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► Widening Participation

What is Widening Participation?

The term Widening Participation (WP) is used to describe any activity that aims to promote the more widespread uptake of Higher Education (HE) among those groups that are traditionally underrepresented. In real terms that means increasing accessibility for those potential students who come from so-called 'non-traditional' backgrounds, for example students from ethnic minority groups, disabled students, students from less financially stable backgrounds and mature students. Some of the obvious action that can be taken is the provision of additional financial support (eg. bursaries/grants) and the introduction of fair, non-discriminative access policies (eg. not having an ethnic origin question on UCAS applications). Widening Participation is also often referred to as Fair Access, Widening Access and several other variations of these terms, but it's all fairly self-explanatory.

Widening Participation at the University of Liverpool

At the moment the University of Liverpool is the leader within the Russell Group with regards to Widening Participation. In 2009 the University published a new five year plan and this included Widening Participation as one of the five key strategic priorities to be focussed on between now and 2014. You can read more about the strategic plan here. There will be both practical and policy work involved in raising the profile of WP within the University, and the practical work is largely carried out by the University’s Educational Opportunities Team who are based in the Victoria Gallery and Museum. You can find out more about what the University's work on WP here.

What is the Guild doing?

In addition to the outreach and policy work that the University does through the Educational Opportunities Team and the many committees that meet through the year there are also two other organisations working hard on the WP front in Liverpool: Aimhigher Greater Merseyside and us!

Aimhigher is a national organisation dedicated to raising aspirations and achievement in schoolchildren across the country, with a particular focus on what is often called the WP cohort (that is, students who fall into one of the underrepresented groups described above). You can find out more about what they do here.

Last, but not least, there's the Guild. This year we've introduced the post of Widening Participation Intern in order to kick-start all the WP activity we'd like to run to contribute to what the University and Aimhigher already do. We'll be running our own outreach projects (that means sending students into local schools to talk about Higher Education and run activities with the pupils) and we're looking for student volunteers to get involved. If you'd like to find out more or you think you've got a brilliant idea for an activity then get in touch with our WP Intern, Rachel Foster (r.m.foster@liv.ac.uk), or our Student Engagement Manager, Irfan Zaman (izaman@liv.ac.uk). Once our outreach projects get going we'll post updates on their progress here, but for now why not have a quick read through our brand spanking new WP Strategy? It outlines exactly what we're planning to do on the WP front and how we'll be going about it, you may even get some ideas for activities you'd like to do from it! The strategy has just been approved by Student Council and is available for download as a document from their pages, but if you just want to read through it then feast your eyes right here:

Widening Participation Strategy

January 2010

Vision

Liverpool Guild of Students aims to promote equality of opportunity and social mobility through support of the Government’s Widening Participation agenda.

Rationale

The aim of the Widening Participation agenda nationally is to redress the inequalities in participation among different social groups. By promoting equality of opportunity in an educational context LGoS aims to raise the attainment of those social groups that are traditionally underrepresented; with the aspiration that this will result in more balanced representation of social groups within wider society.

Implementation

LGoS will achieve this objective through the following strands of activity:

i. By developing a Widening Participation policy which aims to address issues relating to access at the University of Liverpool (i.e. meeting Widening Participation targets and retention of students from the Widening Participation cohort).

ii. By supporting the University’s own outreach work within Merseyside and developing student-led outreach activities to contribute to their events as part of our volunteering strategy.

iii. By raising awareness of the Widening Participation agenda within the student body.

iv. By encouraging student involvement in Widening Participation outreach activity, both by offering opportunities to volunteer on our own programmes and by publicising opportunities to work on Aimhigher Greater Merseyside and University of Liverpool projects.

Practical Execution

i. This document will form the basis of LGoS’s strategy on Widening Participation. As such it will be updated by the relevant member of staff as new developments arise. The activities designed and executed under this strategy will be targeted at particular groups and cohorts based on research gathered both nationally and locally.

ii. The University of Liverpool already provides its own programme of outreach work within Merseyside, therefore in order to avoid duplication LGoS will liaise regularly with the Educational Opportunities Department, primarily via the Student Engagement Manager. The post-holder will work with members of the Educational Opportunities department to identify ways in which LGoS can support their activities and contact the relevant parties within LGoS (student representative officers, activity group officers and staff members) to organise appropriate participation in these activities. These activities will include:

- Assisting student activity groups in planning demonstrations/presentations to be led by them during visit days run by the Educational Opportunities Department, which will aim to contribute an insight into the social aspect of higher education on the day programmes already offered.

- Designing a scavenger hunt to run inside the Student Union building as a wet weather alternative to the campus tours conducted during visit days.

- Creating and updating a focal information point within the Student Union building to deliver information about the social aspects of university life and the services the Guild offers. This will provide a single stopping point within LGoS for campus tours run during Educational Opportunities Department visit days, and can also be used during lunch breaks on visit days.

- Liaising with Aimhigher Greater Merseyside[1] to enhance partnerships between the Educational Opportunities Department, LGoS and Aimhigher Greater Merseyside, and to facilitate appropriate contributions to Aimhigher projects by LGoS.

iii. In order to increase engagement in Widening Participation activity it is necessary to raise awareness of the Widening Participation agenda, the University’s implementation of it and LGoS’s own position among the student body. This can be done by:

- Publication of volunteering opportunities to LGoS’s membership via email and website.

- Inclusion of updates on the Widening Participation outreach programme in “All Students” newsletters and regular reports on LGoS website.

- Inclusion of questions about student awareness of the Widening Participation agenda, and specifically LGoS’s involvement in Widening Participation activity, in the Face-to-face initiative.

iv. In addition to contributing to the University’s outreach activities, LGoS will also run its own programme of outreach work focusing on describing the social aspects of higher education with the aim of providing a more comprehensive view of the higher education experience. The Student Engagement Manager will coordinate this programme with support from the Widening Participation Intern to include such things as:

- Training for Student Councils offered to schools and colleges across Merseyside.

- A core programme of short-term/one-off activities related to some aspect(s) of the National Curriculum offered to schools and colleges across Merseyside, beginning initially with “Bringing Shakespeare to Life” with the further aim of also collaborating with Liverpool John Moores University in the future.

In order to encourage student participation in outreach activity LGoS will endeavour to bear the burden of administration on behalf of students and activity groups. To do this the Widening Participation Intern will:

- Create, and where appropriate alter/maintain, a planning template for sessions/presentations delivered by activity groups at events run by the Educational Opportunities Department and guidelines for the development of new projects in the “Bringing Shakespeare to Life” model carried out on behalf of LGoS.

- Convene a meeting, at least once a year, to discuss LGoS’s strategic progress in Widening Participation and publicise volunteering opportunities in this sector.

- Liaise with the volunteering coordinator to publicise opportunities for participation in outreach work.

[1] The national funding for the Aimhigher initiative in its current format is due to terminate in July 2011. Following that date it is likely that Aimhigher will continue to operate in some format through Higher Education Institutions, but it is unlikely that it will continue to operate as an independent entity as it currently does.

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