Widening Access
Who are we?
Head of Widening Access
Katrina Castle
Regional
Articulation Manager
Liz Gunn
Articulation Support Advisers
Mel Kinchant
Carole Mooney
Mairi Taggart
Peter Tormey
Lydia Kerr
Widening Participation Officer
Tom Evans (Outreach)
What do we do?
Edinburgh
Napier University regularly exceeds its benchmark on widening access measures,
and its student profile attests to the large numbers of students who can be
regarded as coming from under-represented backgrounds. The Widening Access team works closely with the
University’s Schools and external partners to promote the success of
under-represented groups who may have experienced barriers to entering higher
education for social, cultural or economic reasons by:
- delivering initiatives
to increase educational attainment, raise aspirations and provide information
on the range of entry routes to higher education
- enabling students to
negotiate a smooth transition into and through the University
Specific initiatives and resources for students from under-represented
groups include:
-
- Signposts to Success:
one-day academic skills workshops designed for college-entrants into the
Business School, Communication Advertising & PR, Nursing, Social Sciences
and Sport & Exercise Science
- Getting Started: Week 1 welcome workshops tailored for articulating students
- we work in partnership with the providers of the SHEP schools programmes;
LEAPS. LIFT-OFF, FOCUS West and ASPIRENorth, in addition to delivering our own
outreach activities to provide information, increase attainment and raise
aspirations to school pupils in the Edinburgh, Lothians, Fife and Borders
areas. These initiatives are focussed on
pupils and schools with low progression rates to university or a high
percentage of pupils from SIMD20.
- the Progress through Learning Midlothian project, jointly
delivered with Midlothian Council, which provides support and guidance to adult
learners within Midlothian who want to return to or advance their learning,
apply to college, or prepare for university
- we work closely with our partner colleges, SWAP East and the University’s
Schools to provide pre and post-transitional support to students in colleges
studying on access, associate degree and other
articulating programmes
- we are proud to hold the institution’s corporate parenting
responsibilities for our care experienced students, and also those students who
may have a caring role in their family, providing confidential support and
advice from pre-application, transitional, post entry and ongoing stages
- we provide pre-application and transitional support for students
with refugee status
- we work closely with the University’s Schools, colleges, schools
and external partners to address gender imbalance in key subject areas
Where are we based?
Merchiston E9
How to contact us…
Our individual
email addresses and extension numbers can be found on the staff directory. For general enquiries: Widening Access - wideningaccess@napier.ac.uk.