A new year reminder - how UniTasterDays.com will help school and careers colleagues with university links (inc Gatsby Benchmark 7) during 2020

University information, advice, and guidance is essential in secondary schools. The Gatsby benchmarks, support for the NCOP initiative, the appointment of Careers Leaders in every school and the overarching Careers strategy have all supported this.

This week’s blog will introduce how UniTasterDays.com can support you to build new university links for your school, develop new ad-hoc university event provision or perhaps build your own knowledge base relating to university IAG. I will introduce each area with a paragraph on each in this blog.

At the time of writing – over 70 institutions have accounts to list events on UniTasterDays – meaning more institutions are using UniTasterDays than those that aren’t – including 10+ new institutions in the last two months. The search area (link) is a great way for you to browse university event provision, and get some events booked in (which for institutions in England, will also support with Gatsby Benchmark 7 too).

We have re-developed the request an event (link) section of the UniTasterDays site – making it more Gatsby-ready for schools wishing to engage with universities towards meeting their Gatsby Benchmark 7 requirements. You can use this free service for any event you have in mind for your school groups, including subject specific event requests, careers fair invitations and general university visits into school, or to a university - for any secondary year group.

The UniTasterDays Teachers’ Guide to University (link) brochure is produced each year - and the current edition (which was released in October) is the biggest and best one yet! Editorial has been provided by over 35 colleagues at universities throughout the UK, on topics including building university links, the Gatsby benchmarks, degree apprenticeships, university CPD opportunities and more. Experts and celebrity names outside higher education have also supplied fantastic content in the Guide, including Martin Lewis’s exclusive content on university fees and finance and graduate employability content from one of Europe’s most successful business leaders, Sky Chief Executive Jeremy Darroch - and celebrity entrepreneur and retail magnate Theo Paphitis.

Thousands of school colleagues have registered for our events by email (link) service, where the most relevant events on the site are emailed to you every Wednesday - as well periodic sponsored emails from UniTasterDays members and a quarterly #UTDIAG advice blog - to support your own university expertise.

UniTasterDays have always delivered independent workshops for schools (link) and on behalf of universities - and during 2019, these have been developed more than any other year through – (1) making them even more interactive, by investing in interactive clickers for students, and a range of workshops props and (2) making reporting at the heart – to ensure post-session, schools, colleges, networks and universities we are working with have a fantastic report to evidence post-session impact.

UniTasterDays also embarked on our first piece of national research (link), releasing the results of our national review of university guidance in schools and colleges in March - working closely with a steering group of HELOA members and Aimhigher West Midlands’s Matt Horton – who is one of the leading lights of higher education research nationally. The research included the time period when university guidance in schools was starting, the activities which are offered, what schools consider to be the greatest barriers to the higher education participation of their students, and the challenges schools face when arranging university events. It will make for interesting reading for you!

The blog you are reading now is one of our weekly blogs (link) where every week someone working in the sector will provide fantastic content on a key aspect of university information, advice and guidance for schools. This includes anything from the Gatsby benchmarks and how universities can help – right through to the benefits of taking school groups to university open days!

Do feel free to email me directly if I can help you build your university links. The email is listed on the Contact Us (link) section of the website. I would be happy to help!