Greater Manchester Higher – The Year in Brief

The University of Manchester is proud to be part of the Greater Manchester Higher (GMH) collaborative network working with other universities and further education colleges across the region to raise the ambitions of young people and increase awareness of higher education (HE) through interactive, engaging workshops and projects.

With research showing the huge effect that the pandemic will have on young people, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds, the work that we do at GMH is needed now more than ever. Despite the challenges that 2020 brought, we are pleased to say that we engaged with around 36,000 learners over the academic year making 2019/20 our most successful year to date.

Through the 19/20 academic year, we engaged with 176 schools and colleges across Greater Manchester and hosted 1,039 activities, with 821 being held in schools and 218 events held on campus. Our mentoring programmes for Years 10, 12 and 13 students were also met with great success. We saw a 30% increase of Year 10 pupils who felt that they now know about the different types of courses you can study at higher education and one Year 13 mentee said that the programme had “helped me throughout the whole UCAS process.”

As with everything this year, we had to adapt our ways of working to meet the needs of schools and colleges across the region. We responded to the situation by moving our offer online, and developing a range of online resources for our website which many teachers have commented how useful these have been during these uncertain times.

As we go through 2021, our aim is to continue the work that we do in raising aspirations of young people. Greater Manchester Higher – The Year in Brief is available for all to read and you can visit our website to find out more about what we do.

Get in touch with us at gmhigher@manchester.ac.uk for more information.