The past two months has seen an exciting time for the ESPFA Students, particularly the second years that have been completing their UCAS applications and receiving their initial offers from universities.
At the ESPFA we take pride in preparing our students for higher education by providing them with qualifications that allow them to apply to universities. Students alongside gaining the qualification to progress to higher education, are also guided through the application process by attending personal statement workshops and an ESPFA Portal to submit their UCAS applications. Tom Gould, the head of quality for the ESPFA has said that seeing more and more students progress onto university is a big aim of the ESPFA’s: “It is our aim to help our learners to successfully progress onto the next stages of their life and give them the belief they can achieve whatever they want to, as long as they work hard and take responsibility for their futures. There is a big push from ourselves to get more and more of our learners progressing onto university each year. This route gives learners the opportunity to not only develop academically, but personally and socially as well.” Said Gould.
It is with great pride to announce that 32 second-year students have applied to university and have already started receiving offers from institutions up and down the country. On top of this, there are also students who have applied for the HNC Degree programme with the ESPFA who will be able to continue playing for their respective clubs and earn a qualification in sport and coaching science. Tom Gould is delighted to see so many students’ progression onto further education following their time at the ESPFA. He said: “For the current academic year, we have seen around a third of our second-year students apply directly for university in September, which is a fantastic percentage and something we are improving on year upon year. This percentage doesn’t account for those second-year learners who are looking to apply to the ESPFA’s HNC programme or those looking to obtain a scholarship abroad. Hopefully come the summer, we will have had around half of our second-year cohort progress onto 1 of the 3 HE options available to them.”
#ESPFABuckinghamshire student Madison Wilkin is coming to the end of his time at the ESPFA and has received four offers from four different universities. Madison believes the ESPFA helped prepare him for university through the independent work he completed throughout his time. He said: “The ESPFA prepares you for university as in both years of the course there’s times where work becomes independent, and tutors give the base line information needed this then related to university through lectures when we would have to go off and develop these ideas.”
Harrison Cooper, an #ESPFAWestYorkshire student has also received offers from his first-choice university and is in the process of booking his student accommodation. Harrison was grateful for the help he received from his tutor when it came to submitting his application through UCAS. He said: “The ESPFA helped me throughout the process of the application with my tutor James Piercy helping me with the personal statement and all the other areas that I was unsure about. I felt that it was very long and confusing at first to do the application but soon after I got used to it, I found the process quite simple.”
We are so pleased to see our students progressing onto to further education and putting their qualifications earned through us to good use. To all the students, tutors, and coaches we thank you for your continued hard work and applaud your efforts in making the 2021/22 year another great success.