Assessment of Access Record Sample Clauses

Assessment of Access Record. The University has a robust track record in Widening Participation which is central to our mission and which we intend to maintain. Despite Government policy militating against access for some categories of students, we continue to attract high numbers of students from our target groups. Young FT 1st Degree NS SEC classes 4/5/6/7 40.3 39.1 41.0 Young FT 1st Degree Low participation neighbourhoods 20.8 21.5 15.1 Mature FT 1st Degree No previous HE qualification 18.7 21.7 15.1 Data from HESA PIs published February 2015 Achieving the above position has involved many years of sustained, deliberate activity, working in partnership with schools and colleges in the region to raise aspiration. The infrastructure required to maintain this intensive, partnership approach is high but we believe it to be central to raising aspirations in low participation and deprived neighbourhoods. In addition to the above, the University is proud of its record in raising aspirations amongst Care Leavers and our collaborative work with other universities to reach this group. Care Leavers are offered a wide variety of support including targeted pastoral and financial assistance by the University. Potential students who are identified as Care Leavers have access to a dedicated point of contact who will support them through their student journey and we remain committed to this work for the future. As a University with a strong tradition of mature student recruitment, we have noted the national reduction in applications from this group in recent years. We have expanded our Access provision through specific programmes such as Fastrack to seek to address this and we remain committed to reaching out to this group. We are conscious however that changes in fees and funding have had and are likely to continue to have a particularly negative impact on such students. We consider more concerted policy changes are required to avoid an ongoing decline in the attraction of such students to HE. In recent years we identified a growing number of students, predominantly from non- traditional HE backgrounds, who, despite securing a place on a Programme, failed to enrol. For 2014 entrants, working in partnership with the Brightside Trust we piloted a new mentoring scheme for students identified as potentially vulnerable, to support them between the period of acceptance on a Programme and formal enrolment. This pilot was extended for 2015 and we plan to further expand this: see section 4.1 below for furth...

Assessment of Access Record. The University has a robust track record in Widening Participation which is a central plank of the University’s mission and which we intend to maintain. This has involved many years of deliberate activity, working with schools and colleges in the region to raise aspiration. Our success is borne out by all the HESA Performance Indicators where we perform above both the sector average and our benchmark on every indicator except for part-time students in receipt of DSA where although we perform above benchmark, we are slightly below the national average. A selection of indicators is given below: Young FT NS SEC classes 4/5/6/7 41.0 37.6 30.0 Young FT Low participation neighbourhoods 21.3 13.9 10.3 All Mature FT No previous HE qualification and LPN 18.6 13.3 12.0 All FT DSA 5.9 5.3 4.8 Whilst the University’s performance on Access measures is strong the infrastructure support necessary to achieve this is high and will need to continue if our success in this area is to be maintained. The loss of the Aim Higher programme will need to be addressed, including the work with younger children which we believe to be central to raising aspiration in low-participation and deprived neighbourhoods. In addition, whilst we have improved the representation of black and minority ethnic students in recent years, we believe there is more we can do in this area. We are also concerned to address the growing under-representation of young men in higher education which is particularly apparent in the professional areas of teaching and pre-registration nursing but is also affecting many of the traditional arts and humanities subject disciplines.