economics student who contributed to the student experience submission, said:

‘Buckingham is a unique institution; its small size and innovative nature permits special opportunities and a friendly atmosphere for its students. I’m glad to be a student here.’

Unlike league tables, TEF doesn’t rank or compare higher education providers against each other. The award indicates how a university or college has performed against expectations for its own students and against similar institutions. Institutions are graded GOLD, SILVER, BRONZE or REQUIRES IMPROVEMENT and may use the awards for the next four years.