SLN Uni Connect continues to be high achieving
Having supported over 31,600 local Sussex learners since 2017, and over 18,700 learners in 2020 alone, Sussex Learning Network continues to be a high achieving Uni Connect partnership – an achievement that everyone we work with should feel really proud of…
England’s 29 Uni Connect partnerships support the government’s social mobility goals by increasing the number of young people from underrepresented groups going into higher education. Through a diverse range of targeted progression projects we help priority students – many of whom come from families with no history of post-18 study – to increase their awareness of higher education as a viable and valuable option and in doing so boost their aspirations, attainment and self esteem.
To do this, our network brings together a diverse range of universities, colleges, schools, local community groups and partners to offer Sussex learners progression activities, events and advice throughout the year.
As many of you will be aware, the national Uni Connect budget was significantly cut for this academic year with Sussex bearing a 35% decrease in funding. We are proud that, despite having to make many difficult funding decisions as a result, we still feel confident in our ability to support thousands of priority learners across Sussex, and would like to thank our partners for the exceptional dedication and hard work that makes this success possible.
Read through our programme highlights for the year ahead to get a feel for the exciting Uni Connect work happening across Sussex this academic year:
- Our Get Career Confident programme will continue to provide 1:1 information, advice and guidance (IAG) support through 29 schools and colleges across Sussex and will also provide a wealth of free progression and careers resources for students, teachers, parents and carers across Sussex through our website here.
- We will also continue to provide direct funding to 24 priority secondary schools and 3 priority sixth form colleges across Sussex – enabling them to put in place tailored programmes of support for priority learners. Read about the transformative impact of these projects in Story 3 in this newsletter and here.
- We are also continuing our work with all the FECs in Sussex, with staff working directly with hundreds of priority learners at a number of key sites. Discover the difference being made by clicking here.
- In addition to our work with education partners, we will also continue to develop tailored projects and programmes of support for specific groups of underrepresented learners including refugee background students, care leavers, SEND students and BAME students. Find out more about our projects and their impact here.
- Finally, alongside our work with targeted schools and FECs we will also continue to offer a wealth of free events and resources to all schools and colleges across Sussex, including our brand new Learning4Life Sussex website (see next story), careers and progression events, an annual programme of CPD and useful teaching resources, videos and toolkits that you can discover here.
Our funding might have been cut, but our impact continues and we’re hugely grateful for the dedication of all those who make that possible. We’ll continue to shout about the vital work that dedication enables in our monthly newsletters, so watch this space!