Summaries of Strand Activities 2000/2002
The predecessor to Aimhigher was a partnership called Widening Participation South West (WPSW) which was a collaboration of HEIs and FECs all across the South West. It had 24 different strands of activity which ran from January 2000 to December 2002. This was the partnership that subsequently became Aimhigher in the Southwest. The strand IDs for this earlier period are listed below under the names of the area partnerships at that time and the Aimhigher area partnership that each subsequently became.
"Pan" = Aimhigher regional. "North" = Aimhigher West. "East" = Aimhigher LIFE. "South" = Aimhigher Peninsula.
Activities under the name of Widening Participation South West
Go to the Regional Project Overall Summary 2000-2002
Some brief reports on Peninsula acitivites from their Newsletters 2001 and 2002
Summer school Case Study Truro 2000 and summer school Case Study Exeter 2001
Online version of the Peninsula Programme Widening Participation Guide 2002
Strand Activities
Regional Project Overall Summary
Key Lessons from Widening Participation South West 2000 - 2002
Collaborative Region Wide Project
This project included all 14 HEIs and 35 FECs in the South West and absorbed the total regional entitlement from the Special Initiative Project Fund and the Joint Fund from January 2000 to December 2002. The project combined regional management with local delivery. To ensure joint accountability at regional level, this project has been managed by a regional steering group while there are 23 project elements, each involving a local partnership and monitored at a sub-regional level. The operation of the project was therefore decentralised and decisions about engagement with employers, targeting schools and training student ambassadors were taken at the local level.
Institutional and sub-regional diversity
The collaborative approach has enabled the South West to combine specialisation and depth of experience with breadth of coverage. Institutions have been able to focus their activities in areas of strength and gain benefits from complementary activities. Working within a regional framework has enabled a wide variety of initiatives to be funded and these have built upon the specialised knowledge and experience of the partners.
Project Management
The region has benefited from the early decision to appoint a project manager who has acted as the interface between the regions and the sub-regions, provided a central contact point, communicated information and ensured that the partners remained engaged.
Capacity building and the development of the partnership
The partnership has brought the institutions in the region together, building trust and enabling unanticipated outcomes to emerge. The regional and sub-regional dimensions of the project have been particularly significant in building co-operation and trust between the institutions in the project. The importance of the formal structures and informal networks to keep the dialogue going cannot be underestimated, especially in a climate where competition is often perceived to be dominant. Extensive networks have developed across the SW and the institutions have developed their capacity to work together on other activities, for example, Foundation Degrees.
A collaborative approach makes sense to WP groups
For those with no family background in HE, the post-16 education system is complex to negotiate. A collaborative approach from institutions to young people helps to remove one layer of complexity at the initial aspiration-raising phase of the student lifecycle and is particularly important when working with the younger age groups. The young people, their parents and carers have appreciated the generic advice and guidance offered collectively from a group of institutions and this has helped them to plan for the future.
The Contribution of HE Students
The importance of employing HE students to work with school age students as ambassadors, tutors or mentors has been widely recognised. The HE students have been trained in making presentations, managing challenging behaviour and other aspects of their work and have acted as positive role models for the school students in the target groups. In addition, the ambassadors/mentors themselves benefited from their participation as their confidence and self-esteem increased and their academic studies improved as well. At the outset of the project, the significance of student ambassadors and the extent to which they would be a flexible resource which could be deployed across a variety of elements had not been fully appreciated.
Formal and informal mechanisms for sharing good practice
The regional and sub-regional steering groups have offered opportunities for institutional representatives to meet regularly and discuss WP issues formally and informally with each other and with representatives from HEFCE, Action on Access and the LSC. Between meetings, communications have been maintained by email. The project workers have attended sub-regional meetings and have also been invited to attend regional seminars to share good practice and to keep them informed about national developments through presentations from Action on Access and the HEFCE regional consultant.
Cultural change within institutions
Participants in the project have progressed their understanding of WP issues and have taken this increased awareness back to feed into their own institutional processes. This has affected the partner institutions at all levels of operation. In some cases, for example, this has fed into the development of the WP strategy or the Teaching and Learning strategy; in other instances, WP staff have provided staff development events in their own institution; networking has also enabled WP workers to improve their own activities. Within the participating institutions, members of senior management teams have been asked to present certificates, attend a launch and sign off the annual monitoring report and this involvement with WPSW has enhanced their exposure to and awareness of WP issues.
Substantial volume of activity
Through the activities of this project, we have held 1045 events, approximately one third of which were with schools, one third with HE or FE staff and the remainder involved a range of other target groups. The overall numbers suggest that the project has worked with nearly 37,000 people across the region showing that we have provided a substantial programme of activities in a relatively short period of time. The numbers indicate that the SW project has reached substantial numbers of learners and potential learners across the region and represent one measure of the success of the project.
Peer evaluation process
The project engaged in an extensive process of peer evaluation, building on the trust that has developed. Self evaluation reports were produced at all levels and discussed with peers to ensure independent input into the evaluation. At element level, a critical friend from within the sub-region enabled the findings to be tested while teams from the three sub-regions met to discuss their reports. The regional report was discussed with a team from Universities for the North East at a two day evaluation event and we provided a similar service for their regional project. This peer evalaution promoted useful reflection upon the project and some elements of this process will be built into P4P.
Goodwill and value for money
The project has drawn on goodwill at all levels, perhaps encouraged by the good working relationships established across the region. The extent to which people at all levels. have given generously of their time has made the project very good value for money. It could not have worked by structures alone; it had to run on goodwill as well, and has done so very successfully.
Sue Hatt, WPSW Regional Manager
Email: Susan.Hatt@uwe.ac.uk
