All Cambridge Admissions Office courses

NOTE: if you'd like to join the session remotely, please let us know in the Special Requirements section when booking. This will help us plan the session and manage physical numbers in the room.

This hybrid session, delivered online and in person, will outline and explain a simple 6-step process for designing and embedding evaluation for Access & Participation interventions and programmes. The process has been developed by the Cambridge Admissions Office and is flexible enough to be applied to many A&P interventions, regardless of the student lifecycle stage in question.

This online session will explore ethical considerations and principles within evaluation and how to ensure ethical practice in your evaluation. The session will comprise of practical guidance and the opportunity to work through real ethics scenarios relating to evaluation within a group.

This online session will explore why and how interviews can be a valuable method in the evaluation of access and participation, outreach and public engagement activities/interventions.

NB: if you would like to join this session remotely, please let us know in the special requirements of your booking and we can send you a Microsoft Teams link.

Surveys are a very common data collection method in Access & Participation evaluation. This session will review why they are so ubiquitous, their strengths and some common pitfalls to look out for. Great if you're new to survey design or want to refresh yourself on this method, we'll be going over some examples from recent programmes' evaluation and sharing good practice in design, collection, and analysis.

Please note that both workshops will be suitable for both beginner and intermediate levels of expertise, with different activities designed to stretch participants of all levels.

If you are joining either of these sessions remotely, please indicate this in the 'Special Requirements' box and you will be send a Teams Link nearer the date *

Session 1 Introduction to devising an Evaluation Strategy

• Producing a Theory of Change
• Moving from a ‘Core’ Theory of Change to an ‘Enhanced’ Theory of Change
• Designing research questions for your evaluation using your Theory of Change

Session 2

• Designing research questions for your evaluation using your Theory of Change
• Selecting appropriate indicators and success metrics
• Selecting appropriate methods
• Understanding the strengths and limitations of various methodologies

The series aims to help outreach practitioners at the University develop Evaluation Plans for their current projects and embed evaluation into the development of any future outreach activity.

To get the full benefit from the series, participants are expected to attend all three workshops. We understand that for practitioners this may be difficult due to workload, so we have allowed the option to sign up and indicate if you are unlikely to make one or more of the sessions. If you are unable to attend a session the expectation would be that you read up on the content before the subsequent session and complete any tasks.

Cambridge Foundation Year – Admissions and Outreach Briefing 2021

The Cambridge Foundation Year is a new opportunity that offers a stepping stone to Cambridge for those who have experienced educational disadvantage. This innovative route is designed for a new field of candidates to help them realise their academic potential through a full-time, residential programme fully embedded in the Collegiate University. It is a fully-funded opportunity so comes at no cost to students.

This high-profile initiative for the University will launch on 13th January 2021 with the first students expected to begin their studies in Michaelmas Term 2022. This session will let you know how you can best respond to any enquiries you might get from prospective applicants or advisors in this coming year.

The session will be of interest to anyone working in widening participation or outreach, but particularly those most typically dealing with enquiries. For more information contact please contact: foundation.year@admin.cam.ac.uk.

This session will be held on Zoom and a Zoom link will be circulated to those registered on the event.

These sessions are aimed at those who are brand new to HEAT (Higher Education Access Tracker) and who will want to be added to the live database as their institution’s Operational Lead or User with all Reports. If you need Read Only or Read Only with Export permissions this training is not required.

The Cambridge Admissions Office HEAT Team will organise termly HEAT User Group Meetings. The aim of these meetings is to inform users of HEAT updates and raise any common issues to the group. There will also be time for any questions and/or feedback.

These meetings are primarily aimed at Operational Leads, however if these representatives are unable to attend the proposed dates, other HEAT users are more than welcome to come along. We hope to see as many of you attend these meetings as possible in order to make them as beneficial as we can.

HE Fairs presentation for outreach staff from across the university who can benefit from free professional development to improve their practice.

These sessions are aimed at those who are brand new to HEAT (Higher Education Access Tracker) and who will want to be added to the live database as their institution’s Operational Lead or User. 

If you are only going to need Read Only or Read Only with Export permissions this training is not required.

Impact Reporting training for outreach staff from across the university who can benefit from free professional development to improve their practice.

This introductory session will explore what qualitative data analysis can tell you and the implications of different kinds of qualitative data collection.

A training session for people working in access & participation who wish to develop a better understanding of the stats techniques and numbers that you may encounter when evaluating programmes.

We'll be covering the basics, including descriptive statistics and some inferential statistics techniques. We'll also have a worked example from Rebecca Middleton at NEACO on analysing survey data. All welcome, be great to see you there (albeit on Teams).

An interactive session exploring partnership working; identifying where partnerships already exist, what makes a successful partnership, and what are the challenges with partnerships working.

This session will include a presentation, round table discussions and opportunity to feedback.

Policy in schools - providing the context (understanding deprivation and attainment) training for outreach staff from across the university who can benefit from free professional development to improve their practice.

Cambridge Admissions Office have organised a series of briefing sessions in the coming weeks aimed at Schools Liaison Officers, Faculty/Department Outreach Staff, and any academics and staff members who will communicate with potential students.

This will be an informative session detailing examples of good practice in monitoring and evaluation, specifically related to outreach projects including those funded by the Widening Participation Project Fund. The session will cover general good practice in monitoring and evaluation, as well as featuring presentations from previous outreach projects detailing specific examples of monitoring and evaluation in practice.

Behaviour management training for outreach staff delivered by the Cambridge Admissions Office.

This training focuses on managing the needs and behaviour of both the group you and individual pupils. It will provide you with techniques and strategies you can use when delivering sessions to students. In this session, you’ll explore how your own behaviour influences your students’, and learn how to control your emotional responses when you’re interacting in the classroom. You’ll discover the latest techniques in classroom management and develop your capability to achieve consistency.

The training will take place in A329 - Counselling Service (Student Services Centre).

The goal of our next Community of Practice is to map the support networks which are already established across the University. We aim to compile a document specifying who is doing what, where, to allow us to work in a more connected way across the University. In anticipation of this, you might want to think about which pieces of work you would like to bring up at the meeting, if you know anyone who is doing anything similar already who you would like to collaborate with, and what support you could use. We will also have a great speaker coming along to this session, with details to be provided soon!

Looking forwards to seeing you all again in April!

NOTE: if you'd like to join the session remotely, please let us know in the Special Requirements section when booking. This will help us plan the session and manage physical numbers in the room.

This hybrid session, delivered online and in person, will explore how to present and disseminate evaluation findings in appropriate ways for intended users, and to support wider strategic use.

A brief history of the last 20 years and the huge change in structures, breakdown of LAs, creation of Trusts and what that means in terms of accountability, stability, and school leadership. The differences between Grammars, Academies, All through trusts, Chains/trusts that transcend region etc., LA schools, faith schools (VA and VC), Free schools, and FE colleges. We will explore how best to work with these schools- do they have partnerships with other institutions (Universities, businesses, charities)? The benefits of working across a trust rather than just with one school How to overcome challenges faced by schools to ensure meaningful, long-term relationships?

Led by CAO's acting Deputy Head, Paul Potter. Paul is a former Vice Principal of a large state comprehensive (11-18) school and Head of Sixth Form.

This online session will address how to scope the requirements and boundaries of your evaluation in terms of purposes, questions and scaling. It will particularly explore how evaluation could be used constructively and strategically, and five potential areas that you could explore in your evaluation. This is the second step in the 6-Step Evaluation Process. The session will comprise of practical guidance, opportunities for discussion, and introduce some practical resources you can use in your own evaluation planning.

Social Media training for outreach staff from across the university who can benefit from free professional development to improve their practice.

Student Led Outreach training for outreach staff from across the university who can benefit from free professional development to improve their practice.

Cambridge Admissions Office have organised a series of briefing sessions in the coming weeks aimed at Schools Liaison Officers, Department Outreach Staff, and any academics and staff members who will communicate with potential students.

This session is aimed at outreach professionals and those who frequently speak to prospective students at Open Days or similar events, who would like to increase their knowledge of the services offered to students across the University. Representatives from CUSU, the Disability Resource Centre, the Counselling Service and the Careers Service, will discuss the services they offer students.