UniTasterDays training for academic staff
Energising and enjoyable training for academic staff who deliver outreach and student recruitment activities
Energising and enjoyable training for academic staff who deliver outreach and student recruitment activities
Outreach is critical for your universities. As academic staff, visiting schools and colleges allows you to keep your courses, campuses, and communities in the hearts and minds of prospective students. The information and inspiration you bring into the classroom will attract your required quantity and quality of students. In doing so, your courses (and careers) continue to survive and thrive.
But outreach can feel like a lot. Transitioning from the lecture theatre to the classroom can prompt academic whiplash. Equally, you might find it hard to find time and motivation to visit a school amidst your teaching, research, and pastoral responsibilities.
How do you get started? What's in it for you? And how do you adapt to the different attitudes and aptitudes of a (potentially) disruptive, disinterested classroom?
Rest assured, this energising and enjoyable training day is here to help. UniTasterDays are outreach specialists, with a wealth of experience throughout the HE sector. This includes in-house roles at several universities where they supported academic colleagues with their student recruitment and outreach goals.
Our training day for academic staff is called, "Academic outreach: outside the box, inside the boxset." It’s suitable for academic staff of any level: PhD students, doctors, professors, readers, deans, and pro-Vice-Chancellors.
Firstly, you will gain exercises to find confidence and resilience before, during, and after entering the classroom. Secondly, you will discover how to adapt your mindset, your delivery, and your slides to improve accessibility and memorability in a school environment.
Finally, you will learn that interaction is the watchword when crafting a school workshop. You'll gain a treasure trove of tactics to transform any of your university lectures into an engaging experience, whilst still meeting the needs of the students, the school, and your university. As a result, you'll lead academic outreach by thinking outside the box, but inside the boxset.
Topics will include:
Topics will include:
Topics will include:
Topics will include:
Topics will include:
Our training costs £2,500 + VAT for a full-day training session. We typically schedule training between 9.30am and 3pm to accommodate childcare commitments, but we can be flexible. This fee is fully inclusive of all delivery content and expenses.
We also have a half-day option costing £2,000 + VAT, typically held between 9.30am and 1pm. Again, this is fully inclusive of all delivery content and expenses.
Simon has almost 20 years of experience in the higher education sector. This includes student recruitment, marketing, and events roles at four different universities in the UK: Nottingham, Birmingham, Warwick, and Coventry. Simon has worked side-by-side with academic colleagues as a college staff member. He has supported many more academic staff in university-wide central roles.
Simon has a particular flair for designing engaging training sessions. Currently, he leads the training portfolio for UniTasterDays, including their quarterly training days in Birmingham, on-campus training for staff, on-campus training for ambassadors, 6-week leadership course, and 6-week manager course.
Past recipients of Simon’s training include AccessHE, LiNCHigher, Liverpool Hope University, London Higher, Queen Mary University of London, St Mary’s University, Study Higher, the University of Aberdeen, the University of Bristol, the University of Essex, the University of Salford, the University of Sunderland, and various HELOA regional groups.
Simon is an international speaker. He has spoken at a variety of conferences, including CASE, ContentEd, EFMD, IDPE, FindAUniversity, HELOA, HighEdWeb, PSEWeb, SU Digital, SU Marketing Conference, Utterly Content, and the UK Ghost Story Festival. He was Chair of the Newcomers Track at CASE Europe Annual Conference from 2020 to 2023.
As a published author, Simon is particularly interested in storytelling in the education sector. He spends his free time reading, writing, running, and finding new ways to make his children laugh.
To book your sessions, or arrange a call to find out more, please email Simon Fairbanks, our Associate Director - Community Engagement, at [email protected]
Below, you’ll find a selection of quotes from university colleagues who have recently used our training services.
Simon and the team took the time to truly understand our needs and designed an away day that felt completely tailored to us. The training was engaging, energising, and genuinely meaningful, and not just a tick-box exercise. Every member of the team came away with something valuable. It was a day really well spent. Can we book the next one already?
My favourite training event in 16 years of working in HE Recruitment. Engaging, exciting, and fun - it was genuinely lovely to be in a room full of laughter all day! I'd highly recommend UniTasterDays training if you're looking to enthuse and motivate your team, we can't wait to put our learning into practice.
We collaborated with Simon to develop a team away day session. The UniTasterDays team listened to our needs attentively, then designed and delivered a high-quality training session focused on overcoming imposter syndrome. The session was well received, with positive feedback from colleagues.
We are very grateful to Simon who developed and delivered a thoroughly enjoyable and beneficial training day for colleagues in recruitment, widening access, and digital marketing. He took the time to understand the needs of the team and customised the sessions to our institutional strategy. A particular favourite was the empathy-mapping session which really helped us to understand the needs of our varied audiences. Thank you so much, Simon!
The training session delivered by Simon for our partnership away day was exactly what was needed - engaging, informative, energetic, and delivered with humour and enthusiasm! Simon spent time understanding who was 'in the room' and tailored the activities to ensure it benefitted everyone.
