About us

We are the York & North Yorkshire hub for Uni Connect, known locally as futurehy. We are part of the UniConnect programme, and we have staff members based in colleges and universities across the region. York St John University is the lead institution for the project, and our Central Team are primarily based there. We also have a Steering Group, made up of senior colleagues from various partner institutions. 

If you are a teacher or parent and would like to find out if your students are eligible to join the programme please contact us for more information. 

What is FutureHY?

FutureHY aims to support young people to make well-informed decisions about their future education and to reduce the gap in higher education participation between the most and least represented groups. It started in January 2017 and is funded by the Office for Students (OfS). Uniconnect brings together 29 partnerships of universities, colleges, schools and other local agencies to deliver sustained and progressive programmes of higher education outreach to young people aged 13 and above. Work is particularly focused on geographic areas in England where participation in higher education is low overall and lower than expected given local GCSE results. FutureHY operates specifically across York and North Yorkshire. 

The project aims include: 

• double the proportion of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds in higher education (HE) by 2020
• increase by 20 per cent the number of students in HE from ethnic minority groups
• address the under-representation of young men from disadvantaged backgrounds in HE.

Recent Careers Strategy Guidance brings increased accountability for school/college leaders to deliver a co-
ordinated whole school/college approach to careers guidance for all students.  FutureHY is keen to ensure that the
activity on offer through goes some way to supporting schools, colleges and indeed community groups to
meet this responsibility.

Find out more on the Office For Students website

The Outreach Hub

Phase 2 sees the creation of an Outreach Hub which will give HE providers, local authorities and other educational stakeholders a platform from which they can collaborate more widely and make a more cohesive offer to schools and colleges.

Signposting

This website will act as a ‘hub’ where schools, colleges, learners, parents, community groups and other stakeholders in York & North Yorkshire can find out useful information about the NCOP programme, key HE provider opportunities and useful HE related information and resources.

Support

The Outreach Hub will facilitate the provision of new and additional HE and careers related opportunities for students in Y7 and above through close partnership working.  This will include a focus on: disabled learners; young people in care and care leavers; young carers and children from a military service background.

Strategy

The Outreach Hub will support effective and impactful collaboration through a more developed understanding of the local landscape, higher level skills needs and joined-up careers advice.  By working together partners can develop innovative and locally tailored approaches to addressing challenges.

Target schools and colleges will be contacted by our team individually and will be able to select activity from our Core Prospectus.