Student Selection Guidelines (Year 12)

To ensure that the students who attend our events will most benefit from our activity, we kindly ask that teachers keep the following guidelines in mind when selecting students.

We recommend students who:

Demonstrate strong academic potential. Typically, this might include students who are:

• Performing in the top 10% of their year group.

AND/OR

• Have achieved at least eight GCSEs or equivalent at grade 6 or above (or e.g. B, Distinction), including at least three at grade 7 or above (or e.g. A, A* or Distinction).

We hope to support students who are underrepresented at Durham University, therefore we are additionally looking for students meeting one or more of the following criteria:

• Come from a neighbourhood with low overall progression rates to higher education. Typically, we would expect students to live in an area classified as Quintile 1 or Quintile 2 according to the POLAR 4 dataset. (Please see officeforstudents.org.uk/data-and-analysis/polar-participation-of-local-areas/)
• In receipt of, or entitled to, Free School Meals, Pupil Premium funding and/or discretionary school/college payments, which are directly linked to financial hardship
• Will be within the first generation in their family to attend university
• Black Heritage students
• have experienced significant educational disruption, for example if they have been in local authority care or under a Care Order for at least three months prior¹ to starting Year 12 (i.e. they are a care leaver or care experienced) or are irreconcilably estranged from both parents/carers²
• Young carer or has unpaid caring responsibilities
• Seeking asylum or has obtained refugee status and/or settlement

If you need any additional support identifying students in line with the outlined guidelines, please get in touch with the team schools.membership@durham.ac.uk.