Joy over Sheffield Hallam University's top rating

Hallam was named ‘UK University of the Year for Teaching Quality’ in the latest Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide.

The university also ranks in the top half of the guide’s social inclusion table, and was revealed to be higher education’s biggest recruiter of poor, white students in a report published earlier this year.

Since The Star reported on the success story, a number of readers have taken to Facebook to welcome the news.

Andy Wilson said: “The place has served me well, great place I can understand why young students would love it.”

Charlotte Lamb added: “Well done, I loved my time there. Excellent university.”

Chris Rogers said the recognition was “well deserved.”

Chris Wragg posted that it is “great news for Sheffield” before adding: “Booming city.”

The guide’s editors said the results showed Hallam was going from ‘strength to strength’, with a recent launch of a £220 million investment plan alongside the opening later this year of their £14m Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre.

Alastair McCall, editor of The Sunday Times Good University Guide 2019, said: "One of our big civic universities, Sheffield Hallam is enjoying something of a renaissance.

“Students have repeatedly given it good ratings for the quality of its teaching, but this year their assessments have propelled the university to a new high.

“Achieving sustained success in this area is hard, all the more so for a large - rather than niche - institution with 30,000 students.

“No university of a similar size delivers so well on teaching quality in our latest rankings.

“It has ambitions to be the leading university in the world for applied learning and has embarked on a 15-year campus plan to deliver on that.

“Rooted firmly in the region it serves, Sheffield Hallam recruits heavily from some of the groups served least well by British universities and ensures they thrive once they enrol.”

Professor Sir Chris Husbands, Sheffield Hallam’s vice-chancellor, said university staff and students are ‘delighted’ to win the award.