Supporting us

What you can actually do to support the project:

University/college partners

• You can work with ASPIRENorth team members in the development and delivery of activities for each year group including:
• S3 'Try It Out' which involves a local campus visitand gives pupils the chance to try out a range of 'hands on; taster sessions.
• S4 'School to Workplace' activity, by offering the support of Careers Advisory staff, and during the S4 residential 'Student Life Experience' by offering subject tasters and worskhops.
• S5 subject specific taster event 'A Day in the Life of a ...Student' during which pupils experience a lecture, tutorial or practical session in a subject of their choice along with a departmental tour and the chance to talk to students currently following that diploma or degree programme. Your Admissions staff can also contribute to 'Why Choose You?', an activity designed to increase pupil awareness of the UCAS application process.
• S6 'The Real Experience' residential which gives pupils in their final year a genuine insight into the realities of student life with practical workshops on cooking, budgeting and housekeeping and the chance to participate in a mock interview. Your Funding Advisers can contribute to 'Money, Money, Money' our funding workshop for pupils and their parents and your academic and guidance staff to 'How Do you Study' our study skills workshop.
• You can actively promote the ASPIRENorth student volunteering opportunity to your current students.   You can also help ASPIRENorth get the best access to your students as possible, so we can encourage them to become part of the volunteer programme.   This could be by attending freshers fayres, having an information stand, doing presentations to individual classes or being invited into any college activities where students are present.
• You can encourage your own employees to involve themselves as role models and volunteers to support ASPIRENorth. By doing this you will be providing additional opportunities for them to advance their own personal development and enhance their CVs.  You are also helping them to understand and appreciate their own educational achievements through volunteer activity. Please see our employers information.
• You can highlight your partnership in ASPIRENorth when working independently with any of our target schools.  By promoting the project and underlining our joint commitment this will strengthen relationships with the school and create a real sense of ‘joined up thinking’.
• You can offer members of the ASPIRENorth team meeting space, or hot-desk space if they are working in your area – because of the geography of our patch we may be away from home and the office for days at a time when delivering in local schools – and a friendly temporary base would be very welcome.

Local authorities

• You can encourage target schools in your region to fully engage with the project and let Headteachers know you are a partner in ASPIRENorth and actively supporting its work.
• You can invite ASPIRENorth team members to join any relevant working groups you may have which would be of mutual benefit.
• You can help disseminate information about ASPIRENorth internally within your own organisation to strengthen awareness of the work we are doing amongst other departments working in the same communities, e.g. health, social services, community education
• You can encourage your own employees to involve themselves as role models and volunteers to support ASPIRENorth. By doing this you will be providing additional opportunities for them to advance their own personal development and enhance their CVs.  You are also helping them to understand and appreciate their own educational achievements through volunteer activity. Please see our employers information.