State school pupils given classes to help chances of university place

 
A group of state school students who have been on a ground breaking course designed to encourage poorer kids to apply for university. Pictured are the first teenagers to complete the course at UCL
Alex Lentati

Academics from a top London university are holding intensive classes for state school pupils to prepare them for higher education.

It is one of the projects University College London is running in return for being able to charge £9,000-a-year tuition fees.

Teenagers from poorer backgrounds or whose parents did not go to university are eligible for the classes, designed to give them a boost when applying to top institutions.

The university hopes the six-week evening course will put the students on a level playing field with teenagers from more privileged backgrounds — providing more to talk about at interviews and to write in personal statements.

This week 160 London teenagers completed the Summer Challenge course, run like a module for an undergraduate degree.

Each Wednesday evening the school pupils, all in Year 12, spent two hours at UCL studying subjects such as cell biology, medicine and society, and law, politics and morality.

They were allowed to use the library and had to produce a 1,500-word essay, with a presentation at the end. Alison Home, outreach officer at UCL, said: “This gives them an edge that could get them an offer from UCL.

“They have interesting research projects to talk about in personal statements and interviews. We are trying to address that gap where pupils at private school have done work experience and interesting things.

“These students might not have the contacts to get what you need to make your personal statement stand out. It levels the playing field.”

Shivani Patel, 16, from East Ham, took the cell biology course. She is studying for A-levels at the London Academy of Excellence, the new state school set up in Stratford by private schools including Eton, and would be the first in her immediate family to go to university. She said: “Hopefully it has given me an edge, I have more to talk about.

“I want to be a pharmacist and I learned about zebrafish, used for scientific research.”

Builder’s son Lee Pedder, 17, from Oasis Academy Hadley in Enfield, took part in the political change course and said it also gave him a support network.

UCL hope students completing the Challenge will apply to them after A-levels.

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