What do you Mean "A Uni that isn't UEA"?

The Hampstead School Sixth Form, like any other Sixth Form in the country, is supposed to get the best out of each and every student whilst also preparing them for life at University or wherever they choose to go afterwards.

Looking at the Sixth Form Alumni mugshots along the staircases of the English Block (I believe they now call it the West Block but that's probably a bourgeois conspiracy), you can see that of the 70-odd ex-students, only two went to Oxbridge. Many students didn't even go to Russell Group institutions, let alone leave London.

There are many reasons why many ex-students haven't left London, but a significant one has to be the fact that the school doesn't provide such an opportunity to view other Universities. In the course of the last 12 months, two opportunities have been provided - if that - to allow all Sixth Form students to explore the option of higher education: A trip to the University of East Anglia (UEA), and a UCAS conference. To be quite honest, there is no point in going into how much of a shambolic waste of time both trips usually are, so I won't do that. Instead, it would be more useful to think about what the school could do.

This begins with a really horrible idea: asking students which of their subjects interest them the most. Tailoring specific guidance for students allows a clearer idea of what students can do at University, or even give them an idea of where to go to study. I'm not stuck under a rock and know that you can't take each student to a specific University; that would just be ridiculous. However, asking students where they'd like to look at or what they'd like to study and then providing a range of different types of experiences may prove more helpful.

Higher education is not a "one size fits all" decision. Taking an entire year group to a 2-hour tour of a university that many will not apply to, or a convention where not enough time is allocated to allow students to ask the questions to the universities they would like, helps nobody. Equally, the school's university-centred experiences of higher education completely alienate those students who would be better suited on a vocational course or apprenticeship.

If students are to get onto the right course at the right institution, the school must be aware that there is not a one-size-fits-all when it comes to higher education, nor do many have the means or foresight to have these experiences of their own accord.

DISCLAIMER: This is a critical article and so is comprised of the opinions of the author.