Uni Connect - Linking London Update

Two online mentoring schemes for Year 13s have all but wrapped up, with another due to finish in early February. Our Programme Coordinator has spent time reflecting with partners and the Brightside contact on the different schemes’ strengths and weaknesses last term, and this has led to some helpful insights and practical steps for improving the delivery of the schemes running this term, including rolling out the gamification features of Brightside, and other strategies for increasing mentee engagement.

On the resources front, our Year 12/Year 1 To Do List resource has been updated, and in terms of events, plans are afoot for some online parent-targeted webinars for first and second year learners and their families, focused around student finance, creative careers and a general introduction to HE and apprenticeships.

Adult learner and strategic outreach strand update

Work with adult learners in colleges has progressed since our last meeting. In particular, students at LSEC and Barking and Dagenham College have benefitted from support from Middlesex University, predominantly around personal statements and nursing interviews.

139 individual adult learners have benefitted from our work since the beginning of the academic year, from a total of 16 different London colleges. These have all been Level 3 students so far, although we are hoping to get started on a few small projects to support Level 2 students soon. We are also exploring the development of a video case study series for mature learners, which we have asked our HE partners to volunteer participants for.

The deadline for bids for our strategic outreach work is soon and we are hopeful of a 2 or 3 pilot projects with students from low socioeconomic backgrounds running before the end of the year. We are hopeful too that these will involve colleges we do less work with and organisations who are new to us, in order to broaden our reach across London.