Pure Potential

Information for Teachers

Bookings for our 2010 events have now closed.

We are committed to supporting the vital role of teachers in the state sector in raising their students' aspirations and helping them to fulfil their academic and professional potential.

At present, only 26% of students in the state sector who achieve AAB at A-level go on to pursue a course at a Russell Group university, compared with 45% in the independent sector. It is sometimes difficult for teachers to offer the extensive subject- as well as university- specific advice which is often an integral part of encouraging applicants to aim high, so this is where we can help. Since our inception in 2005 we have advised tens of thousands of students with their university applications.

We now work closely with a vast network of schools to provide free information to their students in two ways:

Recommending Pure Potential

Teachers are a vital part of our efforts to offer free places on our events to as many students as possible. If you feel that your students would benefit from our events or our free online resources, please pass on our details. Teachers in previous years have found the following to be useful ways of achieving this:

• Intranet: If your school has an intranet, posting a news item with a link to our site means that your students can find out more about our events.
• Flyers: Please get in touch if you require any flyers for 2010 to promote the events and website.
• Assemblies: Teachers last year used the theme of widening participating in higher education as a theme for assemblies and current affairs discussions, after which students were encouraged to attend a Pure Potential event to find out more.
• Posters: We shall be sending out free posters to all state schools to advertise the events later in the academic year. Please let us know if you would like additional copies.
• Pure Potential Alumni: You may wish to ask some of your current Year 13s to talk about their experience of our work to raise awareness amongst Year 12.

We are always pleased to hear from teachers who have feedback or ideas to offer about how to raise awareness of our organisation and to develop the information we provide. If you would like to pass on any comments, please contact us.

Free online resources

Our online resources include:

• Personal Statement Zone where students can read past statements to inspire their own
• Straight-forward information on student finance and an online students finance test
• Sample questions for university interviews
• Forum to chat to other university applicants
• Information on admissions test for Law and Medicine
• Advice on how to go about securing work experience 

Workshops

Through work we have carried out with Teach First and the DCSF we have considerable experience in writing and running workshops for students from 1-500 in the following areas:

• Personal statements
• University life
• Study skills
• Confidence and communication techniques for interviews
• A-Level choices
• CV writing

This list is not exhaustive and we are able to write and deliver workshops for students aged Year 10-13. For more information and the cost of Pure Potential coming to your school to run workshops please get in touch with Sibyl Zao-Sanders.

For details on our events from 2005-2009, click here. If you have not already registered, you can do so here.