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Uni Connect (NCOP) - Linking London Update
March was a busy month for our Uni Connect targeted work. We have continued to engage with more ward learners – taking the total to 340 with an additional 301 learners from outside of our target wards. With the majority of students now back in college or on a phased return to college, our engagement officers have also been able to return to some in-person delivery. Although we continue to offer support to students in their final year of college, we are now focusing in particular on year 12/Level 3 year 1 students and introducing them to the support offered by our Uni Connect programme in this particularly important phase of their decision-making journey.
In London South East Colleges, our Uni Connect engagement officer has been working hard to design and promote a Transition event at the end of April for Level 2 students. The event will take place from 26th-29th April and aims to open up the conversation about student’s long-term goals and build up the culture of Higher Education within the college. We are delighted that so many of our university partners are supporting this event, through workshops, but also by providing student ambassadors who have followed similar pathways to take part in live Q&A sessions.
In Havering FE College, Havering Sixth Form and Coulsdon College, the offer of online mentoring continues to be extremely popular with new students joining the programme - in particular students seeking one to one subject specific support. Given the popularity of this, we have expanded our offer to include mentors from Middlesex University.
In terms of our ongoing evaluation of the programme, at the start of March we ran two ‘Young Researcher’ focus groups. The aim was to offer a training session for students so they could lead the focus group (become a facilitator) and so to give them experience of a real life research project. For the students who chose to be a participant, it was an opportunity to share their views on the programme and help shape it in the future and for the Uni Connect central team it was a chance to look at the impact of the programme and take on board feedback from students. We had a great turn out from students and look forward to sharing some of the key themes that arose.
Finally, we say goodbye to Lauren from St Mary’s University who has done an amazing amount of work for our Uni Connect programme – from the popular Motivation Hacks videos to workshops and mentoring, we are incredibly thankful for her hard work and wish her all the best in the future.
Uni Connect Outreach Hub Update
Staff and students can register to receive our BTEC Extended Diploma Support Package which will consist of pre-recorded videos produced by five of our HE partners – you can register here and the package will be emailed directly to everyone who completes the form on April 19th. The videos will be tailored to BTEC Extended Diploma Year 1 students who are beginning to research their university options and we will also be including various resources to support students with the decision-making process. Please see below a list of the different topics and the contributing university partners.
How to research different courses & universities – University of Westminster
Deciding on the right course area – University of Greenwich
Narrowing down options (variety of subjects)
Business – University of Westminster
Health and Social Care/Science – Kingston University
Sport – St Mary’s
Creative Arts – UAL
Beginning your personal statement – St Mary’s
Our bulletin continues to highlight online outreach activities, you can see past issues here and subscribe here. As always, if you have any questions or requests for support, do get in touch with Jess and Melanie.
