The University of Bristol is to open its first ‘micro-campus’ in South Bristol, as university bosses begin to reach out across the river for the first time.
The first campus is at the Gatehouse Centre in Withywood, which has been operating in Hareclive Road for the past 30 years, and is run by Hartcliffe and Withywood Ventures.
The micro-campus will aim to offer what the university describes as a ‘distilled version’ of the university experience that ‘works for people in the local area and supports them in seeking further employment or study opportunities’.
“The University and HWV will run three workshops together to design the micro-qualification with employers, local communities, further education colleges, and adult learners themselves, and then pilot it twice, at no or low cost to the students,” a university spokesperson said.
“The micro-qualification will start with a short module called ‘What next for me?’ The aim will be to offer a distilled version of the university experience that works for people in the local area and supports them in seeking further employment or study opportunities. The micro-qualification will then be adapted in other spaces,” he added.
The University of Bristol already has one micro-campus – at the Wellspring Settlement at Barton Hill – and the Withywood one will look to replicate the model of how that works. That was set up in 2020 and sees 160 people a week accessing education. A £178,000 grant from the Office for Student’s Equality in Higher Education Innovation Fund will kickstart the micro-campus and fund the work to design the new ‘place-based micro-qualification’.
“In Hartcliffe, the University will spend the first year listening to local people about how a university presence in the area might work,” the university spokesperson said. “The aim is to offer a distinctive blend of research, teaching and enterprise activities that adds to the existing ecosystem in Hartcliffe and Withywood.”
As well as being among the most socio-economically deprived areas in the country, Withywood and Hartcliffe are in South Bristol, which for years has been one of the areas of the country with the lowest percentage of 18-year-old school or college leavers going on to university, despite having two major universities on the doorstep.
Research by the University of Bristol itself back in 2018 revealed that, while 100 per cent of 18-year-olds who live in Clifton go on to university, just 8.2 per cent – or roughly one in 12 – school or college leaves living in Hartcliffe and Withywood went to uni. Seven years ago, the Bristol University professor who led that research called for the inequalities to be addressed ‘urgently’.
Professor Rosamund Sutherland said at the time: “Bristol is considered to be a prosperous city with an educational system that on average performs well. In reality, Bristol has more areas categorised as being in the most deprived 10 per cent in England than other cities in the country, with stark differences in educational opportunities for young people depending on where they live.
“Addressing these inequalities is a collective responsibility; everyone has a role to play, from the local authority to schools, FE colleges and universities. Our research has clearly shown that a combination of structural factors are working against the most disadvantaged students in Bristol. Now these barriers have been identified, we need to urgently start addressing them,” she added.
A lack of access to the city’s universities for people from the estates of Hartcliffe and Withywood goes back decades, and the micro-campus won’t be the first university in Withywood. In the 1960s and 1970s, a local teacher called Anton Bantock set up an after-school ‘university’ for adults to study that became known as the University of Withywood. In 2017, the new South Bristol Link Road was named after Mr Bantock.
The new university presence in Withywood will form a link with the Barton Hill campus, and be linked to the new Temple Quarter Enterprise Campus, being built next to Temple Meads station.
Professor Tom Sperlinger is the academic lead for engagement at Temple Quarter. He said the University of Bristol has a simple message it wants to share with people in Hartcliffe and Withywood: “This is your university. Come and help us shape what the university is, and who it is for, in your community. Universities are places where we can all find out more about the world and learn new skills.
“In order to do our work well, universities need to adapt for the challenges ahead,” he added. “The micro-campuses, like TQEC, are spaces for the university to do things differently: learning from our partners, locally and internationally, and developing new forms of education and research where we can work with others on the urgent questions we all face.
“We’ve already gained a lot from the partnerships we’ve formed in Barton Hill. We are really excited about getting to know communities and partners in Hartcliffe and Withywood better. We have a lot to learn from them,” he said.
Lisa Mundy, one of the bosses at HWV said the micro-campus was a ‘great opportunity’ for the people of Hartcliffe and Withywood. “HWV is really excited to be working with the University of Bristol,” she said. “It’s a great opportunity for people in our community to access a wider range of initiatives and learning opportunities locally,” she added.
The project has the backing of local MP Karin Smyth. “I am delighted at the announcement of this investment into community skills education in Bristol South,” she said. “It is fantastic that the University of Bristol is collaborating with an established community organisation like the Gatehouse Centre to give people in Hartcliffe and Withywood the opportunity to develop their skills and further their careers. I have long advocated skills training which is why I am holding my ninth annual Jobs and Apprenticeships Fair at the end of this month.”
The University of Bristol has been involved in education in Withywood before, too. It partnered with the Society of Merchant Venturers to set up a multi-academy trust to run the area’s largest secondary school – which was renamed from Withywood Comprehensive to Merchants Academy.
After a successive of poor Ofsted inspections, last year’s most damning Ofsted report highlighted failures in the way the school was run, and since then, the Venturers Trust has effectively disbanded, and transferred all its schools – including Merchants Academy – to the E-ACT multi-academy chain.
After the damning Ofsted report into Merchants Academy threw a spotlight on the schools run by the Venturers Trust last year, and local politicians said the Merchant Venturers and the University had ‘let down a generation of children in South Bristol’, the University of Bristol said it was ‘proud’ of the work it had done as part of the Venturers Trust.