The First Campus Year 9  Residential Summer School is held at UWIC each year in July.  The four-day programme is designed to give pupils the opportunity to live the life of a student, experiencing the educational and social sides of life on campus.

The pupils live on site for four days.  Day one concentrates on team building and ensuring the pupils get to know one another and the students and staff at the university.  On days two and three the pupils will study their chosen ‘degree’ subject; all subject areas relate to a current degree course at the university.  The programme for day four includes a graduation ceremony – parents and teachers and other guests are invited to attend. Various evening entertainment is also organised including a ‘graduation ball’.

Kayleigh Bloomfield from St Illtyds RC High School took part in the 2006 Summer School.   ‘This event has shown me it’s not all about fun and games, and its well worth going through it.’  Fellow student Samantha Marriot said ‘This event has helped me understand what uni is really like because I knew nothing about it before!’ 

Sally Burridge, Deputy Head Teacher  at Willows High School felt that event was ‘A fantastic opportunity for pupils to be introduced to university life.  All have returned really enthused about going to college.  A really well organized 3 days, thank you.  Pupil evaluations are full of superlatives ‘fantastic, ‘brilliant’, ‘made me believe in myself’ ‘definitely want to go to college’.

“The project is hard work and takes a lot of organising to bring together so many schools and subject areas.  However it is also one of the most rewarding projects that we get to work on; it gives us the chance to really see the pupils reaction to university life and hear all of the positive comments about their experiences.  Each year we look to develop the project, with the addition of a graduation ceremony in 2007 we are hoping that not only will it give the participating pupils a sense of achievement, it will also be an opportunity for families to appreciate the opportunities available to the pupils.”  Annie Davies & Laura James, First Campus Officers UWIC.