Synap partnership brings personalised learning to University of Law

UK legal education specialists The University of Law (ULaw) and online learning platform Synap have struck an exclusive partnership that will deliver a raft of benefits to law students as they prepare for the highly-anticipated Solicitors Qualifying Exam (SQE).

The SQE is the biggest shakeup to legal education in decades. Upon its launch by the Solicitors Regulation Authority in November 2021, it will effectively change the way all solicitors qualify from 2021. 

The new system of exams to replace the Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL) and the Legal Practice Course (LPC) will require all solicitors to complete two years’ work experience before they can qualify.

Through the partnership, Synap will form an integral part of the new suite of programmes developed by the University of Law to prepare students for the SQE. This will also provide training in the recently introduced Bar Practice Course (BPC), which begins in July 2020.

“Innovation for the improvement of learning is central to ULaw’s ethos and our students expect the best and latest tools, such as Synap, to enable them to achieve their goals,” ULaw Vice-Chancellor and CEO Professor Andrea Nollent said.

Synap was founded by James Gupta and Omair Vaiyani in 2015 when they were studying medicine at Leeds University. Created to optimise learning, the platform was built around two key focus areas: personalised learning and the learner experience. By the time the duo graduated, 25 percent of UK medical students were revising with the app.

What makes Synap’s solutions attractive is that it brings personalised learning to the study process, allowing students to learn according to their own preferences. 

A central feature of the Synap platform are its quizzes. Accessible on mobile, users can tailor the questions according to their strengths and weaknesses while tutors monitor their study progress using learner analytics.

The personalised nature of the learning tool enables users to learn more and at a much quicker rate.

Today, Synap is accessed by over 5,000 learners across a variety of disciplines outside the field of medicine. This is owing to the success of the platform so far, with notable rates of improvements seen in users’ learning progress.

The University of Law hopes its exclusive partnership with Synap to bring the same success to its learners.

The partnership will allow students at the university to access Synap on their mobile devices to access the SQE 1 assessment practice. Delivered as part of the students’ study programme, access will be free of charge.

“We always knew that Synap had potential in different fields. We’re incredibly excited to be working with The University of Law to bring this new approach to legal education and help their students to learn more in less time,” Gupta said.

“Our own analytics have shown that users who follow our algorithms, perform twice as well as those who are also using Synap, but largely self-studying, and it would be very exciting to see this trend continue with ULaw students.”