{"id":72,"date":"2020-05-29T07:58:25","date_gmt":"2020-05-29T06:58:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.exeter.ac.uk\/socialmobility\/?p=72"},"modified":"2020-05-29T07:58:25","modified_gmt":"2020-05-29T06:58:25","slug":"72","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/socialmobility\/2020\/05\/29\/72\/","title":{"rendered":"Widening Participation practitioners wont let COVID-19 closures stop them from delivering HE access activities"},"content":{"rendered":"

This blog was first published on the UCL website, on 26 May 2020<\/em><\/p>\n

By Professor Anna Mountford-Zimdars, Academic Director of the Centre for Social Mobility, University of Exeter<\/strong><\/div>\n
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School closures have led\u00a0to widely discussed concerns<\/a>\u00a0regarding the safety, well-being and attainment and progression of students already considered disadvantaged or at risk. Unfortunately,\u00a0our newly published paper<\/a>\u00a0exploring the impact of lockdown reveals widespread cancellation of widening participation (WP) activities such as face-to-face sessions in schools, residential summer schools and university taster days that are designed to help these pupils progress into Higher Education.Encouragingly, ingenuity has been many practitioners watchword and new modes of delivery are springing up that could preserve some activity in the face of adversity and even create new ways of reaching potential students: after initial cancellations, universities are offering alternative virtual offer-holder or taster days as well as support\u00a0materials and webinars for students, teachers and parents.<\/div>\n

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\u00a0No underestimating the upheaval<\/strong><\/div>\n
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As part of\u00a0this OfS funded study<\/a>,\u00a0The Centre for Social Mobility<\/a>\u00a0at The University of Exeter worked with think-tank\u00a0The Centre for Education and Youth<\/a>\u00a0to survey WP and Uni Connect practitioners. Uni Connect, formerly known as the National Collaborative Outreach Programme (NCOP) consists of 29 partnerships between universities, colleges and local partners working with over 180,000 young people and 1,613 schools to support decisions around and progress into higher education. The aim was to highlight issues and concerns while developing policy and practice recommendations to ensure universities doors do not close to traditionally underrepresented groups.Our findings show that school closures have impacted negatively on all but a handful of respondents work. The most common implication has been postponement or cancellation of planned activities and alarmingly, one Uni Connect partnership said 182 events had been cancelled so far.Where events have been postponed, practitioners were in no doubt about the knock on effects that were likely to follow. These will not be short-lived. One Uni Connect practitioner said much of the work they have spent the last four months planning is now postponed and finding new dates and re-booking events will detract from the work that would normally start in September.From adversity springs innovation<\/strong><\/p>\n

Encouragingly, respondents also identified new approaches that they were planning for, or had already pursued. Several were optimistic that developments introduced due to For example, one WP Officer commented that the current situation has opened new channels for communications with schools, and that telephone conversations have taken on a more personal touch.Increasing the use of online materials and a shifting to online delivery of events were at the forefront of new developments but respondents also described online mentoring, virtual residentials and tailored support via email.We found that:<\/p>\n