Supported Progression: September 2020 Update

What happened in 2019/20?

Following government guidelines, since March 2020 the Supported Progression team have run all activity remotely. Supported Progression 2020 was therefore rebranded as “SP Digital”, an online programme of events and activities including a digital summer school.

We were pleased to run six weeks of sessions supporting students’ readiness for applying to Higher Education, as well as an academic taster week, and a one-week summer school. Throughout the programme, students had a full offering of academic, social, IAG, and DU life sessions. For reference, the 2020 programme event guide can be found here. Programme highlights include:

• 5 months of regular contact with 18 mentors

• 6 episode podcast series

• 5 days of academic teaching

• Guaranteed, conditional offer for students successfully completing the programme

What next for 2020/21?

In light of ongoing restrictions around COVID-19, Durham’s Supported Progression Team has taken the decision to cancel all face-to-face activity until the end of December 2020. We are not expecting to launch recruitment to Supported Progression 2021 until later this year and it is highly likely that parts of the 2021 programme will be online.

We are currently planning our 2021 programme of events and will be monitoring the Government and Durham University guidelines closely. The safety of our students and staff is paramount and will remain central in our decision as to if and when it is appropriate to deliver face-to-face events again. Our hope is that we will be able to deliver some COVID-19 secure face-to-face events by summer of 2021. However, we are working hard to ensure contingency measures are in place if this is not possible, such as activities taking place online.

We will provide updates on our planning later this year, to hear about these updates please sign up to the Supported Progression 2021 mailing list on our Contact Us page. Alternatively, these webpages will be updated when more information is available.