We have a responsibility as a higher education institution to share our experience and expertise in the aim of supporting secondary students’ plans to succeed in higher education, and to counter the well-known mechanisms of inequality.
Preparing high school students for higher education
Premier Campus is designed to help scholarship high school students prepare effectively for the transition to higher education. It aims to familiarise them with new methods of study and structuring thought (analysis, summary, research, academic writing, etc.), and to provide them with cross-disciplinary educational content. The idea is to help them strengthen their academic knowledge and skills, activate their interest, and give them the confidence to opt for the more selective and/or academically demanding subjects.
Raising students’ aspirations and self-confidence
The programme builds students’ cross-cutting and soft skills:
- Self-esteem: linked to “being” and identity.
- Assertiveness: linked to “doing” and action, to achievements.
- Self-confidence: linked to “having” and results, to benefits.
Expanding to other higher education institutions
The Premier Campus programme, supported with research and evaluation from its partner LIEPP, aims to:
- be a laboratory for new teaching and learning approaches and material (connecting secondary and higher education);
- create a mixed-level educational community;
- be shared with other education providers (development of a “Premier Campus” kit);
- use scientific assessment to serve pedagogical innovation (action research);
- organise a full follow-up of the cohort over the three years of undergraduate study.
At the end of the trial period, a kit will be made available to regional education authorities, higher education institutions and open source teaching teams so that the scheme can be scaled up.
