Dear Shine Pupils and Parents/Carers

We are delighted to confirm that you have secured a place on the Year 10 Shine Residential at the University of York. The 3 day residential will take place from:

Wednesday 30 March - Friday 1 April 2022

You will attend the residential with a group of other pupils from your school and from other schools.
There will be a total of around 90 pupils on each residential. You will be in smaller groups for the duration of the residential.

All costs are covered by the University of York, including food, accommodation, evening activities and transport.

We have included the residential programme in this pack to show you what activities you will be doing on the residential. You will have the opportunity to take part in a wide variety of activities,
including:

Subject taster sessions – A chance to try out different subjects with academics at the University. These give you an insight into topics which may be completely new to you, which will help you when making study decisions in the future.

Student life sessions – These sessions allow you to try out fun extracurricular activities like sport and drama to see what it’s really like to be a university student.

Group presentations – During the residential, you will work as a group to put together a short presentation, which you will deliver on the last day. This is a great way of gaining experience, developing confidence and working as a team.

Talks – you will experience a taster lecture, have a talk about student life and finance and will also enjoy a talk from an external speaker about personality types

Evening socials – you will also have lots of fun on the residential, with opportunities to spend time with friends and meet new people.

Thank you for completing the residential consent form, where you outlined any medical issues you have. If you have informed us about any major medical issues, a member of our team will be giving you a call before the residential to discuss this with you. This is to make sure we have all the relevant information and give you an opportunity to talk to us in more detail. It is very important that we are made aware of any allergies, medical conditions, dietary requirements and disabilities prior to the residential.

Student wellbeing and safety is always at the heart of what we do. We have been carefully considering safely running our residentials and have taken into account many ways in which we can ensure that they can go ahead in person with as little disruption as possible. With this in mind we would like to reassure you that these are some of the steps that we will be taking to ensure that the residentials are safe:
● We will ask all staff to test every day
● We will encourage all attendees to take a test prior to attending the residential
● We will ask all attendees and staff to not attend if they are symptomatic or have a close contact testing positive
● We are operating smaller groups
● We are employing extra staff to clean, manage groups and in case of illness
● We will have extensive supplies of tests, masks, gloves/cleaning items, hand sanitizer

We have all of the emergency contact numbers that you have supplied on the permission form and will contact you in case of an emergency.

You will be looked after by a team of fully trained and DBS checked staff during your stay at the University and supervised overnight. Some of the team will include current university students, who have been recruited and trained for the residential. We also have first aiders and 24 hour security on the campus. You will be provided with the contact details of the residential leader prior to the residential.

All meals and refreshments will be provided free of charge to the pupils at the residential in one of our university dining halls. There will be three meal choices at all meals and a variety of different options, including vegetarian and Halal meat. You will be able to choose what food you would like at every meal.

Snacks and refreshments will also be provided throughout the residential. Some pupils like to bring a few small snacks, although this is not necessary.

We have booked and paid for coaches to transport pupils from school to the University of York and back again. Student ambassadors from the University will be travelling on the coaches with the pupils.

You will need to be at the school meeting point at the designated time to be collected. The exact times will be confirmed nearer the time by your school but here is an estimate:
● Wednesday 30th March 2022 – departing from school between 8am and 9.30am
● Friday 1st April 2022 – dropped off back at school between 5pm and 6.30pm

Pupils will be staying in university accommodation on campus for the duration of the residential. All pupils will have their own single bedroom, with an ensuite bathroom (shower, toilet, sink). Bedding and a towel is provided. Accommodation is single sex and males/females will not have access to each other’s accommodation. Pupils will be staying on a corridor with approximately 10 other pupils (of the same sex)
and 1 member of staff.

Pupils will have a key card which will let them into their accommodation block, corridor and bedroom.
They will lock their room and keep hold of the key card. The staff in charge will have master key cards, in case of emergency. Staff will never enter a pupil’s bedroom alone.

There are plenty of places for prayer and reflection on campus. Pupils are welcome to use these during their stay. These will be pointed out to pupils at the start of the residential.

Please feel free to get in touch with us if there is anything else you would like to know. Further information will be shared with you shortly.

We look forward to welcoming all Shine pupils to the University of York soon.

With best wishes,
The Shine Team

shine@york.ac.uk
University of York
York
YO10 5DD

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Letter to parents of students on York University Shine Programme (selected) 10 Feb 2022.pdf 92.1 KB