The University of Nottingham (UoN) joined forces with IntoUniversity in 2011, building on an existing programme of outreach work. The partnership saw the charity branch out of London for the first time, and the success of this collaboration birthed a formula for regional intervention which has now been replicated in neighbourhoods all across England and Scotland.
In this article, Peter Bruce, Head of Student Recruitment Outreach at UoN, reflects on one of our longest running partnerships.
My first experience of IntoUniversity must have been around 2013, when IntoUniversity staff from the Nottingham Central team (one of three centres here in Nottingham) made contact with me. At the time, I was teaching at a local school, and the IntoUniversity team wanted to establish a link with my school to run a series of free FOCUS workshops with a cohort of young people in each year group. The programme sounded amazing and, following a quick chat with the Headteacher, I signed us up as a partner. Over the next few years, as I coordinated the school side of the partnership with IntoUniversity, I observed the high quality of what they were delivering, the professional, enthusiastic and values-driven approach from the IntoUniversity staff and the impact that their programmes were having on the young people in our school. I realised quickly that this was a very special organisation.
Fast forward to April 2016 and I took up the post of Partnerships Manager in the Widening Participation team at the University of Nottingham. My main role was to manage the University’s partnership with IntoUniversity. Here, I was fortunate to be able to build on the fantastic work of colleagues in the WP team who had established and developed the partnership from 2011 onwards. Our University partnership was the first of its kind for IntoUniversity, marking its first step as a national education charity. It led to the setting up of the first IntoUniversity centres outside of London, serving three Nottingham communities – St Ann’s, Hyson Green and the Broxtowe estate – all in constituencies where child poverty rates are particularly high.
Each of the three IntoUniversity centres has since developed strong and sustained relationships with local schools as well as with local families, whose children attend the weekly after-school Academic Support sessions. These young people turn up week in, week out to the IntoUniversity centres largely because they are based in, and have become, an established and well-respected part of their communities.
Throughout the past 12 years of this collaborative partnership, more than 17,000 local young people have received support and encouragement from IntoUniversity, helping them to do well at school and go on to University or another chosen ambition. As a University, it has enabled us to significantly expand our outreach work and to engage with young people to support the ongoing work of addressing educational inequality in our city. To date, several hundred of our University student volunteers have contributed several thousands of hours of one-to-one mentoring at the IntoUniversity centres in the heart of these communities, countless academics and student groups have delivered academic sessions at the centres and, as a result of the partnership, we’ve welcomed thousands of young people and their families onto campus. Our Widening Participation and Outreach team has also developed a bespoke family learning programme in conjunction with IntoUniversity. In addition, nearly 500 young people (of which over 170 through the IntoUniversity Nottingham centres) have gone on to study at the University of Nottingham having been involved with IntoUniversity across the whole network.
Here at the University of Nottingham we are incredibly proud of our partnership with IntoUniversity and its sustained, placebased approach to educational outreach. As a local teacher commented, “Many of the students would never have seen University as an option for them and IntoUniversity has given them the opportunity to be more than just a product of their environment. IntoUniversity has helped increase the ambitions and attainment of our students.”
And Professor Sarah Speight, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Education and Student Experience at the University of Nottingham, recently commented: “By working in partnership with IntoUniversity, we have more opportunities to inspire children and show them what can result from their hard work and commitment. IntoUniversity plays such a crucial role in helping to transform the lives of so many local young people…We are delighted to play a part in supporting this great work and we look forward to many more years of partnership to come.”
For more reflections on the past 20 years at IntoUniversity, read our report here.
