As part of Team Up’s commitment to our volunteer tutors, we offer Career Accelerator events and enrichment activities to support our tutors beyond their valuable experience tutoring with us. These events are aimed at supporting our student volunteers to expand their skills and future prospects for whatever path they decide to follow.

In our Spring seminar, we were able to get some thoughtful insights from a range of further education specialists who are very knowledgeable about UCAS and the university application process. We heard from Quintessentially Education’s Jessica Harris (Head of Education) and Dr Sarah Rabinowe (Academic Consultant) who delivered a thorough and incisive presentation introducing the key elements of the UCAS platform and application process.

During the panel section of our event, we were able to gather Jessica Harris and Dr Sarah Rabinowe’s valuable thoughts on our volunteer tutor’s questions as well as opinions and ideas from Mary Finch (Senior Widening Participation at King’s College London) and Alice King (Deputy Head Widening Participation at London School of Economics and Political Sciences). Each of these individuals provided intelligent and valuable advice to our sixth form tutors to support them to make their UCAS applications and personal statements stand out when applying to competitive universities like LSE and KCL.

Here are some of the key takeaways from the event:

• Key themes that should be covered in your personal statement include: why you want to study the subject that you are applying for, what are your motivations, and what have you enjoyed studying so far.
• You should structure your personal statement in a way that is 80% discussing academic study and future goals. The other 20% will be any relevant extra curricular experiences, such as volunteering, and relating this back to skills that you have learnt through these experiences.
• You should avoid discussing anything in your personal statement that you are not 100% comfortable with. If the course you are applying for is one that requires you to complete an interview then you will be asked about anything that is in your personal statement. You should be comfortable with everything you have included in your personal statement.
• Remember that if you are struggling with UCAS or your personal statement that there should be a point of contact at your school/sixth form/college who will be able to guide and support you. There is also help online, but only use the official UCAS website for guidance to ensure that the information you have been given is reliable.
• The most important point is to be you and be authentic – your personal statement is a university’s first impression of you so make sure it is honest and representative of who you are.

A massive thank you is owed to everyone who supported the event. Team Up is extremely grateful to Quintessentially Education for giving their time to speak to our sixth form volunteer tutors and for creating such a beautiful and informative presentation. We are also immensely thankful to Mary at King’s College London and Alice at the London School of Economics and Political Sciences for all their insightful and enlightening responses to our sixth formers’ questions during the panel discussion. We also want to thank all our sixth form tutors for not only submitting thoughtful questions to the panel, but for their continued efforts volunteering with Team Up to support young pupils across London.

If you would like to know more about our Careers Accelerator programme and the work we do at Team Up to support young people in doubling their expected progress and enhancing their future prospects, contact tutor.applications@teamup.org.uk to find out more.  If you would like to volunteer