Annex A
EXAMPLES OF HEFCE FUNDED PROJECTS
WIDENING PARTICIPATION
TO HIGHER
EDUCATION IN
LEICESTER, LEICESTERSHIRE
AND RUTLAND
Partners in the project
University of Leicester, De Montfort University,
Loughborough University, Loughborough University, Leicestershire
Training and Enterprise Council Ltd, Leicestershire Careers and
Guidance Service Ltd, The Leicester City Cluster of Schools Colleges.
Initially a one year project was funded by HEFCE
in 1998-99 and set about developing effective and sustainable
ways of encouraging and supporting students by working with young
people aged 13-19 in disadvantaged groups. Having successfully
established the above partnership they moved on to identify the
target schools, colleges and FE colleges by using the unemployment
rates by ward, within the city and county, together with data
from the TEC and the Leicestershire Careers and Guidance service
Ltd which indicated schools and colleges with low participation
rates. Funding for 2000-2002 was awarded to the follow-up project
which includes the following among its aims:
Summer Programme
"The Education Action Zone has identified
a secondary special projects week where they will be looking for
education and training providers to set challenges on-site or
elsewhere, ideally with facilitation, for groups between 10-20
students. All three universities in the partnership are working
to provide activities on and off campus during this week to engage
students in the target groups in the city and county.
Working with parents
"The partners are collaborating to develop
a "Parents Pack" to have a direct impact in assisting
parents in advising their children, as well as providing details
about returning to learning for adults. It will include details
and reasurance on finance and budgeting for students and their
families contemplating higher education. University staff and
student ambassadors will go out to schools parents evenings to
discuss matters relating to student finance in higher education.
Taster Courses
"Post-16 Taster courses in Medicine at
the University of Leicester's Medical school are being developed,
and work with Medical students on pre-16 student shadowing and
tutoring schemes will also be developed. Wherever possible Taster
courses are being extended to give prospective students a broader
range of university subjects to choose from.
Student Ambassadors Scheme/Student Shadowing and
Mentoring
"The Student Ambassadors and other University
students are becoming involved in student shadowing and mentoring
with the target groups
Working with teachers
"Closer links between the universities,
FE and school and college staff are being established through
working with subject teachers to enhance the current AGNVQ user
groups and through developing A level user groups, master classes
etc to assist staff and students.
Staff development
"Internal university staff development
and training of Admissions Tutors and related staff is being introduced
to ensure that such staff are aware of the changes in the post
16 curriculum, admissions profiling, the role of widening participation,
awareness of the development of new organisations within the local
scene and their role.
HEFCE Funding: £402,150 over three years.
WESSEX SOLENT
PARTNERSHIP FOR
WIDENING PARTICIPATION
Partners in the project
University College Chichester, King Alfred's
College, University of Portsmouth, Southampton Institute, University
of Southampton, local FE College representative groups, local
school organisations and the Lifelong Learning Partnerships.
This project is being run by the Wessex Solent
Partnership, and a further HEFCE funded complementary project
is being led by the University of Portsmouth. The management of
the two projects is co-ordinated through the South Central FE/HE
Forum which the partners established in 1997. A great deal of
work has already been carried by the Southampton Widening Provision
Project (1995-99) based at New College, and this new work is building
on the experience and expertise of the outreach and development
work already gained and relating this to the specific outreach
plans at University College Chichester, King Alfred's College
and Portsmouth University.
Regional priorities which were identified as
important for the South East region to address included "combating
social exclusion by providing access to higher education provision
in both urban and rural areas, and dealing with intermittent patterns
of coastal deprivation". Among its aims it plans to:
— Carry out an exploration of appropriate
outreach methods and taster development: for specific target groups
eg unemployed adults, young people from minority ethnic communities,
parents on low income, working-class adults, voluntary and part
time workers; for different curriculum areas eg new vocational
subject areas; and for different geographical areas ie urban,
rural, outlying estates. Their target is to run at least 35 outreach/bridging
courses during the life of the project.
— Use ICT to establish preferred learning
styles, support development of basic skills and support students
with a range of disabilities, thus promoting retention and recruitment.
— Promote positive attitudes to higher
education through Summer Schools for Year 8 school children drawn
from socially deprived areas in the Wessex and Solent areas. In
addition the project will use Access course students, also drawn
from disadvantaged areas, as mentors for the children. The targets
for this strand of the work include by the end of the project:
320 children drawn from groups under-represented in HE will have
enjoyed the Summer School experience; 24 schools in the region
covered by the Partnership will have nominated children and made
a contribution to the project; 50 Access course students from
the regional FE Colleges will have acted as mentors for the children.
HEFCE funding: £184,500 over three years.
LANCASHIRE COMPACT
FOR WIDENING
PARTICIPATION
Partners in the project
Edge Hill College of Higher Education, University
of Central Lancashire, Lancaster University, St Martin's College.
The four institutions involved in the partnership
collaborated in the first phase of the HEFCE funded widening participation
programme. During 1998-99 they identified geographical areas,
sectors and socio-economic groups where levels of participation
are particularly low. They are now working together on a three
year extended project and their aims include:
— Working with young people from Key
Stage 4 onwards in a range of activities such as: workshop sessions,
training programme for student mentors developed and implemented,
visits to HEIs, residential workshops/summer schools.
— Working with families with no history
of higher education. Planned work under this heading will include
parent advice sessions using material suitable for the generic
concerns of different parent groups, joint visits to HEIs for
parents and children, and reports on issues such as Families and
FE to HE transition etc.
— Implementing a programme of staff
development for HEI personnel that seeks to raise awareness of
barriers to HE participation and enables changes in institutional
practices relating to access for non traditional entrants.
HEFCE funding: £937,500 over three years.
AIM HIGHER
Partners in the project
Liverpool University, Liverpool John Moores
University, Liverpool Hope, Edge Hill College of HE, Liverpool
City of Learning and Merseywise (representing the FE Colleges
in Merseyside)
The four HEIs have a track record of collaborative
work, and were funded by HEFCE in 1998-99 to carry out a pilot
project to identify the key barriers for young people for progression
to higher education. The current project seeks to build on this
work by building up a long term effective working relationship
with schools, FE colleges, Lifelong Learning Partnerships and
relevant support agencies to maximise the opportunities for progression
and so widen participation for disadvantaged young people in Merseyside.
The need to target areas of need such as schools, wards or communities
to include issues arising from Education Action Zones was identified
as a regional priority by the Regional Advisory Network.
Among the planned outcomes of the project are:
— The recruitment, support and training
of student mentors from the undergraduate population, working
with Student Community Action and the Student Tutoring Scheme.
This will enable young people to be supported on an individual
basis by providing academic support, study skills, motivation
building, work experience and role models.
— "Talent Support" Saturdays—monthly
day long sessions to be held in University of Liverpool, partner
HEIs and associate colleges. These will include activity based
sessions concentrating on ICT skills, introduction to new HE academic
subjects, homework support, career information and personal progression
planning.
— "Talent Support" Summer
school activities—participant focussed curriculum to be
determined in consultation with the young people through the mechanism
of Saturday Schools.
— Developing support packs for colleges
and schools to involve parents in their children's learning whilst
developing their own skills and knowledge. Participants will contribute
to the development and piloting of new support packs to encourage
the involvement of parents in education.
— "Development of a framework
for the evolution of programme portfolios more relevant and sympathetic
to the target group as well as consonant with wider participation,
which can be adopted where appropriate by all participating HEIs.
They plan to use Liverpool John Moores University as a case study
to consider the profile and characteristics of members of the
target group and develop sound and academically acceptable guidelines
which allow a broader range of relevant factors in addition to
academic performance to be taken into account in selection and
admission.
HEFCE funding: £816,000 over three years.
WIDENING PARTICIPATION—A
HIGHER EDUCATION
STRATEGY FOR
THE NORTH
EAST
Partners in the Proposal
University of Durham, University of Newcastle
upon Tyne, University of Northumbria at Newcastle, University
of Sunderland, University of Teesside, The Open University in
the North.
This partnership was funded by HEFCE in 1998-99
to carry out a region wide project comprising a comprehensive
study of under-represented groups in post—16 education and
training in the region, and a survey of existing initiatives to
widen participation which has identified "best practice".
This new project now seeks to embed the lessons learnt from earlier
work in this field and the results of the 1998-99 project as well
as establishing new initiatives that can accelerate the cultural
change which is required.
One of the main theses of the project is to
raise aspirations. The North East of England has the lowest post-16
participation rates in the country (66.4 per cent) in the country,
with a predominance of families with no history of higher education
particpation, and a large number of 11-16 schools which lack role
models in the form of sixth formers planning to enter higher education.
All the institutions involved in the partnership plan to raise
aspirations through work with schools, parents and families and
some of the specific work to be carried out is as follows:
— Taster sessions to include university
opportunity weeks, tasters in specific subjects, FE taster days,
short courses to assist progress. The "Students into Schools"
project will look specifically at activities for pupils in Years
9-13. The University of Sunderland will work with pupils from
age 8 and will develop a "Junior University."
— Summer Schools in a variety of formats
including:
— delivery of a range of existing access
and pre-access taster course and other activities;
— development of specific accredited routes
for students from disadvantaged backgrounds applying to higher
education through UCAS, with the summer school counting towards
offers of places; and
— activities aimed at adult learners.
— Student shadowing and mentoring -
mentoring of new entrants from disadvantaged backgrounds by older
students will contribute towards progression and retention of
students.
— Outreach programmes - including the
delivery of community based programmes and taster modules, delivery
of events and activities in collaboration with community venues,
schools, colleges, and the emerging "One-Stop Shops".
— Institutions will take steps to review
and revise their admissions systems and procedures in the context
both of Curriculum 2000 and the new Post 16 qualifications and
of the needs of potential applicants from non-traditional backgrounds.
— Once "on programme" students
will be assured ongoing pastoral and additional learning support
through the development and enhancement of provision such as:
tutorial systems; student mentoring programmes; provision of Key
Skills; drop-in study support centres; mathematics workshops;
and English for academic purposes.
HEFCE funding: £1,713,000 over three
years.
UNDER REPRESENTATION
OF MUSLIM
WOMEN: ENHANCING
THE NEW
SITES OF
LEARNING
Partners in the project
University of Central England in Birmingham,
University of Birmingham, University of Birmingham Westhill, community
organisations and local FE colleges.
In 1998-99 HEFCE funded a project which investigated
the barriers to participation facing Muslim women. Research had
shown that many Bangladeshi and Pakistani women were missing out
on higher education because they were unable or unwilling to travel
to a university or college. The HEFCE funding enabled the project
to offer courses on a trial basis to four community-based centres
in South and East Birmingham. Following the identification of
regional priorities it was agreed that this project should be
funded for a further three years. The extension of this funding
enables the project to provide support for those students already
recruited and to contribute to the recruitment and retention of
future cohorts.
Planned outcomes include:
— Establishment of shared web-based
discussion sites to enable student and staff to share ideas and
information about local opportunities for progression.
— A Summer School to raise awareness
of HE provision in the local communities, repeating in subsequent
years if successful.
— Provision of training of staff in
the specific needs and requirements of community based learning
activity, including aspects of work-based learning and its accreditation.
HEFCE funding: £154,500 over three years.
FOCUS ON
HIGHER EDUCATION
Partners in the project
University of Westminster, South Bank University,
University College London, University College Students' Union,
London Guildhall University.
The universities in this project have already
worked together on a pilot project called "Student Focus".
The HEFCE funding enables them to continue and develop this work,
and to draw on best practice in order to target carefully an HE
awareness programme in selected inner London boroughs with low
progression rates. Its core activity involves using university
students ambassadors to carry out a collaboratively planned programme
of work in schools in inner London. They are targeting Year 10-12
pupils who have been identified as having the potential to go
on to HE if extra support and encouragement is provided. Actual
activities include:
— Small group mentoring, help in homework
clubs, visits to the universities by pupils, talks about HE and
life as a student, shadowing.
— Partnership work with schools—a
forum for participating schools to ensure that their views are
heard has been set up. In this way the programme has been tailored
to match their specific requirements.
— Recruitment of Student Ambassadors
from varying social, cultural and ethnic backgrounds. The aim
is to provide realistic role models with whom pupils can identify.
They will be given training in mentoring, working in schools and
presentation skills.
HEFCE Funding: £150,000 over three years.
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