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June 2010

Welcome to new MPs and councillors

 

When newly elected MPs and councillor cabinet members took up their posts this month, Jonathan Higgins, Aimhigher West Yorkshire Director, wrote to congratulate them on their success and to draw their early attention to the work going on across the region to change the lives of young people.

 

Jonathan highlighted the marked increase in the participation levels of young people from the key target groups and let the statistics speak for themselves: 

 

•         Acceptances into higher education through the UCAS system from West Yorkshire 18 and 19 year olds have increased by 14.4% over the past 5 years.

•         For our young people from the 40% most deprived neighbourhoods, we have seen an increase of 20.8% in the number of young people participating, with 1000 more students from the most deprived backgrounds moving onto HE.

•         The increase in the 60% least deprived neighbourhoods over the same period is 9.7%.

•         The gap between participation rates of the most and least deprived neighbourhoods has been closed by about 5%.

•         In West Yorkshire 35% of the school age population live in the 20% most deprived neighbourhoods, compared with a figure of 22% nationally.

 

Creating better access to the professions for young people in West Yorkshire

 

As Sir Martin Harris, Director of Fair Access, publishes his report saying sustained support and advice is the key to widening access to the most selective universities, the final touches are being made to the ‘Access to Higher Education and the Professions’ conference on Wednesday 16th June at the University of Leeds.

 

The five universities of West Yorkshire are joining forces with schools, colleges and widening participation experts for the conference that will look at how more young people from the region can enter professions like medicine, law, engineering and architecture.

 

In his report ‘What more can be done to widen access to highly selective universities?’ - commissioned by the Government in November 2009 to inform the Independent Review of Higher Education Funding and Student Finance - Sir Martin says it is both socially unacceptable and economically wasteful that too few talented people from disadvantaged backgrounds realise their full potential.

 

Aimhigher Summer Schools

 

Since Aimhigher Summer Schools started in 2004, over 5,000 students in Yorkshire and Humber have taken part in the vibrantprogramme designed to give young people the knowledge and experience they need to help make up their minds about going to university.

 

This year there will be 21 Summer Schools in Yorkshire and Humber for up to 1,000 students; all the schools are different and there are some specialist themes that include medicine, sport, business and dance.

 

Summer Schools are a brilliant way for young people to experience what university life is like; they take part in a huge range of activities during the week like lectures and living in real student digs. They benefit from contact with current students as role models and experience what it is like to live away from home.

 

The aim of everything the young people do during their time at Summer School is to increase their confidence and let them see that, even if nobody in their family went to university, it is a very realistic option.

 

March 2010

Visit to see Aimhigher Associates in Keighley

 

Jane Thomas, prospective parliamentary candidate for Keighley, visited Greenhead High School to meet Aimhigher Associates who are giving pupils in Keighley a helping hand in exploring, selecting and applying for university courses under a national scheme.

 

The Aimhigher Associates programme recruits undergraduate students from universities in West Yorkshire to support school pupils who have the potential to get to university. Over 250 Associates have been recruited to share their own personal experiences aimed at smoothing the way from school and college to university.

 

Additional funding for Aimhigher Associates

 

The Aimhigher Associates scheme has been given a boost with the announcement that the Higher Education Funding Council (HEFCE) has awarded Aimhigher West Yorkshire an additional £32k.

 

The additional funds are specifically to enhance the partnership’s impact in its priority work with parents, looked after children, and children with disabilities.

 

Data Analysis and Research

 

A working database linking data recorded in the online tracker to central data on the Aimhigher Associates and Summer Schools has now been developed.  Statistics across all Aimhigher activities can now be provided by institution, district or parliamentary constituency.

 

A project has just started to collate statistics on the achievements of Aimhigher learners and their success at progressing to higher and further education and compare them with regional averages.  To investigate the impact of Aimhigher, the research will also try to collect figures for a control group of learners from similar backgrounds who were not involved with the programme. 

 

For more details please contact Caroline Holas-Clark, Aimhigher West Yorkshire’s Data Analysis and Research Officer, at c.holas-clark@hud.ac.uk

 

February 2010

Bradford teenagers rub shoulders with media royalty

 

Fleet’s Street royalty shared their top tips with Bradford’s budding young journalists at a Journalism Week event run by Leeds Trinity University College.

 

Students from four Bradford Sixth Forms - Belle Vue Girls, Carlton Bolling College, Greenhead High School and Tong High School – got to meet media experts including Helen Boaden, Head of BBC News and Alan Rusbridger the Editor of the Guardian newspaper. 

 

Bright Futures for Calderdale Students

 

Year 9 students from schools across Calderdale were invited to a conference where they took part in activities focusing on the skills they will need for a successful future.

 

The conference was called Bright Futures – Skills 2 Succeed and all the young delegates were part of Calderdale Aimhigher. The two hour conference started with an icebreaker to bring students from different schools together and help them to get to know each other. Teams of students then took part in different activities focusing on employability skills and essential skills to succeed. 

 

Looked After Young People set their sights on Higher Education

 

The seventh annual dinner for looked after children was held in Leeds to encourage young people to attend a higher education summer residential programme for Year 11 students.

 

Leeds Aimhigher negotiated additional places for looked after children from the University of Leeds and Leeds Metropolitan University to participate in this scheme – the offer from HEIs has now been extended to students from other West Yorkshire districts.

 

The two-hours event was packed with films, talks from looked after young people and university staff. Sophia Coad and Lesley Smith from Thomas Danby College, shared their enjoyable experiences of attending the university residential last year.

 

January 2010

New appointment

 

Caroline Holas-Clark joined the Aimhigher West Yorkshire team as Data Research and Analysis Officer.

 

Caroline’s three key areas of work will be:

• pulling together all the data available on progression throughout West Yorkshire and producing reports to show evidence of impact,

• working with the five Aimhigher West Yorkshire districts to ensure a consistency of data reporting,

• developing the Aimhigher West Yorkshire student monitoring and tracking system.

Strategic priorities

 

Jonathan Higgins, Director of Aimhigher West Yorkshire, gave a presentation to the Area Partnership Committee - the governing body comprised of key stakeholders - entitled 'A strategic perspective on the direction of widening participation'.

 

The presentation highlighted the strategic priorities for Aimhigher West Yorkshire and how they tie in with key national policy documents, including Unleashing Aspiration, the final report from the Panel on Fair Access to the Professions led by the Alan Milburn, and Lord Mandelson's ‘Higher Ambitions’ paper that sets out a course for how universities can remain world class.

 

Gearing Up For Summer Schools

 

Students and parents from Wakefield are getting the message about the great range of Summer Schools on offer this year across the Yorkshire and Humber region.

 

A series of presentations in schools across the district have ensured Aimhigher students in years 10, 11 and 12 are aware of what’s on offer. These have been followed by workshops to help the students with the new on-line application process.

 

Yorkshire and Humber 14 – 19 Challenge  

 

Starting in February, 250 young people from Kirklees and Wakefield will experience university taster visits to find out what it’s like to be a university student as part of the Yorkshire and Humber 14-19 Challenge.