Common use of Additional Access Measures Clause in Contracts

Additional Access Measures. Context: The University of Northampton has a strong record in Widening Access as demonstrated by its diverse student body: 2009/10 enrolment data shows a current undergraduate student intake comprising 51% mature students, 26% from Black and Minority Ethnic backgrounds and 8% disclosed disabled students. Interestingly, although the majority of students are recruited from within a 50 mile radius of UN, our intake of BME students is much higher than the number of BME inhabitants of the area. Conversely, our intake of students from the white working class population is disproportionately low considering the socio-economic demographics of the local area. UN is also committed to Widening Participation so that all students, irrespective of their backgrounds, can develop their holistic potential and achieve both academic and pastoral success leading to future employability or further study. The University of Northampton’s new strategy for 2010 – 2015, ‘Raising the Bar’, sets a new and unique direction for a UK university: we aim to be the top university in the UK for social enterprise by 2015. We believe that this strategy gives us an exciting and unique access offer that will both attract and retain students from non-traditional backgrounds to higher education, and prepare them more effectively for graduate level careers in the future. We are setting out on this journey for two reasons: firstly, we strongly believe we must provide an education that prepares our graduates for the new world of work, a world in which social enterprise is an increasingly important part; and secondly, because we are committed to playing an active part in the improvement of our local community. We believe that the provisions of our Access Agreement are a key element in the development of our local community, a community in which all people with the ability to benefit from higher education are encouraged and enabled to do so. The implementation of Northampton’s social enterprise strategy has three main elements: a new student offer; the integration of social enterprise into teaching and learning and research throughout the university; and a long-term strategic project with local authorities, businesses, the third sector, and individual citizens throughout Northamptonshire, delivering significant improvements to the life of the county through support for decentralisation through social enterprise and the building of social capital. The new student offer is that from October 2011 all students of the University of Northampton will have the opportunity, as part of their degree courses, to work in a social enterprise, either one that we have set up, one that we support them to set up, or one operating in the local community. Delivering this offer will develop new entrepreneurial competences in our student population, significantly enhancing their employability in graduate level jobs, with improved future income potential. In addition, many of our students will be able to earn through their work in social enterprises while they are studying for their degree courses. We will be promoting the new student offer, highlighting the opportunities for ‘earning while you are learning’ carefully to our targeted non- traditional populations throughout 2011-2012 in preparation for the delivery of this Access Agreement in 2012-2013. All the University’s research centres are identifying how social enterprise can be integrated with existing research projects; and all new research projects are considering how social enterprise can be included. The third main element of our strategy is the inSpirE Northamptonshire initiative, a major new project delivered in partnership with Northamptonshire County Council and social enterprises, businesses, and public sector organisations throughout the county. The inSpirE initiative supports new and existing social enterprises, and community and voluntary organisations, throughout the county. Initiatives such as inSpirE, which is unique in the UK, enable us to provide the radical extension of the student offer outlined above. It enables us to provide our students with work placements and volunteering opportunities, carried out as part of their degree courses that will both enhance their career prospects and, in many cases enable them to earn. A key feature of our Access Agreement for 2012-13 will be a consistent and comprehensive communication campaign to promote our new student offer, deliberately targeting our key access/hard to reach populations. One example of how the inSpirE initiative will be integrated with our Access Agreement is that of our work with young people in the county through a social enterprise set up by the School of Social Science, NVYA. NVYA works with secondary schools in disadvantaged areas enabling young people aged 14 – 17 to take part in community improvement projects. These projects are long term, taking place over up to 12 months. They will have an overt objective of promoting higher education to the young people involved in the projects. Each community improvement project is supported by our students who both provide practical leadership and support (thus enhancing their competences) and working as role models to young people from disadvantaged areas. Students working on the projects accredit their learning via the University’s level 4 Community Investment module. A second example of how our social enterprise strategy will be integrated with our Access Agreement is through the work of 3e, a social enterprise set up by the Business School. 3e provides training, support and work placements to unemployed graduates. It has a very good track record and has recently won new contracts to continue its work. We will promote the work of 3e to students from disadvantaged groups to highlight that the University of Northampton supports its alumni after their graduation. We see strong synergies between our social enterprise work and social inclusion and we are deliberately setting out to raise the aspirations and expectations of young people in our community so that they see higher education as a natural step in their career, rather than as something that is exclusive. To summarize, our social enterprise strategy enables us to provide a unique and innovative (indeed, radical) approach to Access. We formally launched our strategy at the House of Lords on 13th June 2011. On 16th June 2011 we were delighted to be receiving the UnLtd/HEFCE recognition award for the ‘Outstanding HEI Supporting Social Entrepreneurship’. This draft Access Agreement for 2012/13 relates to full-time home/EU undergraduate students and is based on the evidence that the commonly unifying theme underpinning access to university is household income. Therefore, our access and aspiration raising activities are targeted at the lowest earners in our communities and, as a result, include other sub-groups defined by gender, race etc. The following principles also apply: The UN has an inclusive approach to the support it offers all students but within this framework will target dedicated activity to particular student groups facing specific access and participation barriers Activities are evidence-based so that pilot projects are evaluated, and then scaled up when success has been demonstrated Value for money considerations have helped to prioritise activities Innovation is encouraged through WP project funding opportunities Collaborative working with partners in the education and community sectors building on our WP legacy and our University strategy Widening Access (WA )and Widening Participation (WP) activities are integrated with our social enterprise strategy, as described above We will continue to invest heavily in front line teaching and academic support for our students. We believe that our Access Agreement is delivered by the excellent quality and quantity of direct contact with academic staff that our students enjoy. In 2011 the University was rated no. 1 for Added Value in the Guardian League table. We will continue to add value through our teaching and learning strategies. The Raising the Bar strategic plan is based on a bold vision: “By 2015 the UN will have transformed itself into an internationally-facing University committed to delivering outstanding life-changing opportunities in education, underpinned by a culture of entrepreneurship, research, and social enterprise recognized around the world for its originality and impact. Our ambitious and unapologetic stance combining quality, diversity of provision, access and graduate employability is the envy of the sector. We are admired nationally for our market-led, value-added offer and unswerving commitment to the economic, social and cultural success of the region.” As noted above, the social enterprise element of our strategy underpins and significantly supports our Access Agreement. The internationalization element of our strategy will support the Access Agreement through the provision of financial support to enable students from target groups to take up work placements and study overseas. We will promote this offer heavily as part of our communication campaign. UN has focussed its Access Agreement activities on the specific target groups identified in its Widening Participation Strategic Assessment (WPSA). These are:-

Additional Access Measures. ContextWe begin from a very high baseline of investment and initiatives devoted to widening access and participation9. Our additional investment decisions are conceptualised through our ‘Extended Higher Education Progression Framework’ (Figure 1 and expanded more fully in Appendix C). This builds on the work of the HEFCE in developing a national Higher Education Progression 6 The social composition of top performing state schools has been shown to be extremely skewed towards more affluent sections of society that fall outside of the widening participation target group. For example, see the ▇▇▇▇▇▇ Trust’s Worlds Apart: social variation among schools at ▇▇▇▇://▇▇▇.▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇.▇▇▇/news/news/top-comprehensive-schools-more-socially-selective/ Framework10, but extends this by recognising that widening access and participation continues within and beyond higher education entry. 3.1 Outreach pre-16 3.1.1 Pre-16 Outreach work to promote access to HE generally Our core Social Responsibility goals already commit us to the development and wellbeing of the City of Manchester, Greater Manchester and England’s North West. A key aspect of the University’s’ strategy is to promote access to HE, wherever that might be. We will replace the resource previously allocated from our Aimhigher partnership with institutional funding11. Investment has been made into a pioneering collaborative outreach programme with our neighbouring institution, Manchester Metropolitan University and will target underrepresented learners, schools/colleges and key influencers across Greater Manchester12. Major aspects of the programme were successfully piloted during 2011/12 and additional investment in staffing and operational activity is taking place from 2012/13 and beyond. The two Universities also collaborate, along with Salford, Bolton and University of Northampton has a strong record in Widening Access as demonstrated by its diverse student body: 2009/10 enrolment data shows a current undergraduate student intake comprising 51% mature studentsCentral Lancashire through the Routes into Languages North West consortium13. 3.1.2 Pre-16 outreach work promoting access to selective universities, 26% from Black including Manchester We will also invest more resource into intensive and Minority Ethnic backgrounds and 8% disclosed disabled targeted pre-16 activities with the most able, disadvantaged students. Interestingly, although The Office for Fair Access’s report into selective universities14 has been drawn upon in our plan to increase the majority of students are recruited from within a 50 mile radius of UN, our intake of BME students is much higher than the number of BME inhabitants of the area. Conversely, our intake of students from the white working class population is disproportionately low considering the socio-economic demographics of the local area. UN is also committed to Widening Participation so that all students, irrespective of their backgrounds, can develop their holistic potential scope and achieve both academic and pastoral success leading to future employability or further study. The University of Northampton’s new strategy for 2010 – 2015, ‘Raising the Bar’, sets a new and unique direction for a UK university: we aim to be the top university in the UK for social enterprise by 2015. We believe that this strategy gives us an exciting and unique access offer that will both attract and retain students from non-traditional backgrounds to higher education, and prepare them more effectively for graduate level careers in the future. We are setting out on this journey for two reasons: firstly, we strongly believe we must provide an education that prepares our graduates for the new world of work, a world in which social enterprise is an increasingly important part; and secondly, because we are committed to playing an active part in the improvement coverage of our local communityintensive Manchester Gateway Programme15 across the sub-region. We believe that the provisions Outside of Greater Manchester we will coordinate aspects of our Access Agreement are a key element in the development of pre-16 outreach advice focusing on selective universities with our local community▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ Group neighbour, a community in which all people with the ability to benefit from higher education are encouraged and enabled to do so. The implementation of Northampton’s social enterprise strategy has three main elements: a new student offer; the integration of social enterprise into teaching and learning and research throughout the university; and a long-term strategic project with local authorities, businesses, the third sector, and individual citizens throughout Northamptonshire, delivering significant improvements to the life of the county through support for decentralisation through social enterprise and the building of social capital. The new student offer is that from October 2011 all students of the University of Northampton Liverpool. As two premier research institutions in the North West, we will have work together to share the opportunity, as part efficient deployment of their degree courses, to work peripatetic staff across each of the five areas of the North West in a social enterprise, either one way that we have set up, one that we support them to set up, or one operating in minimises geographical ‘cold-spots’ across the local community. Delivering this offer will develop new entrepreneurial competences in our student population, significantly enhancing their employability in graduate level jobs, with improved future income potential. In addition, many of our students will be able to earn through their work in social enterprises while they are studying for their degree courses. We will be promoting the new student offer, highlighting the opportunities for ‘earning while you are learning’ carefully to our targeted non- traditional populations throughout 2011non-2012 in preparation for the delivery of this Access Agreement in 2012-2013. All the University’s research centres are identifying how social enterprise can be integrated with existing research projects; and all new research projects are considering how social enterprise can be included. The third main element of our strategy is the inSpirE Northamptonshire initiative, a major new project delivered in partnership with Northamptonshire County Council and social enterprises, businesses, and public sector organisations throughout the county. The inSpirE initiative supports new and existing social enterprises, and community and voluntary organisations, throughout the county. Initiatives such as inSpirE, which is unique in the UK, enable us to provide the radical extension of the student offer outlined above. It enables us to provide our students with work placements and volunteering opportunities, carried out as part of their degree courses that will both enhance their career prospects and, in many cases enable them to earn. A key feature of our Access Agreement for 2012-13 will be a consistent and comprehensive communication campaign to promote our new student offer, deliberately targeting our key access/hard to reach populations. One example of how the inSpirE initiative will be integrated with our Access Agreement is that of our work with young people in the county through a social enterprise set up by the School of Social Science, NVYA. NVYA works with secondary schools in disadvantaged areas enabling young people aged 14 – 17 to take part in community improvement projects. These projects are long term, taking place over up to 12 months. They will have an overt objective of promoting higher education to the young people involved in the projects. Each community improvement project is supported by our students who both provide practical leadership and support (thus enhancing their competences) and working as role models to young people from disadvantaged areas. Students working on the projects accredit their learning via the University’s level 4 Community Investment module. A second example of how our social enterprise strategy will be integrated with our Access Agreement is through the work of 3e, a social enterprise set up by the Business School. 3e provides training, support and work placements to unemployed graduates. It has a very good track record and has recently won new contracts to continue its work. We will promote the work of 3e to students from disadvantaged groups to highlight that the University of Northampton supports its alumni after their graduation. We see strong synergies between our social enterprise work and social inclusion and we are deliberately setting out to raise the aspirations and expectations of young people in our community so that they see higher education as a natural step in their career, rather than as something that is exclusive. To summarize, our social enterprise strategy enables us to provide a unique and innovative (indeed, radical) approach to Access. We formally launched our strategy at the House of Lords on 13th June 2011. On 16th June 2011 we were delighted to be receiving the UnLtd/HEFCE recognition award for the ‘Outstanding HEI Supporting Social Entrepreneurship’. This draft Access Agreement for 2012/13 relates to full-time home/EU undergraduate students and is based on the evidence that the commonly unifying theme underpinning access to university is household income. Therefore, our access and aspiration raising activities are targeted at the lowest earners in our communities and, as a result, include other sub-groups defined by gender, race etc. The following principles also apply: The UN has an inclusive approach to the support it offers all students but within this framework will target dedicated activity to particular student groups facing specific access and participation barriers Activities are evidence-based so that pilot projects are evaluated, and then scaled up when success has been demonstrated Value for money considerations have helped to prioritise activities Innovation is encouraged through WP project funding opportunities Collaborative working with partners in the education and community sectors building on our WP legacy and our University strategy Widening Access (WA )and Widening Participation (WP) activities are integrated with our social enterprise strategy, as described above We will continue to invest heavily in front line teaching and academic support for our students. We believe that our Access Agreement is delivered by the excellent quality and quantity of direct contact with academic staff that our students enjoy. In 2011 the University was rated no. 1 for Added Value in the Guardian League table. We will continue to add value through our teaching and learning strategies. The Raising the Bar strategic plan is based on a bold vision: “By 2015 the UN will have transformed itself into an internationally-facing University committed to delivering outstanding life-changing opportunities in education, underpinned by a culture of entrepreneurship, research, and social enterprise recognized around the world for its originality and impact. Our ambitious and unapologetic stance combining quality, diversity of provision, access and graduate employability is the envy of the sector. We are admired nationally for our market-led, value-added offer and unswerving commitment to the economic, social and cultural success urban parts of the region.” As noted above, the social enterprise element of our strategy underpins and significantly supports our Access Agreement. The internationalization element of our strategy ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ Group’s Informed Choices16 guidance on post-16 choices will support the Access Agreement through the provision of financial support be draw upon to enable students from target groups deliver effective IAG on subject choices and higher aspirations to take up work placements and study overseas. We will promote this offer heavily as part of our communication campaign. UN has focussed its Access Agreement activities on the specific target groups identified in its Widening Participation Strategic Assessment (WPSA). These are:-pre-16 learners.