The Simon Williams Memorial Prize in P40 and the Matthew Sykes Memorial Prize in P43 for the best RAP submitted worldwide were both awarded to absolute mentoring mentees – Doina from Cyprus for her Topic 17 Report on Corporate Governance and Anna, a UK student for her Topic 6 RAP on Motivation
Congratulations and well done Doina & Anna– both worthy winners!
*** PERIOD 47 SUBMISSIONS ***
Once again our Period 44 results were the envy of other mentorrs (who else consistently achieves a pass rate in excess of 90% with at least 70% of students achieving a B or A grade?)
We shall shortly be registering students for Period 47 – November 2023 and the mentoring fee for Period 47 will be £499. [We are no longer taking on students for May 2023 as there really is inadequate time left to produce a report that stands a reasonable chance of passing at the first attempt now].
If you are interested in becoming a mentee, please contact us via our contact page and it would help if you have chosen your topic, if you could state this in your email. We cover a variety of topics so please see the ‘About Us’ page to see the main topics we mentor for.
An introductory session (free of charge and with no further obligation) is offered via Skype/ FaceTime / Zoom or MS Teams to allow you to decide if absolute mentoring is right for you and help you choose the appropriate topic for your Research and Analysis project. After this session you will be provided with a useful article which draws on our experience as markers (again free of charge and with no obligation).
If you have already chosen your topic then we can either start to look at your Research Objectives or address the Skills and Learning Statement (the SLS is something that is so frequently overlooked by both students and mentors and yet if failed will mean that you have to pay the full Oxford Brookes resubmission fee – which is now GBP 470 [Periods 45 & 46] to have it remarked and passed before you will get your degree). Thinking about the SLS early on means that instead of this being an irksome chore that you only think about at the end just before submitting when your time is precious and you might be feeling overwhelmed, you will have already prepared for it and it will be a simple task to complete.
We are confident that the Introductory session will demonstrate to you the level of care and skill we possess in guiding you towards producing a successful project. However you then have the opportunity to decide for yourself if you want us to move forward together on your ‘RAP journey’.
What’s more our package is VERY competitive and compares exceptionally favourably with most UK mentors – none of whom have ever been on the marking team and who obviously are not able to assess your work with the same expert eye of an experienced marker. We also limit the number of students taken on to ensure quality assurance.
Most absolute mentoring students achieve an A or B grade.
Failed previously? Then you have come to the right place as we have an excellent track record in helping students who come to us for their resubmissions having failed previously when they used a different mentor – and we have a high pass rate for such resubmissions. If you are facing your final submission opportunity then we are best placed to help you be successful with this.
OBU Mentoring Package – Meetings
This includes a minimum of three* meetings
(Skype/ Zoom / MS Teams or FaceTime)
After the Introductory meeting other meetings will be based around reviews of your work so that we can discuss your work in depth. We believe the best way to ensure a report is successful is to provide good advice and feedback as it builds up
First Meeting – to discuss your first draft [about the first 1,800- 2,000 words of your analysis and evaluation section] to check on style, structure and content so that you get into ‘good habits’ early on and don’t waste effort.
Second Meeting – to review your progress, usually at the 5,000 word stage to critically appraise what you have done – in particular your analytical techniques including ways to improve and strengthen your analysis and evaluation [the most common reason for failure]. We shall specifically be looking at information gathering and referencing too to ensure you are likely to satisfy the assessment criteria for this along with evaluation and help you to overcome any difficulties or misunderstandings that you have with regard to these important aspects of your work.
Third Meeting – (after reading and commenting on your final draft of the complete report) to listen to and watch your slide presentation and make appropriate comments and suggestions and an opportunity too for you to ask final questions related to your work.
‘Sign off’ your work and, after your submission confirm to Oxford Brookes that we mentored you and that you had the formal slide presentation.
Throughout you will be supplied with expert guidance and email support that will be tailored to you as an individual: we are there (just an email or phone call away) helping you to recognise your weaknesses and to ease your worries and ensure that you focus on what is important.
Your Research & Analysis project need not be a stressful experience if you choose absolute mentoring because you will be in the hands of experts who understand the Assessment Criteria literally ‘inside-out’ !
* If you are struggling then rather than leave you feeling frustrated then we may decide further meeting(s) would be beneficial to ensure that you feel happy and confident about your work (these further meetings are at our discretion).
At the final review of your work we will assess it wearing a ‘marker-hat’. If we think it meets Assessment Criteria we will agree to ‘sign it off’ and for you to submit. If it doesn’t then we will recommend deferral until the next session (so that you do not waste your time and money on submitting – there is little point, if it is likely to fail, paying the GBP 470 submission fee). However the choice of whether to submit or not is yours
Important news: The latest Information Pack for P45 & 46 [Jun 2022] has been published it includes a complete revision of all topics except 4,5 & 8 [that were changed a year ago] – so only resubmitting students will be able to resubmit on these old titles from P45 onwards as the new titles must be used for first time submissions.
Please consult the ACCA Global website for the link to the latest Information Pack
OBU Mentoring Package – Our Approach
It is important to recognise that the Research and Analysis project must be your own work. Our aim is to provide you with all the direction, help with research and analytical skills and advice necessary so that you can approach the work confidently and actually enjoy doing the work. This way you will learn both great academic and practical skills so that should you wish to proceed to a higher degree (such as a Masters or perhaps the Oxford Brookes Global MBA) you will already possess the necessary graduate skills to undertake independent research, critical thinking and have a good grounding in referencing. You will have also learned how to structure and put together a good management style report and PowerPoint presentation so that you can build on such skills in your future career.
Whether you choose absolute mentoring or any other mentor you need to be confident that their expertise and guidance falls within the accepted standards for academic work and within student regulations.
Student Regulations
Our mentoring will adhere to the best academic standards and as professionals we adopt a zero tolerance of deliberate malpractice and misconduct.
Cheating, copying, collusion, plagiarism and falsifying data are all serious breaches of the Student Regulations and as professionals we will never condone such behaviour. The mentoring relationship will be terminated should evidence of any such misconduct be apparent and no fees already paid will be refundable.
However this unhappy situation should hopefully never arise as with expert guidance and a sensible mutually agreed timetable for the stages in your work there should be no reason to breach the student rules and rely on acquiring the work of other students or use a writing service – you should be able to complete your project successfully yourself. What’s more you will emerge proud of all your achievements!
What you may find when considering other mentors is that their approach is completely different from ours. Often, because mentors are too keen to get their students to pass (regardless of how this is achieved), University student regulations are overlooked, corners cut and it can be debatable in the end as to who has actually done most of the work – the student or the mentor? Not only does the student emerge with little or no appreciation of what good research and objective analysis entails (and therefore even as a graduate they are badly equipped going forward), such cases may sometimes end in the work being referred to the Academic Conduct Office (ACO) for further investigation. This means that the student’s result is deferred pending an ACO decision and possible penalty.
This can be an agonising stage (as it can last for several months) for the student and cause extra stress and making it difficult for them to carry out their job effectively in the work place or concentrate on preparing for exams. Many cases each session end with the work being given a zero grade (a fail for every section) and in some cases a Penalty Resubmission fee being imposed (meaning that if you then wish to resubmit you will have to pay double the normal amount). It is vital therefore that you ensure that your mentor not only possesses the appropriate skills but that they have total integrity and adopt an ethical approach to guiding and directing your work.