University training day - February 2026
Inspiring, insightful and interactive training for student recruitment, widening participation, and outreach professionals who deliver talks, activities, and events for schools and colleges.
Inspiring, insightful and interactive training for student recruitment, widening participation, and outreach professionals who deliver talks, activities, and events for schools and colleges.
Tuesday 24, February 2026
9:30am to 5pm
STEAMhouse
Birmingham
£300 + VAT
40 spaces available
We are pleased to share our next in-person training day with you.
These popular events are created specifically for university staff who deliver talks, activities, and events for schools and colleges. This includes staff working in student recruitment, widening participation, school liaison, and outreach roles.
You will hear from leading experts from inside and outside the sector on a diverse range of topics, all designed to help you perform in your role and inspire prospective students to see all the opportunities higher education offers.
Join us for an event designed to help you engage students and their supporters. You'll discover how to:
Your speakers will include:
This content is especially relevant for those working closely with prospective students, their supporters, teachers, careers advisers, schools, and colleges.
Networking is a key focus, so the event will feature regular breaks, with optional post-event networking drinks included too!
Watch this video from a previous training day for a taster of what to expect:
| Time | Activity |
|---|---|
| 09:30 | Registration and refreshments |
| 09:45 | Welcome and introduction Jon Cheek, Founder and Director of UniTasterDays |
| 09:50 | Understanding the mindset of teachers to help you build better relationships with schools
Baasit Siddiqui, Director of Siddiqui Education and TV personality |
| 10:50 | Morning refreshments |
| 11:10 | How to be inclusive of neurodivergent students in the classroom Georgina Durrant, National Inclusion Lead at Twinkl Educational Publishing |
| 12:45 | Lunch |
| 13:30 | Credibility and visibility: how to influence senior leaders and academics
Penny Eccles, CEO and Founder of Marketing Partnership |
| 14:30 | Afternoon refreshments |
| 14:50 | The 5 Cs of content: how to find compelling content for your outreach newsletters with limited resources |
| 15:45 | Closing remarks
Jon Cheek, Founder and Director of UniTasterDays |
| 16:00 | Networking drinks Complimentary drinks at BCU Students’ Union |
| 17:00 | Finish |
Baasit Siddiqui, Director of Siddiqui Education and TV personality
As outreach professionals, we need to win the hearts and minds (and inboxes) of teachers and careers advisers. After all, they’re the gatekeepers to the classroom, the library, the assembly hall, and the prospective students who occupy those spaces.
But teachers are in high demand. They are juggling teaching and pastoral responsibilities, alongside a downpour of requests from students, parents, governors… and many, many of our universities. How can we gain their trust and attention?
Baasit Siddiqui will help you to understand teachers, drawing upon his many years as an educator. He’ll talk you through a day in the life of a teacher – their commitments, their pinchpoints – to allow you to fully empathise with their situation.
You will discover how to approach teachers with kindness and understanding at the right time, with the right method, offering the right service. In doing so, you will help them (and their students) achieve their goals.
Georgina Durrant, National Inclusion Lead at Twinkl Educational Publishing
1 in 5 students are thought to be neurodivergent, allowing for a rich and varied world of people and perspectives. However, for neuro inclusion to thrive, we must be equally diverse in our delivery methods, especially in the classrooms where we speak as outreach professionals.
Many of us don’t have a clear understanding of neurodiversity, or the full range of complex diversity that sits within that single term. How can we support neurodivergent students when we’re meeting them for the first time? Are we equipped with the know-how to adapt our outreach activities to ensure they are inclusive of neurodivergent students?
Rest assured, Georgina Durrant is here to help. Georgina is an award-winning SEND expert, author, and host of the popular podcast, SEND in the Experts. Her parenting, education, and SEND advice regularly features in national press and media.
Georgina will help you understand common neurodivergent needs in greater depth. You’ll learn about autism, ADHD, dyslexia, dyscalculia, and dyspraxia (DCD), and how to recognise their (often) overlapping needs. In addition, you’ll discover how to tailor your talks, activities, and events to be inclusive of neurodivergent students. In doing so, you’ll ensure higher education remains an accessible and achievable pathway for everyone.
Penny Eccles, CEO and Founder of Marketing Partnership
All eyes are on student recruitment. Tuition fee income is a topic that concerns the most senior university colleagues, including the Vice-Chancellor themselves, not to mention the deans and professors who teach our courses.
And we’re the people on the front line: in schools, at fairs, dishing our prospectuses, and initiating aspirational conversations. It’s no wonder we can find ourselves in front of senior leaders and academics from time to time. They have questions, requests, demands. They want our market intelligence. They want to hear us.
But do they listen to us? Will they act upon our concerns and insights when reporting back from life on the road? Will they find the budget for our critical activities? Will they respect our opinion when we advise against a particular strategy?
In this session, Penny Eccles will help you find the confidence within yourself to inspire leaders many levels above your pay grade. Penny will offer you practical advice for maximising your visibility and credibility so your voice is heard, respected, and followed.
Penny brings 25 years of HE experience to this session. She has real-life experience of working at the most senior levels of HE institutions and achieving real influence.
After this session, you’ll be able to own the room (or Zoom) whenever student recruitment is being discussed. You’ll radiate confidence, resilience, and brilliance to win over leaders at every level.
Simon Fairbanks, Head of Community Engagement at UniTasterDays
"Ahem. We’re waiting…"
Our outreach audiences are constantly tapping their feet, arms folded, impatient for new content. Or at least it can seem that way. How do we keep the content coming? How do we find fresh ideas for our outreach newsletters? How do we offer students, parents, and teachers a continuous stream of engaging stories and updates?
It’s a lot. Our audiences and mailing lists keep growing and diversifying. And there is never enough time (or expertise or budget) to produce the must-open, must-read, must-click newsletters that our subscribers deserve.
Fear not. This session will introduce you to the 5 Cs of compelling content. These 5 strategies will help you populate your monthly outreach newsletters with compelling content, even when you have limited resources.
You'll soon C what you can do with less!
Baasit Siddiqui is an experienced educator, motivational speaker, entrepreneur, and television personality. For many years, Baasit has collaborated with schools and businesses to inspire and educate young people to recognise their potential and how it will support them in the world of work. Baasit has delivered workshops, talks and competitions to thousands of children across hundreds of schools. His mission is simple, through combining his educational insights, entrepreneurial experiences, and a decade of television influence, Baasit strives to make a significant impact on young people’s understanding of education and its positive impact on career opportunities.
Baasit has combined his unique television experiences on the BAFTA winning television show Gogglebox with his knowledge, experiences, and passion for education to deliver motivational workshops, competitions, and assemblies across schools, colleges, and universities. Whether workshops focus on media, digital literacy or oracy, Baasit ensures that students within the workshops develop their understanding of career opportunities as well as the skills and attitude required within these careers.
Georgina Durrant is a former secondary teacher and SENDCO, national speaker, published author, and podcaster who champions inclusion. She shares expert insights through her books, including the award-winning SEND Strategies for the Primary Years, popular podcast SEND in the Experts, and speaking engagements. Featured in major media and awarded the Nasen Award for Positive Media Impact, Georgina is a leading voice in SEND education.
Penny is CEO and Founder of Marketing Partnership which specialises in helping institutions to grow. She is a chartered marketer and Fellow of the CIM. She is also a Non-Exec Director on the CIM Board. She is passionate about access for Widening Participation groups and has worked in Higher Education marketing and student recruitment for 25 years. She has an unhealthy obsession with stationery.
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 also worked as a content strategy consultant for the international education sector.
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.
Today reignited why I do what I do, and gave me some great ideas to use moving forward. Thank you for such an insightful training day. The venue was great, and the speakers were inspirational.
Clear concise sessions that target exactly what you need, and leave you wanting to put new strategies into action. I want to say a massive thank you to UniTasterDays for your in-depth and inspiring day!
I had a great experience attending the UniTasterDays training in Birmingham. Huge thank you to UniTasterDays for bringing together professionals from universities all over the UK, and providing the opportunity to brainstorm, engage, and inspire one another.
Our programme is designed to meet the specific needs of university practitioners working in student recruitment, outreach, and widening participation event delivery roles. Expect audience-focused sessions to help you address the challenges you may encounter in your role.
Our event allows multiple opportunities for networking. This includes morning and afternoon refreshments, lunch, and a complimentary drinks reception after the event. You will leave with a wide range of new connections across the sector.
Our training days are designed as in-person events, so the sessions won’t be recorded. It is a unique opportunity for you to gain insights from experienced and expert speakers, whilst learning alongside your peers in a delightful location.