Our partnership with The Access Project charity brings a proven, strategic and evidenced-based approach to widening access and participation in Higher Education, developed in several other English regions, but new to the North West. The programme supports young people from disadvantaged backgrounds and involves three schools in Cumbria and Blackburn with Darwen: Workington Academy, The Whitehaven Academy and Darwen Vale High School. Queen’s is building this partnership because we want to tangibly improve access, both for the benefit of bright individuals, wherever they live, and for the public good, continuing with the ethos of our founders.
How does it work?
The approach is simple: a programme of sustained one-to-one contact between pupils and tutors who not only provide additional teaching in specific areas, but also raise aspirations and inspire pupils to think beyond school and aim high. This contact comes at a crucial time in pupils’ learning and decision-making and produces transformative results. We know that one-to-one teaching works because the tutorial system is the bread and butter of our undergraduate teaching. And using this approach to support youngsters in gaining places at top universities works: the students on the programme are twice as likely to get a place at a top university compared to similar students not on the programme.
Our partnership in the 2023/24 academic year
In the 2023/24 academic year, we have been delighted to visit The Whitehaven Academy and Darwen Vale High School to deliver interactive workshops about life at university. We have also welcomed Year 12 students from The Whitehaven Academy and Workington Academy to Queen’s in person for an overnight residential visit; they learnt about how to make a competitive Oxford application and gained insight into life as an undergraduate here through taster sessions and meeting current students. In February 2024, we welcomed over 30 students on The Access Project programme at Darwen Vale High School to a taster day at Queen’s. They took part in an interactive session about fossils with our Tutor for Access, Prof. Lindsay Turnbull, and gained insight into how teaching and learning at university is different from school. We look forward to continuing to build on the partnership in 2024/25.
