This week (4-8 June 2018) is the first National Collaborative Outreach Programme (NCOP) week of action, which aims to highlight how activities across the 29 NCOP consortia are making an impact on the learners across the country. The NCOP aims to rapidly increase the number of young people from underrepresented groups who go into higher education, and each consortia are working with young people aged 13-18, specifically targeting local areas where higher education participation is lower than might be expected given the GCSE results of the young people who live there.

The University of Manchester is part of the Greater Manchester Higher (GMH) consortia whose membership includes all higher education providers in the Greater Manchester region.

This week the University’s GMH team’s calendar is action packed including:

• Delivering a subject specific visit day for 20 Year 9 learners from target wards on Wednesday 6 June on the Salem Witch trials, created and delivered by one of the Student Recruitment and WP team’s WP fellows (current PhD students, trained to deliver outreach activities related to their area of research).
• Running a campus visit for 120 Year 10 learners from target wards across Greater Manchester on Thursday 7 June. This is one of the consortia’s core offerings and includes a workshop exploring the range of options available at higher education and aim to introduce pupils to the social aspect of higher education as well.
• Attending the GMH Uni: 4U summer schools parents and carers evening on Thursday 7 June at Old Trafford Football club, where parents and carers of learners attending all of GMH summer schools will be invited to understand more about the events their children are attending and also help to change perceptions and demystify higher education for the parents and supporters of learners from these areas.

This July the University will be delivering two Greater Manchester Higher summer schools; ‘Wise Up’ for 80 Year 10 learners, a 4 day residential activity and What is Programming Language? a non residential event for 40 Year 12 learners, delivered in partnership with the School of Computer Science.

For more information about the National Collaborative Outreach Programme, Greater Manchester Higher or how the University of Manchester is involved, please contact Rachel Bailey (Student Recruitment and WP Manager).

You might also find some of the resources on the OFS website interesting, including the Evaluation report on the first year of the NCOP (March 2018).