Uni Connect (NCOP) - Linking London Update

Young targeted Uni Connect update 

Since the start of term, our Engagement Officers have been concentrating their efforts on tracking down Year 13 or Year 2 learners who were signed up to the Uni Connect programme last year. It’s a crucial time for valuable one-to-one sessions, especially with the UCAS process in full swing. We have also been working with New College of the Humanities and an external trainer, who delivers workshops on themes based around resilience. Havering Sixth Form has had the first of four sessions, and two other colleges are signing up. LSEC has taken a trip to Rose Bruford College, a creative arts HEI, and learners were really pleased to be able to visit a campus in person. Barking & Dagenham College held a successful Careers and HE fair this week. All our Engagement Officers are organising personal statement talks and draft-editing support (virtual and face to face), from HE partners as well as Linking London staff, as most colleges have internal deadlines in November.  

We have launched our first of four mentoring projects via the online platform Brightside, building on our success with similar schemes last year. The remaining three will launch in the next fortnight, with two planned to repeat next term with new cohorts. Across all the schemes we are able to offer subject-specific, tailored IAG to ward learners with interests ranging from performing arts, fine art and design, gaming and fashion to humanities, law, social sciences, business and sport. It has been a busy and high-pressure start to the academic year with so many learners seeming to need additional support this year, after two disrupted school years, so we are especially glad to be able to attempt to plug some of the gaps for learners from Uni Connect wards. We are pleased to report that in September alone we were able to work with over 70 ward learners and 130 additional non ward learners. 

Adult learners targeted Uni Connect update 

It's been a busy month in terms of our Uni Connect work with Adult learners. Our pilot projects with Adult college learners on level 3 programmes, delivered by four university partners, will be starting shortly and last month we held a series of very well received webinars for level 3 adult learners interested in progressing to HE. These covered a range of subject areas including Nursing and Midwifery and Health, as well as Psychology, Sociology and Law. Links to the webinars can be found here

We have recently launched a Level 3 adult learner brokerage service for our Linking London colleges, sharing requests for support with our university partners and have already received a number of requests. And looking ahead we will be holding our next Adult Forum, focussing on work with adults on lower-level courses, on the 11th of November. 

And of course, last month we welcomed Jade Baker-Smith to the team as our new Uni Connect Outreach Officer. Jade will be working closely with Jess on our Adult work and Strategic Outreach offer in the year ahead. 

To keep up to date with our Uni Connect offer, please sign up to our monthly bulletin.