Birmingham school links up with London university

Mayor to visit Access Project at Holte School for partnership launch.

Mayor of the West Midlands Andy Street (pictured) will be visiting Holte School in Birmingham on Friday to launch a partnership with University College London and The Access Project, a charity working with Holte School to support underprivileged young people to access top universities.

UCL is investing in supporting more disadvantaged students from the West Midlands to achieve places at top universities, and will be supporting The Access Project to deliver their programme of inschool support and attainment raising tutoring for the next three years.

To celebrate the launch of this prestigious partnership, the Mayor of the West Midlands will visit Holte School to participate in a roundtable with pupils from The Access Project alongside UCL representatives and Nathan Sansom, CEO of The Access Project.

Nathan Sansom, CEO at The Access Project, says, “This partnership is a great investment in the future of disadvantaged students at Holte School. It’s so valuable for pupils to have the opportunity to experience a top university and imagine themselves there in the future. These students are typically the first person in their family to go to university, so for them to visit a globally leading institution like UCL will make a huge difference.”

The Access Project is committed to working with young people from the West Midlands that are most in need, including those at Holte, which has over twice the average rate of pupils receiving free school meals and over 85% of young people speaking English as an additional language. Broadening the horizons of pupils who may never have left Birmingham before is a key component of this work.

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