1. Living with Plymouth University
Welcome
Arrivals –difficult time for everyone We believe its our job to make the transition more smooth
Why live in Plymouth halls of Residence? – Personally I think its about the pastoral care, personal safety and support of we provide for our students, For us it’s all about positively improving the student experience . . .
Residence Life and Student Accommodation Services

2. Guarantee The Plymouth University Accommodation guarantee
Make Plymouth University your firm, first choice
Apply for accommodation
before 1st July
iii. The guarantee expires on August 31st
Teddy bear – not all slides have teddy bears
Most new students want to live in Halls during their first year and its important to bring a piece of home to their new home So don’t forget your teddy (or teddy equivalent)
At PU we understand how important it is for you to live and study with likeminded individuals and how crucial your Halls experience is to your success during your first year at University. To help with that we will guarantee a place in Halls to all applicants who make Plymouth their firm, first choice and apply for accommodation before 1st July
So that means that as long as you have made your application for accommodation within halls AND Plymouth is your first FIRM choice – you will get a place in one of our halls. - I’ll talk more about our guarantee later but it is important that your offer has become UNCONDITIONAL before 31st August – If you have any checks like DBS to complete ensure you do them early because if you are still a CONDITIONAL firm applicant by August 31st and even if you have been offered a room - that offer will be withdrawn and you will be placed on the waiting list.  
However if you are subsequently made unconditional for any reason we will work with you to find accommodation

3. University-managed accommodation
11 Halls of Residence
c2800 beds currently
Safe and secure
On campus or within walking distance
Well maintained
PU currently has 11 Halls of Residence, all different in style, all providing a range of accommodation to suit all needs and price ranges.
The majority of our Halls are right here on campus or just over the road. If anyone has visited any other universities you will appreciate just how unusual this is. IN Fact ALL of our Accommodation is within 15 minutes easy walking distance of campus.
Our Halls provide us with just under 3000 beds to offer our new students across a range of styles and prices including studios, en suites, standard rooms (with shared facilities) single and mixed gender flats and of course all our Halls are no smoking.
All our buildings are safe and secure with an in-residence support team which you will hear more about shortly. All our Halls are maintained so if anything goes wrong it can be fixed in the shortest possible time and all feature secure individual access to the building, then to each flat and every room. They are all well lit and our on site security team patrol regularly to ensure our residents are safe.
We have 6 halls open today and you go to see inside them where are residents have kindly allowed you to view their rooms today – You’ll have been given a map to help you find your way around – I’ll explain a bit more about that later

4. ASTOR HOUSE ALEXANDRA WORKS FRANCIS DRAKE FROBISHER HOUSE
GILWELL MARY NEWMAN PILGRIM RADNOR
ROBBINS ST TERESA HOUSE ST THOMAS COURT
This shows each of the rooms in all our halls but to get a truer picture you should go and see for yourself – the ones highlighted in red are open today

5. and Student Accommodation Services
Residence Life
and Student Accommodation Services
Enhances campus environment
24 hour pastoral support
Safe and secure environment
This is my favourite bit – this is the new Residence Life strategy which we have embraced at Plymouth University earlier than most and next year will be our 4th year – Its what makes us different and I feel very passionate about it , Residence Life is about more than just providing a place to stay - it’s a HOLISTIC APPROACH TO THE WELLBEING OF OUR RESIDENTS and it focusses on actively developing the students and creating a community as well as keeping them safe and secure.
Our residential staff team are on duty from 5 pm until 8 am so students have access to support if they have a medical problem, want to report an incident or generally want to have a chat with someone.
You will be able meet some of the RAs and Hall Co-ordinators all of whom are picked for their interpersonal skill and outgoing personalities – I think you’ll agree that they are great – they live with and help our students on a daily basis.
These resident assistants (RA’s) are senior students who work with the students to develop a community by encouraging and facilitating people to meeting each other as well as organising events to help build on those links.
We know that this development of community is essential to the wellbeing of our students as find themselves away from home, POSSIBLY FOR THE FIRST TIME, IN A NEW ENVIRONMENT.
Having our resident staff living in the halls obviously adds yet another level of SECURITY.

6. and Student Accommodation Services
Residence Life
and Student Accommodation Services
Enhances campus environment
Supports growth and development
Inclusive community building
As a team we have the welfare of each resident as our best interest, we want to be able to support you in anyway possible, whether it be because you miss home or your stuck with something at university we are here to support you. Each halls has individual events along with interhall events, as a halls team we are selected by the residence life office based on many skills and have lots of training to ensure we can help you and make your experience one you’ll never forget and as enjoyable as possible. As you can see in the picture us Halls co-ordinators this year went to Dartmoor for some training where we had to go caving, was an amazing time but my goodness I have never been so muddy in my life! All halls coordinators and resident assistants work very hard to support the growth and development of our teams and of our residents, we all care tremendously about each of you and do our best to build a community within the halls primarily through events which are optional to attend but are a great way to meet new friends!

7. Events Quiz nights Fancy dress Theme dinners Sports
Cultural activities
We have had many events throughout this year from the list you see here plus many more, we have had individual and interhall quiz nights with amazing prizes and it is always so much fun! We encourage fancy dress themed parties and events. When it comes to sports we hold many interhall sporting competitions, don’t worry if you’re not sporty come wave our halls flags and represent our team colours! and the winning halls gets a trophy at the end of the year! We offer Football, and Yoga every week as well as monthly tournaments of rugby and so much more!

8. Here you can see one of the events held by Alexandra works as a welcome event which was so much fun and hugely successful, there was a BBQ, fun and games and music, it was a great way for everyone to meet each other. Over here you can see our Pilgrim halls football team which they hold fortnightly alongside our weekly interhall tournaments.
Events

9. Events
We like to focus on all the different holidays and how they can be celebrated as a halls! One example is our pumpkin carving competition with the winner from Robbins Halls being shown here, rather fantastic isn’t it? But not all our events are so large, we also hold events such as movie nights, or great british bake off marathons, it could also be a bit off the wall! We had an ice cream eating competition in Frobisher last term which was great fun, it’s all tailored around what you guys want from us!

10. Application Submit an application via our on-line portal
Choose 5 hall options
Select your room type
Personal profile questions
Room allocated
Applications are done on line –Our portal is now live you may have already applied If so you will know that you will complete some questions about yourself. questions like are you noisy are quiet, tidy or not so tidy – please answer honestly – we don’t care what you say but he answers to these questions help us to match you up with other students who are similar and this makes for a much easier for you to settle in.
You can then select halls you prefer as well as the room type you want to live in. You need to select 5 choices in at least 3 halls PLEASE NOTE these are not preferences although we will do our best to give you one of your choices THIS CANNOT BE GUARNTEED
If you have applied and if you wish to you can check your status at the Residence Life stand the marquee today
In August we will send your room allocation to you by (PLEASE REMEMBER TO CHECK YOUR JUNK MAIL) and you be invited to pay a deposit and sign the agreement within 7 days. 
A couple of things I should add with regard the guarantee;
IF YOU THEN DECIDE YOU DO NOT WANT THE ROOM YOU ARE OFFERED YOU CAN DECLINE THE APPLICATION AND YOUR NAME WILL BE ADDED TO OUR WAITING LIST BUT PLEASE NOTE THAT YOUR GUARANTEE EXPIRES ONCE YOU TURN DOWN THE OFFER.
IN ANY CASE YOUR ACCOMMODATION GUARANTEE ENDS ON AUGUST 31ST so if your status after 31st August is still CONDITIONAL FIRM (ie not UNCONDITIONAL) THE GUARANTEE FOR A PLACE IN NO LONGER APPLIES. – this is important if your course dependant on a DBS for example – ENSURE YOU COMPLETE IT EARLY!!

11. Accommodation Options
Alcohol free and quiet flats available
Single sex flats available
Mature flats available
One other thing about the application process is something new we have introduced for this coming year based on feedback from students
This year for the first time you will be able to request specific needs.  There is the option of selecting an ALCOHOL FREE or QUIET area.  
You can also request to live in a SINGLE SEX FLAT, or in a flat with OLDER PEOPLE by selecting a mature flat (I use the word mature loosely - in this context it is AROUND 23).  
We will the attempt to place you into a flat with other people who have requested the same.  Please note that depending on the requests from applicants, especially later in the process, we may not be able to fulfill your request but we will do our best.

12. Prices Room Type Price per week (£) * Standard 97.30 – 115.35 En suite–
En suite –
Large en suite –
Studio –
Gilwell is the most cost effective. These are our current 2016/17 prices will go live on our web site once confirmed in February
Generally we have only 40 and 41 wk contracts this year – there are some exceptions for certain courses like medicine and dentistry

13. University approved accommodation
Living in private accommodation
StudentPad
Inspected by University Assessor
So what about even after all I’ve said you feel the Halls experience isn’t for you??. Well in that case the RESIDENCE LIFE OFFICE based in Mary Newman Hall on campus can still help in finding suitable local accommodation such as flats and rooms in shared houses.
We have a large database of local accommodation called STUDENTPAD just click the Studentpad link on our web site or you can google Studentpad and you can be assured that all the property listed there has been assessed by our Housing assessor to ensure IT IS SAFE AND SUITABLE FOR OUR STUDENTS.
We have long standing relationships with our local landlords and we work with them to ensure their properties meet our exacting standards.

14. Living with Plymouth Summary
Guarantee of accommodation for those who choose Plymouth as their firm, first choice and apply by 1 July
Registration using online reservation and booking system
Range of accommodation to suit all
Staff happy to help and guide you to the right accommodation for you
Sorry I don’t have time to take many questions right now but if you do have a burning issue please come down to the front and I’ll do my best to help you but don’t worry if there is something else you think about afterwards there are staff happy to answer all your questions at the stand in the marquee and if you do go down to the halls today and I would recommend you do! you will be able to meet our Halls team You’ll recognise them by their purple jackets or brightly coloured polo shirts for the brave ones) and you can see the rooms inside as well as ask any questions you may have to the the people who actually live in the halls or of course you can look at our web site

15. Further information Website: www.plymouth.ac.uk
Student Accommodation Office:
+44 (0)
Staff on the stand here today