Assistant Outreach Officer - External Relations

Position Details

External Relations

Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK

Full time starting salary is normally in the range £27,511 to £30,045, with potential progression once in post to £33,797

Grade 6

Full Time - Permanent

Closing Date: 10th January 2021

The successful candidate will be required to complete a Disclosure and Barring Service check

Job Summary

The Student Recruitment and Outreach Office forms part of External Relations and our responsibilities cover a wide range of functions relating to admissions policy and student recruitment, international strategy and overseas links and collaboration of many kinds. This includes delivering the commitment of the University to widening participation in higher education, to ensure that able students from under-represented groups are encouraged to access a University education.

The Student Recruitment and Outreach Office are responsible for the development and promotion of University-wide admissions policy and strategy for undergraduate and postgraduate selection and recruitment. This involves a wide range of activities including arranging University representation at higher education fairs throughout the country, co-ordinating visits to schools and colleges, organising University open days and receiving incoming visits from school pupils, teachers, careers officers and school leaders. We also undertake a range of initiatives targeted at specific groups within the community as part of our commitment to widening participation.

The purpose of this post within the wider team is to ensure the University commitment to widening participation is delivered. This means that currently under-represented groups are encouraged to apply to the University through a range of activities, partnership working and action-based research.

This particular post is to support the development of activity linked to the University's agreement with the Office for Students (OfS). It will have specific responsibility for supporting the project management of our Access to Birmingham programme, our masterclasses and schedule of school visits onto campus. It will also support the further development of our Academic Enrichment Programme and work collaboratively with our National Collaborative Outreach Programme.

The post holder will work to support the appropriate targeting and evaluation activity of the Outreach team. This will support our culture of continuous improvement, enable the dissemination of our activity to a wider audience and support reporting on our Access Agreement with the Office of Students.

This post will work alongside other outreach assistants and outreach officers, all have varied roles that span the breadth of outreach activity at Birmingham. Each member of the team is given responsibility and ownership of particular projects and programmes, agreed in consultation with team members and post holders, and agreed as a part of our annual staff review and development scheme. All members of the outreach team receive training and support to help them in their development career pathway.

Main duties may include:

Pathways to Birmingham, Forward Thinking & Realising Opportunities

• To contribute to the organisation, monitoring, evaluation and development of a range of outreach programmes.
• To contribute to the preparation and distribution of publicity materials to send to schools in the West Midlands to support recruitment to all outreach programmes.
• Contribute to and deliver a suite of communications (through social media, email, letter and telephone) to potential and actual applicants to encourage engagement with programmes
• To deliver targeted recruitment talks in schools and colleges to large groups of young people.
• To support the application process, screening applications against WP criteria and providing feedback to unsuccessful candidates who do not meet the criteria.
• To support other aspects of administration for programmes including tracking offers and applicant responses.
• To support the delivery of events for year 8 to year 13 pupils including launch events, programme masterclasses and Freshers' events, contributing to the development of the activities and events we deliver.
• To support the development of events including finding speakers from current students, University alumni and local organisations and businesses.
• To organise catering and accommodation, ensuring all delegates are catered for - e.g. students with disabilities, special dietary requirements etc.
• To ensure all aspects of data protection are adhered to on the storage and appropriate collection of participant data.
• To support the development of student communities (using innovative communications and digital platforms) associated with each programme.
• To support the transition of, monitoring and data recording of participants from one programme to another and their eventual transition to the University as undergraduates.
• To contribute to the continued development of all programmes, inputting innovative ideas and solutions.

Residential Activity

• To contribute to the organisation of the residential summer school programmes for year 10 and year 12 pupils.
• To organise a programme of academic workshops and lectures. This involves negotiating appropriate subject matter with academics to ensure it is an appropriate level for the audience.
• To provide all necessary administrative support to ensure the smooth running of workshops on the day.
• To organise a programme of social activities for summer schools.
• To organise catering and accommodation, ensuring all delegates are catered for - e.g. students with disabilities, special dietary requirements etc.
• To recruit, train and supervise a team of student ambassadors to support the event.
• During summer school week to ensure the smooth running of the event, liaising with academic staff, student ambassadors and pupils, resolving problems as they arise and generally 'being on duty'. This will include overnight cover during the actual residential.
• Ensuring that all legal requirements are met (e.g. that DBS checks and risk assessments are carried out).
• To anticipate and resolve problems that might occur during the residential.

School Visits and Links with Schools

• To initiate and organise visits for schools in the West Midlands to the University campus, liaising with student ambassadors and leading some activities on these days.
• To represent the University at information, advice and guidance events in schools and progression fairs through the delivery of presentations and individual advice to students and parents.

Masterclasses

• To contribute to the day-to-day implementation of the masterclass programme, liaising with schools and colleges for the allocation of places using WP criteria.
• To anticipate and resolve general problems that occur prior to the event and on the day e.g. schools not turning up or getting lost, issues with workshop delivery.
• Managing and directing the work of a team of student ambassadors supporting the programme. This involves training students, overseeing their tasks and activates, being first point of call for problems and queries.

Projects

• To contribute to a range of ongoing projects that focus on specific groups such as the engagement of white working class males in outreach programmes, the progression of care experienced young people to higher education, the support of hard to reach groups in their transition to university.
• To contribute to the digitisation of our outreach programmes particularly focusing on or applications processes, tracking and monitoring systems, our communications and our promotional work.

Evaluation Activity

• To support the evaluation of Outreach activity for the onward reporting to OfS. To work with the Aimhigher team where appropriate on collaborative evaluation. To ensure that data protection requirements are adhered to when collecting learner participant data.

In addition the post-holder is expected to carry out any other duties that support the work of the Student Recruitment and Outreach Office as required

Person Specification

• University degree or relevant equivalent experience
• Knowledge and understanding of the UK education system
• Understanding of widening participation policy and partnership working
• Some experience of working within the HE/education sector
• Experience of project coordination
• Experience of working with young people
• Excellent interpersonal skills whether dealing with students, academic staff, external organisations or other members of the office team
• Ability to build relationships at all levels
• Ability to work as part of a team but also without direction
• The ability to empathise with young people and prospective students
• Ability to interpret and present data in a wide range of formats
• High standard of oral and written communication with an ability to present with confidence
• The ability to adapt to new or demanding situations, prioritising workloads and managing deadlines
• Accuracy and attention to detail and the ability to work under pressure
• Awareness of Child Protection issues. Prepared to undergo an enhanced DBS check
• A proactive approach to problem solving and difficult situations
• Advanced IT skills are desirable with a proven ability to use digital platforms for recruitment and communication purposes. In addition, in depth experience of using Access databases and Excel spreadsheets to record and analyse data would be beneficial.
• Flexibility, tact and diplomacy
• Valid UK driving license

Informal enquires to Claire Churchill, email: C.S.Churchill@bham.ac.uk

We value diversity at The University of Birmingham and welcome applications from all sections of the community'

Valuing excellence; sustaining investment