Widening Participation & Outreach Team
7th Floor Senate House
University of Surrey
Guildford
Surrey
GU2 7XH
wp@surrey.ac.uk
outreach.surrey.ac.uk
University of Surrey Widening Participation & Outreach Programme
Information for parents/carers
Dear Parents and Carers
The University of Surrey’s Widening Participation and Outreach (WPO) Team work closely with schools and colleges to support the development of aspirations, expectations and attainment in students and ensure learners who are currently under-represented in higher education, have the information and understanding they need to make confident, informed decisions about their future education pathway.
The WPO Team are working with your child’s school to deliver a range of outreach activities which aim to increase students’ awareness and knowledge of options, pathways and higher education. Our activities are designed to broaden understanding of university, provide information about career opportunities available which can help to inform GCSE and post-16 options as well as improve confidence in ability to make future educational choices. We are regulated by the Office for Students (OfS) and we are required to demonstrate how we are working with under-represented students. This includes, but is not limited to, students who:
• Are eligible for free school meals
• Have experience of living in care
• Are from a Gypsy, Roma, Traveller, Showperson or Boater community
• Have a special educational need or disability
Our outreach activities consist of in school activity and on campus university visits, as well as a series of extracurricular programmes. All students will benefit from in school activity and your school will select students to attend on-campus university activity in line with the student groups outlined above.
As you are in receipt of this letter, your child has been selected by their school to attend one of our workshops. Before we deliver events, we ask parent/carers to complete a Student Information Form: https://forms.office.com/e/1z2TgLjvMY
Widening Participation & Outreach Team which includes personal data that helps us to ensure that we are meeting our commitments to the OfS and can continue to receive funding to deliver our work in future. Please complete the form by the deadline of Friday 26th May 2023.
General information about WPO and how we process personal data, can be found on the webpage at the top of this letter. If you have any questions, please contact the Research and Evaluation Manager, Katherine Sela, at: k.sela@surrey.ac.uk.
To assess whether activities have an educational benefit or improve students’ attitude, motivation and general feelings about university, future options and skills development, we may ask participating students to complete a pre/post event questionnaire. The programme of activities has the support of the Head Teacher at your child’s school, however, should you have any concerns or comments regarding your child’s participation in activities, please email the Widening Participation and Outreach Team on wp@surrey.ac.uk.
Thank you in advance for completing and returning the Student Information Form to your school.
Yours sincerely,
Rob Thatcher
(Interim) Widening Participation & Outreach Manager University of Surrey
Everyone is welcome, everyone belongs and everyone is important.
