How GROWS works with schools

GROWS has been a regional partnership for over seven years and has evolved over this time. GROWS offers ALL schools in Gloucestershire access to free, quality resources and outreach activity. To find out more about the work of GROWS in the region go to the about section.

GROWS delivery is framed by our own Progression Framework. This framework helps us devise new and exciting activities for students, teachers and parents that allow us to reach our ultimate aim of increasing progression rates to higher education. Our framework is carefully mapped across other key careers guidance including the Gatsby Benchmarks and OFSTED inspection of careers in schools and colleges.

Our ultimate aim is to reduce the gap in higher education participation between the most and least represented groups. We do this by supporting young people to make well-informed decisions about their future education options. We work with our partners to provide schools with a range of engaging sessions available to be delivered in school by outreach professionals, as well as providing on-campus experiences and a range of subject enrichment activities. These activities can be found on our activities & events page.

GROWS delivered activities are designed to support and complement the work our partners already do, while being impartial.

Our work contributes to a stronger evidence base around ‘what works’ in higher education outreach. It will also strengthen evaluation practice in the sector; this is why we evaluate everything we do.

The national impact of the Uni Connect programme is well documented and evolving each year.

For schools who have the highest populations of targeted learners, GROWS offer specific, aspiration-raising activities through the delivery of the Uni Connect programme. These may be higher education or subject related, or motivational and informative activities designed to help students gain confidence to find their futures.

Teachers and advisers can sign-up to the GROWS newsletter to be included in our regular updates, sign-up on the teacher homepage.