Video transcript: Introductory video - Access
Transcript for the video embedded on the Access and Student Success Strategy page.
[Music]
[Alongside Professor Jeff Grabill, this heading appears: Professor Jeff Grabill, Deputy Vice Chancellor of Student Education]
Jeff says: At Leeds, we have a wealth of experience attracting students through our outreach programmes and we continue to develop and improve these programmes to ensure fair opportunity to come to Leeds at all levels of study.
In the last academic year, we’ve worked successfully in partnership with Go Higher West Yorkshire and With Insight, to deliver a pilot of our pre-16 ‘Leeds to Success’ engagement programme.
[The logo graphics for Go Higher West Yorkshire and With Insight appears on screen]
[We return to Jeff Grabill next to this floating text: Leeds to Success]
Jeff continues: We also ran the third iteration of our national post-16 ‘Leeds Futures’ programme, which allows students to learn more about the subjects they may want to pursue at university, while developing study skills and careers awareness.
[The following text appears on screen: Leeds futures]
[Alongside Ellie Johnson, the following text appears on screen: Ellie Johnson, Lead Officer, Arts Outreach]
Ellie says: Leeds Futures is a widening participation programme, so priority is given to students who meet the university’s Access to Leeds criteria. They take part in lots of different activities and sessions designed to give them an insight into one subject. It’s a truly nationwide programme and that’s because it’s largely delivered online. But they’re invited to campus at least once, and for students who can’t pay the travel, then we will reimburse their travel costs.
We also offer a suite of sessions called Transition to University, and they’re on things like student finance, how to write good UCAS personal statement. Students really enjoy taking part in the programme. They say it dispels a lot of myths around higher education and we do now have undergraduates on courses here that have come through Futures. So we know that it’s successful.
[The video returns to Professor Jeff Grabill as the narrator]
Jeff states: We’re improving access to postgraduate study through collaborations with the Yorkshire Consortium for Equity in Doctoral Education and celebrated 20 years of our flagship undergraduate admissions scheme, Access to Leeds.
[The logo graphics for Yorkshire Consortium for Equity in Doctoral Education appears on screen, followed by this text: Access to Leeds]
[Alongside Elliot Holmes, the following text appears on screen: Elliot Holmes, Teaching Fellow in Phonetics]
Elliot says: During my A-levels I really fell in love with the English language and knew that I wanted to go to university. No one in my family had gone to university at that point. I went to an open day at the University of Leeds, and the staff member that was working just flagged to me. There is this scheme and said, you should really investigate this. I wasn’t getting the grades that would have got me here but Access to Leeds brought the entry grades down so that I could access it on the grades that I got.
It did so much for me, it opened so many doors. I’m now a teaching fellow here at Leeds. I’m not a success story because of just my own hard work. It’s because of opportunities like Access to Leeds and it’s because of people that want to support you and Access to Leeds are people that want to support you and get you there.
[The video returns to Professor Jeff Grabill, with the text Lifelong Learning Centre]
Jeff says: Our Lifelong Learning Centre specialises in supporting mature and part-time learners to access higher education. Each programme now has an Academic Mentor to expand the holistic wraparound support we offer.
[Alongside Madeleine Newman, the following text appears on screen: Madeleine Newman, Programme Leader, Arts and Humanities Foundation Year]
Madeleine says: Our role here is to support learners from widening participation backgrounds and underrepresented groups. So, for example in foundation years which is the area that I work, we work with learners who might have had diverse prior education experiences. They might not have the grades for direct entry at this point, and we support them through the preparatory year, the foundation year to achieve their goals and to develop their skills for success.
[The video returns to Professor Jeff Grabill]
Jeff says: Looking ahead, we’ll continue our work to ensure students from a range of backgrounds can study here at Leeds.
[Text appears over an aerial photo of the University of Leeds campus, with the University of Leeds logo and the address leeds.ac.uk/student-success]
Jeff concludes: To find out more about our access work please visit the student success pages on our website.