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Extension Studies Within the Network Part 1

By Cyril Dworsky on 05.11.2009 17:17 tagged with exchange explorative partnerships extending partnerships liverpool networking day.

The EUCU.NET Networking Days - A Report

Two intensive days at the University of Liverpool brought together project organizers from the United Kingdom and Continental Europe.

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Thematising Widening Participation

The first day, Monday the 28th September 2009, was dedicated to various aspects of the UK-perspective on Children's Universities projects.

Searching the internet for Children's Universities in the United Kingdom won't bring always the expected results because a lot of projects that European promoters with a "classical" viewpoint on Children's Universities wouldn't look after the appropriate keywords.
 
If we agree that a Children's University is not only communicating different fields of science but is based on elements like encouraging children to be curious and questioning, providing access for them to the universities, providing an atmosphere of respect without pressure to perform and finally showing them their future educational options (see the EUCU.NET Charter for more of our common basic understanding), those ideas are much more embraced by the issues of “widening participation [link to Wikipedia]”. Other key words in English-speaking countries could be “educational opportunities”, “raising aspirations” or “aim higher”. Those phrases sometimes address specific UK-Governments initiatives but do reflect also the primary concentration of many projects.
 
“Children’s University” as a trademarked label refers to a national organization and a system of certified “learning activities and experiences outside normal school hours”. Those activities are sometimes connected with universities but not always. But once more the “Children’s University” focus on rewarding participation, raising aspirations and encouraging engagement with learning.
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    Spiral Staircase at the University of Liverpool

The UK Case Studies

During the meeting in Liverpool one could learn a lot of the different projects that are operating in the field of “widening participation”. Tricia Jenkins and her team of Educational Opportunities of the University of Liverpool hosted the event and showed a very enlightening overview on some of the variety of projects and initiatives that are targeted at young people: [all presentations available for download at our online portal]
  • The Professor Fluffy Primary Adventure introducing university and student life to children and “sowing the seeds” that education improves life chances and opportunities.
  • The Residential events and Summer Schools located at the university campus or around the Liverpool city centre and increasing the independence of young people.
  • The Superstars program to help teenagers to get help for the preparation for the GCSE exams and to give them a taste of University life.
  • The Champions program for pupils that have the potential to achieve and to go on to university in the future and where the teachers think they would benefit from spending their time with others at the University of Liverpool. The vivid presentation of four of the champions itself (is this coincidence in the city of the Fab Four?) made this exceptionally impressive.

Connected with the Professor Fluffy scheme Lisa Clement of the Canterbury Christ Church University spoke the Kent and Medway models. They work with schools from the most deprived areas and base their program on road shows, campus visits, parent engagement and follow up sessions.

Read more about Extending Partnerships in Jolanta Rozowskas blog post.

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    The four champions (front row) reported on their trip to Amsterdam

 

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Further Information

More articles about the Mentoring activities.

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