Common use of Care Leavers Clause in Contracts

Care Leavers. The University of Brighton recognises that some groups in schools require more support and has a long established track record of work with looked after children and care leavers. We are proud to have retained the Buttle UK Quality Mark in HE for our commitment to supporting learners from these groups, and have a specific target in our access agreement to increase participation. We have an established partnership with the Virtual School in East Sussex to support looked after children. We wish to increase our work to support organisations which offer educational support for looked after children and also increase the numbers of care leavers recruited to the University of Brighton. We will therefore seek to work with more Virtual Schools across Sussex and Kent in 2014-15. We recognise that care leavers are a particularly under represented group, and in keeping with our mission to widen participation to higher education broadly, we will continue to run a Spring School specifically aimed at looked after young people in East Sussex. Section 2c below details the financial support aimed specifically at those with a looked after background. Having a number of courses leading to the professions, we are particularly keen as a university to develop outreach activity which is able to complement them. We will run taster days and other projects in Architecture. We will also be piloting a buddy scheme for Compact Plus students interested in applying for a teaching degree which matches them with current undergraduate teaching students who will offer them the benefit of their experiences. Section 2c below details the financial support aimed specifically at encouraging and supporting access to the professions from under-represented groups. We understand the benefits of a sustained programme of activities rather than one-off interventions. The outreach team has initiated a cohort scheme for identified pupils and students in under-represented groups from Year 9 through to mature students studying Access courses: Compact Plus. The Compact Plus programme sits within the University of Brighton Compact, a broader Education Liaison initiative. Whilst the Compact offers information, advice and guidance for all students, schools and colleges in Sussex, Compact Plus offers targeted, more intensive support for students from under-represented groups. In order to generate, deliver and coordinate new and innovative subject specific activities for Compact Plus students, and to embed outreach more clearly within our academic departments, we have established the Widening Participation Outreach Operation Group (WPOOG), with representation from the University’s thirteen academic Schools. Our outreach work with primary schools is long established, but will continue to evolve as we recognise the importance of early intervention with young people from under-represented groups. We will continue to use primary materials aimed towards aspiration-raising for younger children in closely targeted local schools via the ‘Professor ▇ ▇▇▇▇’ programme, the artwork for which was undertaken by University of Brighton alumnus ▇▇▇▇▇ ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇. In addition, the University will expand its primary mentoring programme which aims to change attitudes toward higher education amongst children whom we identify as gaining the greatest benefit from sustained, intensive support. The University of Brighton Compact currently provides information advice and guidance for parents from across the county. However, we have considered the evidence which suggests that young people from non-traditional backgrounds are influenced by their parents’ educational background and we will develop a university module specifically aimed at parents of Compact Plus students. Using the established, and locally-celebrated Open Access to Knowledge (OAK) project as a blueprint we will develop and implement a series of independent learning sessions for parents. By providing this initiative, we will not only provide information, advice and guidance for parents, but give them the opportunity to fully engage with higher education as a participant. Providing all students with the opportunity to engage with external agencies as part of their curriculum is one aim of the university’s Strategic Plan 2012-15, and the Centre for Learning and Teaching has set up an engagement group to help to facilitate this across the university. Having received feedback on the positive benefits of employing our students to work on outreach activities, it is particularly important that more opportunities are made available. We therefore intend to increase the number of primary and secondary mentoring opportunities available to our students, engaging with learners from widening participation backgrounds. The Faculty of Arts currently offers a number of accredited optional modules to their students which place them in local schools, aiming to increase pupils’ aspirations and attainment. This has a number of benefits to both the pupils and our students and it is our intention to develop many more of these modules across all academic departments. We will prioritise the recruitment of mentors and widening access ambassadors from under-represented groups, both to increase the benefits to the target groups for these activities and to offer paid employment to support the retention of current students who have come from non-traditional backgrounds. We will also respond to the recommendation from the university’s Equality and Diversity team to ensure that all Student Ambassadors employed by the university are trained in equality good practice. Our intention is to employ a mentoring / student engagement coordinator to take this important work forward. The University of Brighton believes firmly in being a good partner, both regionally and nationally, and seeks out creative and innovative collaborations. We currently work closely and share best practice with our partner colleges – City College Brighton and Hove, Sussex Downs College, Plumpton College, Northbrook College and Sussex Coast College Hastings – on outreach and are exploring ways of developing shared outreach initiatives. We continue to see college delivery of higher education as an important strand in promoting access and diversity. Because we believe that learners should go to the University which is right for them, our outreach programme in 2014 includes activities with different HEIs to allow participants the opportunity to gather as much information as possible to inform their choices. Building on the successful collaborative outreach work we have already undertaken with UCL, in 2014-15 we will undertake a shared venture with primary school children in London and Sussex. We will target schools based on indices of multiple deprivation and have developed a collaborative target that 85% of participants will consider that higher education is something they could aspire to. Ultimately, we aim to establish a shared cohort of young people in primary schools, interventions with whom can be tracked by both the University of Brighton and UCL using the Higher Education Access Tracker database (HEAT). This will allow both universities to deliver sustained and targeted activities to an identified cohort, combining the strong outreach offers of each institution. The University of Brighton and UCL will also offer joined information, advice and guidance sessions in London, Kent and the Gatwick Diamond area, which both reflects the intentions laid out in the university’s Strategic Plan 2012-15 and our outreach expansion ambitions. We believe parents should have the opportunity to access information about a range of differing institutions, and we recently hosted a Year 10 Compact Plus parents evening at which a member of the Widening Participation team from ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ College, Cambridge spoke about the application process for traditional universities. The University shares a collaborative outreach project with the University of Sussex, based in the Brighton and Sussex Medical School (BSMS). BrightMed recruits 50 Year 8 pupils each year from local state schools and who have no family background in higher education, and continues on to Year 13. To date, 557 students have been recruited to the programme with 227 currently taking part. All students who have applied to study medicine and have met academic criteria have had at least one interview. Of those, 80% have received offers. The project aims to contribute towards increased diversity in the medical profession and was profiled as a case study in the ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ report ‘Fair Access to Professional Careers: A progress report’ (May 2012) as a significant example of the progress that some medical schools have made to increase the number of medical students from disadvantaged backgrounds. The University also hosts STEM Sussex, which delivers Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths outreach to schools and colleges across the South East. We will work closely in partnership to increase the amount of targeted widening access STEM activities. As a good partner, we recognise there is much to be gained from sharing best practice with colleagues across the sector, and are active members of the Southern Widening Participation Practitioners Network, and the HEAT steering and operational groups which comprise of members from 13 other universities. Whilst we currently give considerable additional consideration to the individual circumstances of applicants, particularly if they come from a looked after background, we are also looking at ways to develop a university-wide contextual admissions policy. We are seeking to integrate the HEAT database with our admissions database to allow us to more easily identify participants in our outreach programme at the point of application. We have developed an admissions portal (to go live in September 2013) which will include flags for widening participation applicants for admissions tutors to use and by 2014 will have a post in place within the Admissions Office which will focus on contextual admissions and be able to advise academic admissions tutors.

Care Leavers. The University of Brighton recognises that some groups in within schools require more support and has a long established track record of work with looked after children and care leavers. We are proud to have retained the Buttle UK Quality Mark in HE for our commitment to supporting learners from these groups, and have a specific target in our access agreement to increase participation. We have an established partnership with the Virtual School in East Sussex to support looked after children. We wish to increase our work to support organisations which offer educational support for looked after children and also increase the numbers of care leavers recruited to the University of Brighton. We will therefore seek to work with more Virtual Schools across Sussex and Kent in 2014-15. We recognise that care leavers are a particularly under under-represented group, and in keeping with our mission to widen participation to higher education broadly, we will continue to run a Spring School specifically aimed at looked after young people in East Sussex. Section 2c below details We have established a cross-institution Care Leavers’ Group, which has representation from members of staff who have a key role to play across the financial student lifecycle and we aim to develop and grow the work of this group in 2015-16. The group includes the WP team, the bursaries team, Student Services, alumni, Accommodation Services, Student Support and Guidance Tutors (SSGTs), Equality and Diversity staff. The Group will also have student representatives who have experienced the care system. We are proud that our Buttle UK Quality Mark in HE for our commitment to supporting care experienced learners was renewed in 2013, and have a specific target in our access agreement to increase participation of care leavers. To this end we have established partnerships with the Virtual Schools in Brighton and Hove, West Sussex and East Sussex to support aimed specifically at those with a looked after background. Having a number of courses leading to the professions, we are particularly keen as a university to develop outreach activity which is able to complement themchildren. We will run taster days would like to increase our work to support organisations which offer educational support for looked after children and other projects to continue our success in Architecture. We will also be piloting a buddy scheme for Compact Plus students interested in applying for a teaching degree which matches them with current undergraduate teaching students who will offer them increasing the benefit numbers of their experiences. Section 2c below details the financial support aimed specifically care leavers enrolled at encouraging and supporting access to the professions from under-represented groups. We understand the benefits of a sustained programme of activities rather than one-off interventions. The outreach team has initiated a cohort scheme for identified pupils and students in under-represented groups from Year 9 through to mature students studying Access courses: Compact Plus. The Compact Plus programme sits within the University of Brighton Compact, a broader Education Liaison initiativeBrighton. Whilst We were the Compact offers information, advice and guidance lead sponsor for all students, schools and colleges the EPIC (Exceptional People in Sussex, Compact Plus offers targeted, more intensive support Care) Awards for students from under-represented groups. In order to generate, deliver and coordinate new and innovative subject specific activities for Compact Plus studentsWest Sussex in 2014, and aim to embed outreach more clearly within continue to support our academic departmentslocal Virtual Schools into 2015/16. We have responded to guidance from OFFA which recommends that widening participation interventions start early and take a holistic approach which supports pupils along their entire journey through education and into their early careers. The holistic nature of this work cannot be done in isolation without the involvement of their parents and carers. The university has appointed a member of staff with a specific remit to work with parents and carers and developed a strategy which will encompass engagement at all stages of their children’s involvement with the university, we have and in particular dovetailing with our long-established the Widening Participation Outreach Operation Group (WPOOG), with representation from the University’s thirteen academic Schools. Our outreach work with primary schools schools. It is long established, but will continue important that parental support is gained and fostered from the very beginning of the process to evolve as we recognise ensure their engagement with and understanding of the importance aims of early intervention with young people from under-represented groups. We will continue to use primary materials aimed towards aspiration-raising for younger children in closely targeted local schools via widening participation and the ‘Professor ▇ ▇▇▇▇’ programme, the artwork for which was undertaken by University of Brighton alumnus ▇▇▇▇▇ ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇. In addition, the University will expand its primary mentoring programme which aims to change attitudes toward higher education amongst children whom we identify system more generally. Early intervention which involves parents and carers can help address concerns regarding the potential cost of university as gaining well as promote the greatest benefit from sustained, intensive supportconcept of inter-generational learning. The University of Brighton will therefore be considering parental engagement in four strands as follows:  To engage parents as much as possible in activities with their children. For primary school students, parents will be invited to celebrations at the end of mentoring projects and inbound activities. Secondary school parents will be kept in touch about interventions and activities through the Compact currently provides information Plus programme and invited to key events and activities in which their children have taken part. Parents of identified students in sixth form and further education colleges will be offered advice and guidance to prepare their children for parents from across the countymaking applications to university. However, we have considered the evidence There will be several activities planned each year to which suggests that young people from non-traditional backgrounds are influenced by their parents’ educational background and we entire families will develop a university module specifically be invited.  To provide study support sessions. These will be aimed at parents of Compact Plus studentsidentified students in Key Stage 4 in Maths, English and Modern Foreign Languages. Using the established, and locally-celebrated Open Access to Knowledge (OAK) project as  To develop a blueprint we network of parent ambassadors. These will develop and implement a series of independent learning sessions for be parents. By providing this initiative, we will not only provide information, advice and guidance for parents, but give them the opportunity to fully engage with higher education as a participant. Providing all students with the opportunity to engage with external agencies as part of their curriculum is one aim of the university’s Strategic Plan 2012-15, and the Centre for Learning and Teaching has set up an engagement group to help to facilitate this across the university. Having received feedback on the positive benefits of employing our students to work on outreach activities, it is particularly important that more opportunities are made available. We therefore intend to increase the number of primary and secondary mentoring opportunities available to our students, engaging with learners from widening participation backgrounds. The Faculty of Arts currently offers a number of accredited optional modules to their students which place them in local schools, aiming to increase pupils’ aspirations and attainment. This has a number of benefits to both the pupils and our students and it is our intention to develop many more of these modules across all academic departments. We will prioritise the recruitment of mentors and widening access ambassadors from under-represented groups, both to increase the benefits to the target groups for these activities and to offer paid employment to support the retention /carers of current students who have come from non-traditional backgrounds. We will also respond to the recommendation from the university’s Equality and Diversity team to ensure that all Student Ambassadors employed by the university are trained in equality good practice. Our intention is to employ a mentoring / student engagement coordinator to take this important work forward. The University of Brighton believes firmly in being a good partner, both regionally and nationally, and seeks out creative and innovative collaborations. We currently work closely and share best practice with our partner colleges – City College Brighton and Hove, Sussex Downs College, Plumpton College, Northbrook College and Sussex Coast College Hastings – on outreach and are exploring ways of developing shared outreach initiatives. We continue to see college delivery of higher education as an important strand in promoting access and diversity. Because we believe that learners should go to the University which is right for them, our outreach programme in 2014 includes activities with different HEIs to allow participants the opportunity to gather as much information as possible to inform their choices. Building on the successful collaborative outreach work we have already undertaken with UCL, in 2014-15 we will undertake a shared venture with primary school children in London and Sussex. We will target schools based on indices of multiple deprivation and have developed a collaborative target that 85% of participants will consider that higher education is something they could aspire to. Ultimately, we aim to establish a shared cohort of young people in primary schools, interventions with whom can be tracked by both at the University of Brighton from a widening participation background who will be able to talk to other parents and UCL using the Higher Education Access Tracker database (HEAT). This will allow both universities to deliver sustained and targeted activities to an identified cohort, combining the strong outreach offers of each institution. The University of Brighton and UCL will also offer joined information, provide advice and guidance sessions about supporting their children at university.  To provide opportunities for learning (e.g. credit-bearing short study modules) for parents and carers who may be interested in London, Kent and the Gatwick Diamond area, which both reflects the intentions laid out in becoming part-time students as a result of their children’s engagement with the university’s Strategic Plan 2012-15 and our outreach expansion ambitions. We believe parents should have the opportunity to access information about a range of differing institutions, and we recently hosted a Year 10 Compact Plus parents evening at which a member of the Widening Participation team from ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ College, Cambridge spoke about the application process for traditional universities. The University shares a collaborative outreach project with the University of Sussex, based in the Brighton and Sussex Medical School (BSMS). BrightMed recruits 50 Year 8 pupils each year from local state schools and who have no family background in higher education, and continues on to Year 13. To date, 557 students have been recruited to the programme with 227 currently taking part. All students who have applied to study medicine and have met academic criteria have had at least one interview. Of those, 80% have received offers. The project aims to contribute towards increased diversity in the medical profession and was profiled as a case study in the ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ report ‘Fair Access to Professional Careers: A progress report’ (May 2012) as a significant example of the progress that some medical schools have made to increase the number of medical students from disadvantaged backgrounds. The University also hosts STEM Sussex, which delivers Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths outreach to schools and colleges across the South East. We will work closely in partnership to increase the amount of targeted widening access STEM activities. As a good partner, we recognise there is much to be gained from sharing best practice with colleagues across the sector, and are active members of the Southern Widening Participation Practitioners Network, and the HEAT steering and operational groups which comprise of members from 13 other universities. Whilst we currently give considerable additional consideration to the individual circumstances of applicants, particularly if they come from a looked after background, we are also looking at ways to develop a university-wide contextual admissions policy. We are seeking to integrate the HEAT database with our admissions database to allow us to more easily identify participants in our outreach programme at the point of application. We have developed an admissions portal (to go live in September 2013) which will include flags for widening participation applicants for admissions tutors to use and by 2014 will have a post in place within the Admissions Office which will focus on contextual admissions and be able to advise academic admissions tutors.