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Staff attend first Disability Conference post Aimhigher

Universities South-West logoThe Widening Participation Office has been working in collaboration with the SW Universities Network to plan and deliver a conference focussed on the issues encountered by young people with disabilities and specific learning difficulties when progressing to Higher Education.

The conference, opened by Professor Les Ebdon, Director of Office for Fair Access, who recently paid a visit to the University, welcomed over 80 delegates from higher education institutions, local authorities and schools and colleges. Topics included updates on Disability Students Allowance (DSA) and changes to Disability Living Allowance which were delivered by Graham Tranter of Student Finance England and Carol Harmon of the Department for Work & Pensions respectively. Promoting equality and diversity through outreach was also debated at length.

The afternoon's workshops covered mental health & well-being, dyslexia, autism, hearing impairment and visual impairment. The University of Bath delivered a workshop on visual impairment reporting on the collaborative work of the WP Office and MASH (Mathematics and Statistics Help, the institutional mathematics resources centre) in addressing issues around progression and transition to Higher Education for young people with visual impairment. This work is led by Iryna Withington from the Widening Participation Office and Emma Cliffe from MASH.

Emma Cliffe said 'The main focus of our workshop was around exploring barriers to transition and progression for students with visual impairment taking STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) courses. We explained the barriers that a student with visual impairment may meet when studying STEM subjects in Higher Education but also highlighted published case studies of STEM students who have been successful. We then outlined work which may be required on a local, regional and national level to spread this good practice.’

Annette Hayton, Head of Widening Participation added ‘Students with visual impairments wanting to study STEM subjects can face significant barriers. The work undertaken here at Bath shows that students can progress and do well.’