Recruitment and Admissions Forum (2020 series): Entry qualifications: where now?
Online eventThe Annual EPC Recruitment and Admissions Forum will be hosted online for 2020 as a series of linked events over four successive Wednesday afternoons. This week, the opening webcast in this series: Entry qualifications: where now? took place on Wednesday 18th November 2020. Read on to learn more about the event proceedings.
Entry qualifications: where now?
We were pleased to welcome the following speakers:
- Helen Thorne MBE who has recently left the senior leadership team at UCAS
- Dennis Sherwood of SilverBullet Machine (an acclaimed commentator on qualifications and predicted grades, who has also been tracking the story of this year’s school exams for HEPI)
- Jon Adamson, Head of Sixth Form, Oakgrove School, Milton Keynes
- Dr Jude Brereton, Undergraduate Admissions Tutor from University for York
- Chaired by Dr Steve Bullock, University of Bristol.
This webcast covered pressing issues in entry qualifications including the last year’s exams debacle and the fallout for next year, admissions reform, continuing concerns over the value of grade predictions and much more.
The Forum is aimed at all staff involved in recruitment and admissions in any engineering discipline – from early career staff through lecturers and researchers to department heads, deans of faculties, PVCs and VCs – anyone with an interest in recruitment and admissions who wishes to stay on top of the unprecedented recruitment and admissions climate and develop their practice.
To view the event proceedings from the other webinars in the Recruitment and Admissions 2020 series, please click the links below:
Dr Steve Bullock is Programme Director for Aerospace Engineering at the University of Bristol, and leads on Widening Participation across the Faculty of Engineering. Previously a physics teacher, he was on the founding team of a highly-successful central London academy, later moving into HE with a teaching focus on inclusion and transition, and research interests in aerial robotics for search and rescue and humanitarian applications via his work in the Bristol Flight Lab. He has consulted on wide-ranging outreach including Google's Global Science Fair and Ben Ainsley Racing's STEM Crew, and co-hosts 'The Guardian's favourite podcast', The Cosmic Shed, covering science fact, science fiction, and everything in between.
Helen has over 25 years of experience working with the HE sectors in the UK and the US, covering student recruitment, admissions, research and innovation. She was most recently Director of External Relations for UCAS with responsibility for strategy, digital product management, marketing, PR and student exhibitions. Helen serves as an independent governor for Northumbria University and two schools in Swindon.Â
Dennis now runs his own consulting business, The Silver Bullet Machine Manufacturing Company Limited, working with clients in all sectors and all scales on creativity and innovation - including many academic science and engineering departments, and DTCs, under the EPSRC’s “Creativity@home” programme. And, following an assignment for Ofqual in 2013, using systems thinking to compile causal loop diagrams to map all the systems within which Ofqual operates, Dennis has been an active campaigner for the award of grades that are fully reliable and trustworthy. Earlier in his career, Dennis was an Executive Director at Goldman Sachs and a consulting partner in Deloitte, having read Natural Sciences (Physics Part II) at Clare College, Cambridge, followed by an MPhil (Molecular Biophysics) from Yale and a PhD (Biology) from the University of California at San Diego. Dennis has written many journal articles and blogs, and is also the author of 11 books on a variety of subjects - including thermodynamics!
Jon Adamson is Director of Post-16 Standards at Oakgrove School, Milton Keynes. Jon has 25 years of experience working in state schools. He has spent 20 of those years in the role of Head of Sixth Form in three very different schools in London and Milton Keynes. An English teacher at heart, Jon has also taught a range of other subjects including Classical Civilisations.
Oakgrove School has been praised for its excellent careers provision and has been well ahead of the game in meeting all Gatsby benchmarks. In recent years, Jon has been focusing on increasing the number of students progressing to competitive courses and universities, especially Oxbridge and medicine.
Oakgrove School has been praised for its excellent careers provision and has been well ahead of the game in meeting all Gatsby benchmarks. In recent years, Jon has been focusing on increasing the number of students progressing to competitive courses and universities, especially Oxbridge and medicine.
Jude is a Senior Lecturer in Audio and Music Technology at the University of York with research interests in interactive acoustic environments for musical performance. Since 2017 she has been Undergraduate Admissions Tutor for the Department of Electronic Engineering, where she is responsible for recruiting and admitting students to a variety of programmes in Electronic Engineering and specialisms such as Audio and Music Technology Systems, Nanotechnology, Medical Engineering and Robotics. She is a strong advocate for gender equality, serving as a UK Athena SWAN panel member and chair. She is dedicated to promoting inclusive engineering, through innovative, creative approaches to teaching, which are grounded in interdisciplinary research and sit at the boundary between arts and technology.Â
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