Please note on 1st October 2006 the Community Access Programme became the REAP: Researching Equity, Access and Participation Group. This is an archive site. Please click link to go to the REAP Website.

Aimhigher

Partnership

Activities at Lancaster

Research

Aimhigher Lancashire

The Lancashire Aimhigher is funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) and Learning Skills Council (LSC). It is part of the national Aimhigher initiative designed to:

• Supporting and extending HE/FE partnerships, with dedicated staff to work with schools and FE education and training providers, and a programme of regionally co-ordinated activities including summer schools, mentoring and shadowing.
• Raising quality standards in FE provision to increase attainment and retention in lower socio-economic groups.
• Incentives for workplace learning and progression routes into HE.
• A national programme of research, evaluation and dissemination.

The six main themes of Aimhigher Lancashire are:

Theme 1 - Working with young people

Themes 2 & 3 - young unemployed adults, work based learning

Theme 4 - Mentoring

Theme 5 - Working with Families

Theme 6 - Staff Development

Partnership

Aimhigher Lancashire is a collaborative project involving the four Lancashire Higher Education institutions:

Edge Hill

Lancaster University

St Martin's College

University of Central Lancashire

The 12 Further Education Colleges whose activities are coordinated by the East Lancashire and North and West Lancashire Lifelong Learning Partnerships.

Other partners include representatives from Aimhigher:Excellence in Cities partnerships, Connexions, etc.

Through its partnerships Aimhigher Lancashire offers a complementary progression package of aspiration, awareness and achievement raising activities.

Activities at Lancaster

Theme 1

Activities fall into three broad categories:

• workshops delivered within school - what is HE? why go to HE? a day in the life of a student;
• campus day and residential visits - include workshop activities and provide an opportunity to gain first hand experience of higher education;
• work with families - including sessions for parents (See Theme 5 - Working with Families, FAHED), talks about finance at parents evenings;

For further information about Theme 1 please contact:

Ann-Marie Houghton or telephone 01524 - 592907 from the Department of Educational Research;
Rosemary Hindley or telephone 01524 - 593686 and Jude Towers or telephone 01524 593546 from the Department of Continuing Education.

Themes 2 & 3

A package of activities for themes 2 and 3 are currently being developed. The Department of Continuing Education is responsible for developing Lancaster University's contribution. For further information about themes 2 & 3 please contact Rosemary Hindley or telephone 01524 - 593686

Theme 5 Working with Families

Lancaster University is responsible for co-ordinating the work with families. This will include:

1. We will develop and provide a family focused staff development programme involving generic sub-regional events and targeted events for each delivery partner. Offer infrastructure support in the form of resources and materials for using with different groups of parents. This will enable HEIs and Lifelong Learning partners to deliver the following types of activities:
   - FAHED Parent Sessions (contributions to parent evenings)
   - FAHED Parent Course ‘Your Child’s Future’ (variable lengths)
   - FAHED Cycle - combining parent course / pupil campus visit
2. After consultation with HEIs and Lifelong Learning partners we will use the FAHED cycle to develop targeted new materials that focus on issues relevant to their overall delivery programme and particular interests in using the family to contribute to aspiration and awareness raising activities. For example: within theme 1 it might include yr 9 subject choice, yr 10 career foci, pupils with a disability, or from a minority ethnic community. Within themes 2 and 3 it might include work based or community based FAHED cycles.
3. To produce three Lancashire Aim higher Families Newsletters concerning local widening participation activities and ways that parents can support young people.

To enhance dissemination throughout the region, we will identify existing good practice regionally and nationally and explore with partners how best this might be used to support their delivery plans as well as contributing to the development of new family resources for use within Lancashire.

Theme 6 staff Development

FAHED activities will contribute to the overall Aimhigher staff development programme.

Research

Although the focus of Aimhigher is on delivery, the CAP continues to adopt an action research approach in its work. Our research interests will be focused on the role and relationship of parents with schools (See FAHED project for previous work); the contribution of teachers in widening participation and the impact of academic library based activities (See LUCID project for further details).

For further information about our research activities please contact:Ann-Marie Houghton or telephone 01524 - 592907 from the Department of Educational Research