Widening participation

Source: https://www.bmh.manchester.ac.uk/connect/teachers-advisers/widening-participation/ Parent: https://www.bmh.manchester.ac.uk/study/research/discovermore/contact/

Widening participation in higher education, particularly enabling fairer access to an education at the Faculty for talented students regardless of their background, is central to our values.

The aim of widening participation is to ensure the Faculty's student body is as diverse as possible. We do this by supporting students from backgrounds where people do not generally go on to a university education.

Some schools already know if they are in a widening participation area, as these are defined by the government based on social and economic data.

However, students can still come from widening participation backgrounds even if they attend schools not officially designated as widening participation, such as grammar schools.

The following criteria help us to know if young people are from a widening participation background:

• if they are the first in the family to go to university;
• if they have been in receipt of free school meals;
• if they have been in care services;
• if they come from a community with few students who go to university.

Find out more about how we consider students' applications taking the above criteria into account.

If you are unsure whether your school or a particular student is from a widening participation area or background, please contact us for more information.

Bursaries/scholarships

The University offers a package of financial support for students, with bursaries available to some students. For further details, see the student finance page on the University website.

Foundation years

Foundation (Year 0) courses are available in:

• Biosciences
• Pharmacy

These foundation year courses, run jointly with Xaverian Sixth Form College, seek to attract applicants from non-traditional backgrounds.

They have been designed to meet the needs of a broad range of applicants by combining core course units and options to provide appropriate learning opportunities for a diverse range of students.

Widening access schemes

A number of schemes and projects are offered to help young people first to think about careers in biology, medicine and health and then to help them through the application and admissions process. We run a variety of events for young people, including:

• School visits: we offer a range of presentations and workshops for secondary and college students looking to find out more about areas of study and work.
• Biosciences and Healthcare Summer School: we offer a one-week summer school in July for Greater Manchester Students to gain experience across a wide range of subjects.
• Widening access to Medicine at Manchester: our medical school widening participation team offers information on how pupils can progress to medical courses.
• Medicine access programmes: These programmes offer a number of benefits to successful applicants.
• University events: the university runs events aimed at teachers and advisers and parents and supporters.
• Global graduates scheme: The University's Global Graduates scheme sends successful student applicants to countries around the world to meet alumni based in cities such as New York, Hong Kong and Singapore - and most of the students on the scheme come from a widening participation background.

Contact us

If you have a query about the widening participation activities the Faculty offers, please get in touch with Jose Puello by emailing jose.puello@manchester.ac.uk.

[## Widening participation at Manchester

Find out more about widening participation events and initiatives run by the University.

Read more](http://www.manchester.ac.uk/connect/teachers/students/secondary/widening-participation/) [## Teachers and careers advisers

See more information for teachers and careers advisers on the University website.

Read more](http://www.manchester.ac.uk/connect/teachers/)