On Monday 15th May, Higher Horizons+ welcomed 30 students from Paulet High School and Sixth Form College to Keele University for a day of advice, guidance and academic taster sessions.

The event celebrated the end of the The Mentoring Project 2016/17, a collaborative experience implemented by Higher Horizons+ to support the school with HE advice and to develop essential communication skills.

Upon arrival, the school were led through the corridors of Keele Hall for a Heritage Tour and guided to The Old Library for their first session of the day, provided by Dr Michael Fay (Lecturer in Law at Keele University). Michael’s session ‘Morality and Murder’ reinforced the importance of critical thinking and provided an open platform for the students to partake in meaningful debates and consider their ethical principles. After the session, Michael Fay said: “I thought that was a great group of students and I really enjoyed the opportunity to get involved. I liked how some of the younger students were firm in their opinions, hopefully having a sixth form mentor has provided a really strong and encouraging role model.”

Throughout the day students received exciting insights into student life from Staffordshire University and Keele University Student Ambassadors along with advice and guidance from Helen Norman (Higher Horizons+ Hub Manager at Staffordshire University) on progressing to college and higher education.

After enjoying lunch in The Great Hall, the students were welcomed back into The Old Library for the Recognition Ceremony, featuring a live musical performance from Victoria McCrea, BA (Hons) Music student at Keele University. Ian McArthur (Headteacher of Paulet High School and Sixth Form) and Helen Norman (Higher Horizons+ Hub Manager at Staffordshire University) presented all of the mentors and mentees with certificates in recognition of their continued commitment to the project.

Higher Horizons+ will be supporting the Potteries Science Festival from 3rd - 4th July. The festival will be the first of its kind to take place in Stoke-on-Trent, with young people taking part in activities across the city to spark their interest in STEM subjects and to raise awareness of opportunities within the field.  

Higher Horizons+ are to contribute throughout the festival, by hosting two STEM activity days on 3rd and 4th July at Keele and Staffordshire University respectively. Students from Ormiston Horizon and Co-op Academy will be introduced to the world of forensics on Keele campus, with academics including Vickie Cartwright providing interactive workshops on chromatography and fingerprinting. The students will also be taken to Keele’s crime scene house and learn how Keele students are taught to investigate real life crimes. 

Staffordshire University’s STEM Activity Day welcomes academics from several different universities, offering secondary school students from across the city a glimpse into a wide range of different STEM topics. The day will feature a robotics lecture from Dr Sabine Hauert from the University of Bristol and a lecture on evolution delivered by Dr Jessica Blair from University of Birmingham. Staffordshire University academics will also be providing interactive workshops on psychology, forensics and sports science. 

Keele University holds an annual Awards ceremony recognising the hard work of its Student Ambassadors across Recruitment, Outreach and Student Support Services. For the second year in a row, Higher Horizons+ sponsored an Award recognising the contribution of one Student Ambassador to collaborative outreach.

We had a strong shortlist this year. Many of the Student Ambassadors have worked on our events as representatives of higher education, sharing their journeys and experiences at Keele.

This year’s winner had not only worked on a number of different Higher Horizons+ events but also spent six months filling in as a part-time administrator behind the scenes, helping to organise events and supporting the work of Higher Horizons+.

She also researched, designed and implemented a face to face mentoring scheme within one of our target schools, organising a programme that saw Y12s mentoring Y8s within the school, and visiting Keele to get an experience of university life. The pilot scheme was so successful the Headteacher begged us to let them come to the celebration event at the end of the scheme so they could thank Higher Horizons+ in person for setting up the programme.

On 15th March, Higher Horizons+ welcomed 100 students onto the Keele University campus to experience a day of exciting and thought-provoking sessions about the First World War to commemorate the Centenary.

The World War 1 Conference is an event that has been held annually at Keele University since 2014, and this year’s Conference was another great success. Learners from Birches Head Academy, Discovery Academy and Excel Academy received a lively and informative session from Andy Robertshaw, a military historian, who has appeared on TV shows such as Time Team and Who Do You Think You Are?, as well as an interactive session with Keele University's Dr Jamie Pringle entitled From the Mines to the Front which learners thoroughly enjoyed.

Higher Horizons+ has launched a 10 week online mentoring project in partnership with Brightside Online Mentoring that will see Y12 students assigned a student mentor from either Keele, Staffordshire, Chester or Harper Adams University.

Over the 10 week programme sixth form students will benefit from access to their mentor via Brightside’s online platform, where they can ask anything about progression to Higher Education and university life, and reflect on their mentor’s own experiences and advice. As well as being able to converse with trained student mentors, mentees will have access to Bright Knowledge, a bank of hundreds of articles and activities relating to individual subject areas and potential career paths, student finance and budgeting, CV writing, interview tips and much more.

Research funded by Higher Horizons+ was presented to widening participation practitioners from across the country at Keele University. Dr Neil Raven presented research into the higher education progression rates of white working class boys, one of the most underrepresented groups in higher education. The research project, titled Bucking the trend, saw Dr Raven interview 14 young men from working class backgrounds in North Staffordshire about their own routes into university. The participants were all current students at Keele, Staffordshire or Chester universities and had been happy to tell Dr Raven their stories.

The day was well attended, and saw a brief presentation from Ant Sutcliffe (Head of Higher Horizons+) and Hannah Merry (Senior Higher Horizons+ Network Officer), explaining where the research project had come from. Ant Sutcliffe said, “We have many bright and able young men in Stoke-on-Trent with the ability to progress on to university-level study, whether that is at Keele, Staffordshire or elsewhere. It is important we understand what we can do as universities to support these young men through their education.”

The final session of the day saw a question and answer session with Dr Raven, where colleagues from across the country had the opportunity to ask questions and relate the young men’s stories to work they are doing in their own areas. Colleagues heard about work being undertaken in Liverpool and Derby, as well as how the Higher Horizons+ network planned to take Dr Raven’s research and recommendations forward.

For more information about the event, please see the article in the Sentinel: http://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/how-to-help-more-north-staffordshire-boys-aim-for-university/story-30221926-detail/story.html