Document Actions

Uni Connect (NCOP) - Linking London Update

As of the end of January 2021, we have exceeded our OfS target of working with over 20% of ward learners in our 13 target wards. 306 ‘ward learners’ have participated in at least one activity, and 42% of these have participated in three or more activities, which is really positive in relation to our aim of providing a sustained programme of support. We have also worked with an additional 179 learners who are not from our target wards, but who overlap with the target demographic according to a range of measures. 89% of the total cohort of students we have worked with are classified as disadvantaged by at least one indicator.

Havering Sixth Form and Havering FE College students are signing up for mentoring with Middlesex University, St Mary’s University and University of the Arts London. In fact across the board, e-mentoring is considered by all colleagues to be the most valuable resource that we can provide learners currently, with one-to-one support being vital to combatting the sense of having ‘fallen behind’ that many learners have expressed to our colleagues based in colleges.

In Hub 2, wellbeing packs are proving popular, students of creative subjects are signing up to a mentoring scheme with UAL, and our pre-recorded Linking London Student Finance video is being shown in tutor time to reach large groups of students - this will be followed up with a live Q&A session to tackle any specific queries.

Students from Richmond-upon-Thames College are signing up to the new mentoring scheme launched on Monday by St Mary’s University, and other colleges are also beginning to access this, including Havering FE College as mentioned above.

There are lots of interesting events happening virtually and many more on the horizon, with some hope of in-person or ‘blended’ events much later in the year, so there is a sense of cautious optimism and certainly no lack of enthusiasm from our FE and HE partners at the moment, who continue to work so hard to engage the learners who we know are most in need of support, guidance and motivation at this time.

Uni Connect Outreach Hub Update

This month we delivered our first event of the year, exploring “The Value of the Humanities.” Speakers were from Morley College, the New College of the Humanities and Prospects who together explored the graduate destinations of humanites students, the transferable skills humanities students have and the common misconceptions of the subject area. The event received great feedback and the recording is available here, please do share with colleagues who you think may find it useful. We continue to support our mentoring projects, two of which are already established with the other two launching in the next few days. 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.