Student guidance, counselling and confidentiality

Student counsellor & tutor

The Royal Conservatoire has its own student counsellor who can offer all School for Young Talent, bachelor, and master students information, advice and guidance regarding their studies or personal circumstances. The student counsellor can help with a variety of topics, e.g. questions about financial matters, questions about legislation and regulations, personal circumstances (regarding mental or physical health for example), studying with a disability (chronic illness, ADHD, dyslexia), study related problems, and study choice. We recommend students with learning difficulties to discuss the options and responsibilities with the student counsellor as soon as possible. Conversations are confidential. In addition, bachelor students are assigned a tutor during the first three years of their studies. The tutor’s role is to help students reflect on their studies and to monitor their progress. Consultations with the tutor are confidential. At times, and only in consultation with the student, the tutor may refer a student to the student counsellor.

Social safety & confidential advisers

The Royal Conservatoire aims to offer a safe environment to ensure successful learning and teaching can take place. To make sure of this, we have recently asked ourselves the question ‘How can we clearly identify possible problems in relation to social safety and potential solutions for them?’ We drew attention to the topic of social safety and asked for our students, teachers and support staff’s feedback and perceptions. This resulted in a broad discussion and inventory in which we were able to critically reflect on the culture of our organisation. As a next step, a number of measures were taken including regular Q&A sessions to promote discussions on social safety and the hiring of a new external confidential counsellor. Additionally, managers were offered support by an external organisation specialising in problems relating to transgressive behaviour and social safety. An extra set of questions has been added to the National Student Survey (NSE) to enquire into students’ perceptions of social safety with respect to ’equal treatment’.

While we take social safety very seriously and strive for a safe climate, complaints may still occur. The confidential adviser is the first point of contact for students and staff who have complaints about undesirable behaviour, integrity issues, or (social) safety. The University of the Arts has two internal confidential advisers plus one external confidential adviser. The School for Young Talent has three internal confidential advisers. The procedure for dealing with complaints of inappropriate behaviour and the protocol for the confidential adviser are part of our policy to guarantee a safe climate to work and study in. For further information about our policy take a look at the safe study & work environment page and the students’ complaints desk page.