Access to HE Conference

5 December 2017

Møller Centre, Churchill College, University of Cambridge  

Meet fellow Access to HE practitioners from across the regions to discuss Access to HE developments and enjoy networking opportunities and the excellent hospitality of the Møller Centre

Welcome and introduction

Tom Levinson

Head of Widening Participation, The University of Cambridge, and Acting Chair of CAVA

Keynote Speaker

David Hughes, Chief Executive, Association of Colleges

Access developments 2016-17 and key messages

Jill Cox, CEO, CAVA
Emily Ross, Quality Manager, CAVA

Presentation of the CAVA Student Awards for Outstanding Achievement and Commitment to Study

Workshops including:

• Learning to learn digitally
• Subject workshops to share good practice
• Land-based focus group
• HE Partnerships group

Who should attend?

• Access to HE practitioners and managers
• HE admission tutors and academic staff in universities and other HEIs
• Quality managers in FE and HE
• Widening participation and outreach officers in FE and HE
• People working in the wider FE/HE field – researchers, academics, policy makers and curriculum managers
• Organisations and charities concerned with opening up opportunities for people from non-traditional education backgrounds

To book please email admin@cava.ac.uk

Big Issue seller accepted to Cambridge University after life on the streets

Cambridge Evening News coverage of successful two Access to HE students from Cambridge Regional College who gained places at Hughes Hall,  University of Cambridge. External link to newspaper website.

CAVA is delighted to announce that Shelley Jackson, a former CAVA Access to HE Diploma (Health Science Professions) student at Craven College, has been named winner of the national Keith Fletcher Award for ‘Outstanding Commitment to Study’. Just over two years ago Shelley underwent life-changing surgery. The physical and emotional impact of the surgery left Shelley with extremely low self-esteem and worried her personal and working life would forever be limited.

During her studies, Shelley was admitted to hospital with a medical emergency and suffered significant amounts of prolonged pain. However, her commitment to the Access to HE (Health Science Professions) was unwavering. She remained in continual contact with her tutors whilst in hospital finished her Diploma with a full distinction profile. Shelley is now studying midwifery at the University of Bradford.

Shelley receiving the CAVA award with CAVA Acting Chair Tom Levinson

Shelley received a CAVA Award at the CAVA conference in December 2017.

Many congratulations to Shelley and we wish her every success in her degree studies. We look forward to joining her, and all the winners, at the Houses of Parliament for the prize giving. This will be an opportunity to celebrate the achievement of all learners, and to recognise the amazing journey of Access to HE students like Shelly throughout the country.

The 11 Access Validating Agencies (AVAs) across England and Wales joined together to sponsor and support this event for the sixth year running, in memory of a much-loved colleague, Keith Fletcher, who worked tirelessly promoting Access to HE throughout his career.

Invitations to nominate exceptional learners in 2017-18 will be sent out to colleges soon.

Other CAVA award winners at the CAVA conference in December 2017

CAVA Winner – Outstanding Academic Achievement

Geoff Edwards, Cambridge Regional College, Access to HE Diploma (Humanities and Social Science)

A self-acknowledged ‘working class lad from Liverpool’, Geoff left school at a young age finding his surroundings and peers alien to him. Geoff’s life, after leaving education, involved manual work and a long period of homelessness. Geoff did not know where education would take him when he came to Cambridge Regional College in 2015, having very much enjoyed, and performed extremely well on the college’s pre-Access course, he decided that an Access to HE Diploma in Humanities and Social Sciences was the next step. After achieving 45 credits at distinction, Geoff applied and was accepted to study English Literature at Hughes Hall, Cambridge.

CAVA Runner-up – – Outstanding Academic Achievement

Lisa Woodward, Vision West Nottinghamshire College, Access to HE Diploma (Social Science)

Lisa topped her class academically achieving 10 distinctions and 2 merits on her Access to HE (Social Science) Diploma. This fantastic success was achieved whilst having to juggle poor personal mental health, a husband regularly in hospital, care of her three children and financial difficulties. Her time at the college was marked also by her unconditional willingness to offer support to her peers. She became not only a student representative but formed a peer mentoring scheme, the research of which has been forwarded to the college and university. Lisa progressed to Derby University to study a degree in Criminal Justice with Multi-agency.

 

CAVA runner-up – Outstanding Commitment to Study

Charlene Townsend, Tresham College, Access to HE (Humanities) Charlene left school aged 16 with very little in the way of formal education. She displayed outstanding commitment to study despite difficult and challenging personal circumstances.  During the final year of her Access to HE (Humanities) Diploma Charlene became pregnant and gave birth to her Son a month before completing the course. Charlene had to adjust to life as a first time mother, with a newborn son and academic studies, knowing she was faced with impending homelessness. With all these potential barriers to success, Charlene was able to complete her Diploma and has progressed onto Northampton University to study BA (Hons) Childhood and Youth Studies.

CAVA Student wins Keith Fletcher Outstanding Commitment to Study

Congratulations to Shelley Jackson, former Access to HE Diploma (Health Science Professions) from Craven College who was awarded the Keith Fletcher Award for ‘Outstanding Commitment to Study’ at Westminster on 19 March.  Nic Dakin MP presented the award.

The runner up in this category was Rachelle Wabissa from Bath College

Joseph Butler from City Lit, won the award for Outstanding Academic Achievement.

The runner up in this category was Freya Lightfoot from Coleg Sir Gar.

Congratulations to all.

News extract from FE week:  https://feweek.co.uk/2018/04/30/how-fe-can-help-prepare-the-uks-next-generation-of-doctors/

Julie Mizon, Access Manager, QAA

Medicine has long been the near-exclusive preserve of higher education, but the QAA’s Julie Mizon has big plans to change that

In a speech to the Conservative Party conference in 2016, the health secretary Jeremy Hunt set a target for training up to 1,500 more new doctors each year from 2018 – 25 per cent more than previous years. It would be, he said, “the biggest annual increase in medical student training in the history of the NHS”, and would make the UK ‘self-sufficient’, no longer reliant on recruiting doctors from overseas to staff the NHS. No small feat.

Was this target met? Not quite, but there are 500 extra places available for students who’ve made their UCAS applications for entry this autumn. A further 1,000 places are anticipated next September. In spite of headlines about pay and conditions for doctors working in the NHS today, medicine remains an attractive career path.

The government wants to allocate these extra places to medical schools that have a commitment to taking candidates from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. The British Medical Association is also working hard to widen participation.

It’s a worthy aim, but a perception clings to medicine, that it is for more advantaged students. With able 18-year-olds with a clutch of top A-levels queuing to get into medical schools, what role does the access to HE diploma have to play?

Access to HE changes lives by preparing adults with few or no qualifications for higher education. Students with access to HE diplomas are more likely to come from backgrounds or postcodes where higher education participation is lower. Most of them seek to study at their local FE college.

It’s also attractive to students on lower incomes who might be wary of taking on more debt just even to think of applying for university. Access to HE is the only level three qualification where, on successful completion of a higher education qualification, the balance of any advance learner loan taken out to pay tuition fees is written off by the Student Loans Company.

For some years now, the most popular access to HE subjects have been nursing and other health professions. Typically, the qualification is taken by those who did not achieve highly at school and decide later in life that they want to work in a graduate-entry profession.

Access to nursing is characteristic of this pattern, and adult enrolments skyrocketed after a degree became the only route of entry available to aspiring nurses.

Medicine is a different story. In 2016-17, 53 per cent of access enrolments were in a healthcare subject, but of these only two per cent of total enrolments were preparing students for a medical degree.

We want to change that. In 2013, QAA introduced a new specification for the diploma that it has regulated for over two decades, securing its place in the UCAS tariff system – an important step in increasing its credibility for entry to more competitive courses.

We are now liaising closely with the Medical Schools Council to develop a descriptor for a new access to HE diploma. We’re proposing that, subject to acceptance by UK medical schools, this diploma in medicine will have common elements nationwide, to facilitate both student progression and greater standardisation of outcomes.

This will help more students like Helen Price, who left school at 15 with no qualifications to care for her grandmother. After her grandmother’s death, and by then a mother of two, Helen took diploma at her local college and was accepted onto a medical degree by Keele University. Fast forward a decade, and she’s now a fully qualified doctor in a busy emergency department.

More access learners should be able to follow in Helen’s footsteps. They should in future have the confidence to apply for medicine knowing that, in spite of fierce competition for places, their skills and abilities will not only be considered on a par with A-levels, but be valued and actively sought after by admissions staff.

Julie Mizon

Access Manager – Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education

The CAVA annual conference 2018 will be held at the Møller Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge on Thursday 29 November 2018. We look forward to meeting up with all our members.

CAVA Access to HE Diploma – Award winners

The CAVA Student Awards celebrate student achievement and excellence in 2018, and the winners are nominated for the national KeithFletcher prize. The Keith Fletcher Award is an annual, national award for excellence in Access to HE. There are two categories, ‘Outstanding Academic Achievement’ and ‘Outstanding Commitment to Study’. The Outstanding Academic Achievement prize recognises those students who consistently displayed an exceptional level of academic aptitude, knowledge and understanding. The Outstanding Commitment to Study prize recognises students who have undergone a significant personal, as well as academic journey, often in the face of adversity and challenging personal circumstances.

Keith Fletcher Regional Award – Outstanding Commitment to Study

• CAVA Winner:       Kimberley Quant, Cornwall College, Access to HE Diploma (Nursing)
• CAVA Runner-up: Gareth Palmer, City College Norwich, Access to HE (Engineering)

Keith Fletcher Regional Award – Outstanding Academic Achievement

• CAVA Winner:        Rebecca Rigby, Petroc College, Access to HE Diploma (Humanities)
• CAVA Runner-up:  Zac Major, Bournemouth and Poole College, Access to HE Diploma (Science)