Plymouth Marjon University hosts event to inspire primary school children
Released: 20.06.19
To encourage young people to be ambitious, Plymouth Marjon University hosted a Raising Aspirations event to inspire primary school children and open the conversation on Higher Education at an early age.
Kari Eilertsen, Widening Participation and Outreach Officer at Plymouth Marjon hopes that the children leave Marjon feeling optimistic about their future.
She said: “What I hope the students take away from Raising Aspirations is positivity, and the thought that there are always options open to them, regardless of which stage they’re at in terms of knowing what they want to do.
“Some people say that primary school is too early to be engaging with university, but I think it’s really important that students feel comfortable and aware of their options from an early age so that they can have informed conversations the whole way through their schooling
“A lot of students don’t have these conversations about Higher Education until much later, so for some of them aren’t having the conversation until after they’ve made A level or BTEC choices, and generally at that age they’re less open to talking about the future, or they’ve already made decisions which make it harder to get into specific course areas
“The focus of Raising Aspirations isn’t to recruit for university, it’s about getting them to think about their future options as a whole and to know they can achieve if they put the hard work in.”
Since Marjon was founded nearly 180 years ago, it’s believed in educating young people to succeed, driven by a strong sense of equality to establish a means for everyone to access high quality education regardless of background or means.
Raising Aspirations took place on Thursday 13th and 20th of June this year, and each event featured an inspirational talk from a guest speaker.
Daniel Cole, a Sport Journalism graduate from Marjon was the first to speak at the event. He now works at Plymouth Argyle as the Communications Officer “It was an honour to be invited back to Marjon to discuss careers and aspirations with young people from around Plymouth.
“As someone who didn’t always have confidence in pursuing a career I was passionate about, I think It’s important to try and help young people from all backgrounds to understand that through hard work they can achieve things.
“I know this is something that Marjon excels at, and that’s why I was more than happy to help by sharing a piece of my story.”
The schools involved in Raising Aspirations this year are Weston Mill Primary Academy, Tavistock Primary School and Nursery, Ford Primary School, Woodfield Primary School, High Street Primary Academy, and Beechwood Primary Academy.
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