HIGHER education

It’s early July in the Sixth Form; hopefully both friendships and bonds with A Level learning have been forged, and the Higher Education journey of both Year 13 and Year 12 takes a brief hiatus at the end of the academic year. And yet really this Higher Education journey is in full swing, for both year groups.

The Upper Sixth are on the cusp of adulthood; A Levels have been sat and negotiated (no mean feat, considering this cohort didn’t sit GSCEs), university offers are safely in the bag, and just the cloud of an August 18 Results Day looms on the horizon,but not before some basking in the sun of Zakynthos. Conversely, the Lower Sixth are on the verge of a raft of decisions concerning their futures. This year, they have heard from several HE-related voices, had presentations and workshops informing them of the different opportunities ahead, and started making academic statements about their personalities in the form of the muchvaunted personal statement.

The wider picture sees the near future for both year groups remain slightly uncertain, as some Russell Group universities look to recalibrate, after three years of pandemic over-recruitment. The pandemic also accelerated demand, with a higher percentage of students across the country wanting to progress to university. Higher application rates from mature applicants, continued growth in demand from international students (especially those from outside the EU), and a demographic surge in the number of 18-year-olds over the next decade, have all contributed to the face of competition for places looking particularly fierce for our outgoing and current Sixth Form. Clearing may well be a little busier than usual come August 18. However, our Upper Sixth pupils remain confident of getting a place at university, despite universities responding to the increase in applications by exercising more restraint in their offer-making.

Nevertheless, it’s clear our pupils are responding with great empathy to the world around them. The repercussions of the pandemic — on mental health; the response to Brexit; the climate crisis; conflict in Eastern Europe and issues of equality in race and gender — are all reflected in our three most popular undergraduate course applications in the leavers of 2022: psychology, politics, and history.

Notwithstanding the world’s uncertainties, I continue to be excited by the opportunities and bright futures ahead for our senior pupils.

I recently attended a conference at the University of East Anglia, three miles outside Norwich. Its award-winning architecture is brutalist and beautiful, but UEA has traditionally flown under the radar of our pupils because it’s not a Russell Group destination. However, its facilities, including the Norman Foster designed Sainsbury’s Centre for the Visual Arts, and an Olympic sized swimming pool in its awesome Sportspark, mark it out as a calm, peaceful and green campus and, for the right individual, an inspiring place to learn.

I also visited Leeds University, one of the most popular destinations applied to by our pupils this year, and was similarly impressed by this very different, yet similarly stimulating seat of learning. A mere 15 minutes’ walk from the station, and only a two-and-a-quarterhour train journey from King’s Cross, the ‘Republic of Leeds’ is easily accessible to those wishing for an authentic cultural immersion in the Great North. It’s a campus university in the heart of a city, with cutting edge amenities and green space on its Hyde Park doorstep and, as an institution, seems to have a drive and energy about it that was being reflected at the time of my visit by the batting heroics of England’s David Bairstow, just a good arm’s throw away in Headingly.

In this year’s Field Week at Emanuel, the current Lower Sixth have enjoyed the second of their UCAS and Higher Education preparation days, the highlight of which for me was the visit of nine recent Emanuel leavers who returned to speak about their university experiences. Their honesty about the challenges of locked-down learning, catastrophes in the kitchen as they learned to cook for themselves, and the enthusiasm they shared with our current pupils about breaking out of the Emanuel bubble to live and learn in new places with new people, was infectious, and reminded me of why young people like to go to university, whether it be in the UK, the USA or Europe, where this year’s leavers will end up. Universities have the capacity to fundamentally transform an individual’s life; they transform cities and regions, and they provide skills and knowledge at the cutting edge of research — as the recent vaccine success at Oxford surely proves. Learning journeys at a higher level can be an incredibly enriching experience; most graduates have enhanced career prospects, and, of course, students gain independence,invaluable life skills and — most importantly — great friendships along the way.

Mr D Hand (Director of Higher Education)