"My life changed dramatically"
A case study on just one young person who has engaged with Higher Horizons
Paige Keen
Higher Horizons is a partnership of local universities in the Staffordshire, Cheshire and Shropshire region that delivers HE outreach to young people. We have worked with over 30,000 young people delivering close to 3000 activities across over a hundred schools and colleges. Higher Horizons is the leading provider of impartial university outreach in the region. The focus of our work is learners who reside in wards identified by the Office for Students as statistically unlikely to attend university even though they are likely to secure the grades needed. The common barriers to Higher Education for these young people include restricted access to impartial and reliable advice, on careers and education options, and they also often lack the skills and connections that their more advantaged peers can access with ease.
Paige Keen, a student who attends the Rudheath Senior Academy, is just one real example of the many learners we engage with who faces these problems. She lives with her family in Cheshire, an area where nearly half of residents are from the DE social category (working class and non-working) with an unemployment rate that is typically double that of the national average. No one in Paige’s immediate family had attended university so growing up she did not have the reference points and norms many of her peers would benefit from. She had the aspirations but like so many of our learners little to go on with regards to how to achieve them. Paige particularly liked English and was interested in being a writer from a young age. Like so many of our learners Paige has always been what could be termed as ‘book smart’ but not so much ‘street smart’, the ‘street’ being the journey to Higher Education. She struggles with the transition between key points in the learner journey, especially when they have involved a change of setting, often undergoing dips in her confidence and in the short term fight to fit in and deal with peer pressure struggles to see the long term end goal. In addition to this is a lack of knowledge of aspects of future stages. For example, student fees and loans for her represented a barrier that seemed insurmountable.
Higher Horizons have not worked with Paige once in a one-off event, but multiple times as part of a sustained programme of engagement. Activities have included a HE talk that covered issues such as finance, a Year 9 ‘conference’ where learners get to sample subjects at HE level, as well as career focused events held at university campuses, one on health and another in policing and forensics. As well as these goal-mapping events, Paige participated in an intensive writing camp (White Water Writers) where as part of a team she collaboratively produced a novel that was then published and sold online. Her parents have told us that she intended to follow up on some careers events that she had attended when the Covid 19 pandemic struck. Schools closed and moved learning online, and because of the short notice nature of the crisis, face-to-face activities on career and education options came to a halt. When schools closed and we entered the first national lockdown due to Covid-19, Higher Horizons launched several online activities to engage our target schools, colleges, and learners who were now stuck at home. Higher Horizons' project lead for White Water Writers, Richard Seymour, created a short story writing competition for learners, where they could follow his guidance on how to structure and build a story--an online version of the writing camps her was used to delivering in schools, and in which Paige had taken part in. Paige submitted a short story to this competition, and won, receiving some novel-writing software paid for by Higher Horizons. The short-story collection was also published by Higher Horizons and made available for sale on Amazon, with all contributing authors receiving a free copy. In following up with Paige around her prize, she and Richard contacted each other through TAP and developed a mentoring relationship over a 5 month period. Paige discussed her ideas for more stories with Richard and sent in several drafts as she developed the short story into a longer novel. Richard supported her in this process, ultimately leading to Paige publishing her novel, 1-in-4, which is available to buy on Amazon here.
Higher Horizons has an ambitious aim and a large part of the country to cover with its outreach message. It is important when engaging with thousands of learners that we learn about the personal impact our work can have and further understand the journey our learners take to Higher Education. “When I was given the opportunity to work with Higher Horizons in 2019, my life changed dramatically”, says Paige, noting how through these activities her “confidence improved” and how she developed “transferable skills”. She states that her productivity and grades have “increased” and the “experience inspired” her to write her own novel. At Higher Horizons we aim to create pathways to young people’s aspirations and goals, and the assistance the Partnership provided helped to clarify what she needed to do to start achieving her own goals. This was in spite of the interruptions of Covid 19. While she still finds the prospect of advancing through the stages of her education “daunting” she tells us that “in regards to university, I’m so excited to get to that stage in my life”. That excitement is not hampered either by the “one thing” that appeared to her as a major barrier; “the money aspect”. These typical fears and myths about affording university life are common to many of our learners, but Paige says that in “various visits” from Higher Horizons “they assured me” of the many ways a balance could be reached when she eventually goes to university. Paige like many young people we work with has the promise and drive to go to university, but is sometimes, especially during transitions, struck by moments of self-doubt and low confidence compounded by fears surrounding practicalities such as finance. Through the range and breadth of its activities, Higher Horizons have endeavoured to make sure that Paige and many young people like her do not fall in the cracks on the long non-linear journey towards HE. Paige’s parents tell us that they “couldn’t be prouder” of her and we feel the same. We are proud of what Paige has achieved so far and excited to see where her future takes her, along with the many other young learners we continue to have the pleasure supporting in the region. Higher Horizons August 2021
