Get Involved

Emmanuel College is primarily linked with schools in the Local Authority Areas of Sheffield, Essex, Thurrock, and Southend-on-Sea. We work as part of the University’s Area Links Scheme. We concentrate our access work here, but we are also open to working with schools from other regions.

Access Officer & students walking through Chapel Cloisters, with war memorial in the background

We welcome state comprehensive school groups in visiting Emmanuel College. The content of visits will vary depending on the age group attending and the purpose of the day. They can include tours of the college, presentations on Higher Education and/or Cambridge, and university learning taster sessions (and lunch!). These visits are most suitable to students in Years 9 to 12. We ask that the majority of each group visiting us meet our Widening Participation (WP) criteria. The team also visit state comprehensive schools to deliver presentations.

Teachers in our link areas can get involved by signing up for our Teacher Mailing List!

Blended Delivery

We also host individual schools workshops over MS Teams/Zoom. These can also be signed up for via the link above. These are in addition to our collaborative online programmes, such as Next Steps South Yorkshire, Next Steps Essex & Click Cambridge.

Widening Participation Criteria

Our WP Criteria include, but are not limited to students who:

  • are care experienced
  • are estranged from both primary carers (e.g. parents/carers)
  • are asylum seekers or refugees
  • are eligible for the 16-19 Bursary/ Pupil Premium and/or those who have been in receipt of Free School Meals at any point in the last six years
  • are young carers
  • identify as part of an under-represented ethnic group (including Mixed Race with heritage from any of these groups):
    • Black African and Black Caribbean
    • Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Arab
    • Gypsy, Roma and Traveller
  • have experienced disruption to their education such as for the following reasons:
    • Medical/health issues (including mental health), particularly those that have resulted in long or extended periods of absence (over eight weeks) from school in the last six years
    • Bereavement of a close family member (e.g. parent/carer) in the last six years
    • Becoming a parent
    • Moving schools more than once in the last six years (includes military children)
    • Other disruption (to be specified)
    • Please note: educational disruption due to COVID-19 is NOT regarded as a marker of disrupted education.
  • attend schools with historic low progression to Oxbridge
  • who live in POLAR4 Quintiles 1&2 or IMD Quintiles 1&2 target wards

This list is not exhaustive and some students meet an aspect of WP Criteria not listed above. Please feel free to get in touch using the email address provided below.

Get in touch!

To discuss how we can work with your school, please email the address below. We also work with groups who meet our WP Criteria, who are not specifically attached to a school. These include council youth teams, certain charities/groups).

  • Email our Outreach Team, Tom and Francesca, at: outreach@emma.cam.ac.uk
  • Sign up to our teacher's mailing list to stay up–to–date with upcoming events & to stay in touch with us, so we can work together.

The University also puts on a range of events for teachers,tutors and HE advisors each year.