Widening Participation and Outreach summer Online Events during Covid-19

The Outreach and Widening Participation team works with schools and students from under-represented groups in higher education from primary age to Year 13 and onwards. Since the school closures, our team has explored new ways to carry out our crucial work for the community and the university. Below is a snapshot of what we have been up to with our Year 12 and Year 10 students.

Local Year 10 students have been particularly affected by the lockdown and we launched in June our Passport 2 Your Future challenge to help them stay focused during lockdown. They have been taking part in weekly challenges to stretch key skills to prepare for university. So far, they sent us their “All about me” posters, reflected on their resilience and explored subject choices for their A-levels. This week, they will be working on their research skills. We are working now on getting some of their work in the University time capsule and we hope to be able to share some of it with you soon!

Last week fifty local Year 12 students on the Realising Opportunities access programme with the University of Warwick took part in our first online Academic Skills Module. This three-day event taught them important study skills to prepare for university. They learnt about note-taking skills and practised using pre-recorded lectures from our three faculties. Led by Warwick students on MS Teams they learnt to research a topic, how to reference appropriately and to avoid plagiarism. They will be now working on a reflective piece about their experience and start thinking about the year ahead.

This week and next, we are delivering, in partnership with the Sutton Trust, Pathways to Law and Pathways to Banking and Finance summer schools to give the opportunity to almost 400 students to learn more about these careers. Year 12 students from across the partnership are meeting online our academics and professionals from these sectors to help them build their career plan.

Next week, we are also welcoming a hundred and forty Year 12 students from all across the UK to our first ever Warwick Sutton Trust online summer school! They will be joined by our Warwick Scholars to take part in a range of taster lectures and seminars with our academics, discover what studying at Warwick is like with our students and receive information and guidance on the application process on the Sutton Trust online platform.

It has been and is still a challenge to reach the most vulnerable members of our community and deliver high-quality events safely online but we are determined to do so to support the university approach to diversity and social inclusion and are grateful for the support received by all university services and departments during these challenging times.