U@Uni Orientation

Hi everyone and welcome to the online U@Uni Academy Orientation welcome.

My name is Sarah and I'm program manager for the U@Uni Academy program, and I'm incredibly excited to see you all here and welcome you to the U@Uni Academy virtually.

Now, when you come onto campus, I'll be a face you'll probably see walking around. There is a whole team of people who are working on the program, including your coordinators, teachers and mentors. And you'll get to meet them later on as you work your way through this virtual orientation.

Now, when you do come and join us at the UTS city campus, you'll be on the land of the Gadigal people of the Eora nation. And I'd like to start today by acknowledging them as the traditional custodians of the land on which we will be meeting and to pay my respects to elders past, present and future.

Now, today you are doing an online Orientation. Unfortunately, your school couldn't attend UTS campus due to COVID-19 restrictions, but I'm here to give you a quick introduction to the U@Uni Academy and fill you in on Summer School, which will be your first on campus experience in the January school holidays. Now, before I get into the U@Uni Academy programs, I'll give you a quick run through of what will be covered in this virtual Orientation day.

So one, through me, you'll get to learn a little bit more about the U@Uni Academy as you begin your two year journey with us. I'll talk to you about what you can do over the next two years through the Academy program and the different things that you'll get out of it.

I'll give you some information about the Summer School program. So what the program looks like, the time you need to be on campus and COVID-19 information and some more. And as you continue through the online Orientation, you get to meet your Summer School coordinators, teachers and mentors who will be guiding you through those one and a half weeks for Summer School.

You'll also get to learn more about your faculty area. You'll do a bit of an activity. Learn more about your faculty in preparation for Summer School. And yeah, do so more work to get you ready and excited for that one and a half weeks on campus.

So you might be wondering, OK, I signed up for this thing. What exactly is the U@Uni Academy? What will I be doing over the next two years and how will I get that offer to come through to UTS? So the U@Uni Academy is essentially your unique personal path to UTS. You get to focus on things that you're interested in and things that you're good at and use your achievements in the program to get into a course here after high school.

I guess, the main points, the main things that we'll be doing in the program, so it is a two year program that's all about getting you ready for university. It begins now at the end of year ten through to when you complete the HSC, so up until the end of year 12. It's offered exclusively to our 25 U@Uni Academy partner schools, and there will be a large variety of on campus and in school experiences and activities.

It is an alternative non-ATAR entry pathway to study at UTS. So what that means is when you complete the U@Uni Academy program and do all the things that you need to do, you will receive an offer to study a UTS undergraduate course regardless of your ATAR. So instead, what we're looking at is a wide range of skills that you can bring to university and things that you'll be developing over the program and will support you to get there.

You'll also receive academic and personal support from trained UTS mentors, so our UTS ambassadors who are students studying a wide range of courses at UTS, many of the students may have gone to your high schools before they'll be coming out and supporting you with mentoring. So questions about the HSC, questions about university, supporting you and reflecting on your skill development, and they will also be helping you with your academic work in year 12, so making sure that you're feeling ready and confident for the HSC.

You might be wondering, OK, so why, why would I join? So there are a whole bunch of things that you'll get to get out of the program across the two years. So it's going to help you get familiar with UTS life, Uni life, and UTS campus. You'll get to experience different subject areas available to study at UTS. So for instance, in summer school, you might have picked science because you love the idea of science and you picked that for summer school in January. And then instead, later on in the year, you might want to explore a different faculty area. So, for example, health or media for your faculty workshops to see if there's anything else that interests you. So it's a great opportunity to find out about things that you're passionate about.

You'll get to find out if university, or how university, is different from school. You can discover what careers university can lead to. You'll benefit from that tutoring and personal mentoring support with our student ambassadors, and you'll develop academic and life skills to help you achieve your goals, whether they're university or professional goals, or social goals, we'll help you through the program.

Now, what does the program involve, so the U@Uni Academy program runs from the end of year ten, so pretty much now through to the end of year 12 with a range of on campus activities and workshops. And there'll be other times that we also go out to your school and work with you there.

Now today is your virtual orientation day, so it's the very first step in this journey. And then in January, you'll be coming onto campus for summer school, and that's when you'll get to learn more about and start doing the work in the faculty areas you're learning about today. As you know, it's a chance for you to spend a week and a half doing hands on projects, project based activities in a faculty area like a real life uni student, and you'll get to explore that subject area and see if it's something that you might want to study at university.

In year 11, we have four workshops for you to participate in. So the first workshop is an online transdisciplinary experience. You'll get to complete activities in an online module working either from home or at school. Learning about how our world is connected and creating things as you go.

The next two workshops are on campus here at UTS and they're faculty based. So you'll get to pick a faculty just like you did in summer school and spend a couple of days doing hands on activities, getting real experience in that faculty area. So if you loved summer school area, you can pick that faculty again. But I'd recommend picking a different faculty area so you get to explore something new and get a taste for something new and see if it's something that you might want to study at university.

And the last comes in the form of a hackathon where we have industry partners and companies pose real world problems. And you get to use your skills you've developed across the year to help us solve them. So really exciting way to connect to industry.

Throughout year 11 you'll also have two short in school personal mentoring sessions, and this is where current UTS students will go out to your school and you'll have an opportunity to chat to them about what you've learned in the program. Ask questions about university. Do some goal setting around what your future goals might be and get you to, yeah, space for you to just find out more about the program and UTS and life as a university student.

In year 12, we know you're really busy with school work and the HSC, so we don't ask you to come to campus very much. Instead, we're going to provide you with academic and mentoring support in schools. So throughout terms one, two and three, our ambassadors is going to come to a school and help you get prepared for the HSC, giving you study tips, talking about things that have worked for them. But they'll also be able to answer all your questions about university and support you in making decisions around your post-school options.

Now, as part of the requirements for the program, you do need to demonstrate your achievement and progress in your learning, and this involves submitting assignments and doing projects that show how you've grown and how you've developed skills across the program.

Now we also want to celebrate and recognise the learning that you're doing in the U@Uni academy program. So throughout those projects you complete, you'll learn new skills, you'll earn some badges and you collect certificates that you can share maybe with future employers, or that you can just continue to grow your portfolio around those skills you developed.

Now, these projects all relate to something called 21st century skills, so these are skills that are going to help you be ready for university and for work CAPRI is a tool that we use here at UTS that describes these 21st century skills that you'll be learning as part of the U@Uni Academy program.

Now, CAPRI is an acronym, so a word made up of the initial letters of other words, and it has five skill categories. So the first is communication and collaboration. The second is attitudes and values. The third is practical and organisational skills. The fourth is research and critical thinking skills, and the fifth is innovation and creativity. So it's these five skill areas that you will be doing projects in to continue to develop those skills across the two years in the program.

As you complete these assessments, you'll get to reflect on your development of these skills. So we do this through an online tool called Review. And every time you do a workshop or during your Summer School program, you use this tool to reflect on and give yourself feedback around those skills that you're developing. You'll also have an opportunity to get feedback from your teachers and coordinators through review, which will help you to further develop those skills across the program.

Now, throughout your U@Uni Academy journey, you'll have the opportunity to earn up to seven skill badges and these are called our U@Uni Academy badges, and you'll earn these badges as you continue to develop your 21st century skills, coming from CAPRI. So basically to earn a badge, you need to get some good results in the projects that you're completing throughout the program.

And then once you've received your U@Uni Academy badge, we'll send you out a certificate to evidence that you've demonstrated that skill throughout the program. And when you're applying for post-school study or your first job, you can use these badge descriptions and certificates in your applications or in interviews to demonstrate the skills that you've gained. And these are skills that are really highly valuable in our workplace, but also at university.

Now once you've progressed through these activities for two years and you've met all the U@Uni Academy graduation requirements, you'll receive a direct offer to study at UTS and you might be wondering what are the U@Uni graduation requirements. So what do I actually have to do to receive that offer? So there are a few things. So the first thing is you need to successfully complete the HSC, and that means you need to undertake a HSC pattern of study, but you don't need to be on an ATAR pathway. You need to sit all your exams, including your optional exams, for VET and Category B courses, and you need to pass your minimum standards exams. Now, if you're unsure about what any of those things mean, please have a chat to your teacher.

You also need to attend to 75% of each program activities, so we do have minimum attendance requirements for the program. So we do expect you to show up when you sign up and those minimum attendance requirements means you must attend a minimum number of activities in order to be eligible to receive an offer. If there are extenuating circumstances, there are some considerations we can put into place and I'll go through those in a moment.

You need to demonstrate your achievement and progress throughout the program. So this means that throughout all these program, activities and projects that you're doing, you need to demonstrate that you're developing skills across your time in the U@Uni Academy. And these are things like skills in collaboration, in creativity and critical thinking. You'll also have access to review in your online portfolio, where you can upload pictures and videos of the products and the work that you're doing in Summer School and out on campus workshops.

And then at the end of the two years, we want you to tell us about what you've learned during your time in the U@Uni Academy program and what you want to do in university after. So you'll be asked to complete a personal statement, and our student mentors will be able to help you with this personal statement during your U@Uni Academy, Uni prep, or mentoring sessions.

There are a few frequently asked questions that we get as part of the program, so one of the main ones is do we really actually get direct entry to study at UTS? And if so, what courses can I study? So the answer is yes. Everyone who completes the U@Uni academy program and fulfils that criteria I mentioned, will receive an offer to study at UTS. And you'll be able to select preferences in the courses that you're most interested in, so you can select up to three courses or three preferences, noting that some courses are competitive and places may be limited. So the large majority of UTS courses are available and we'll give you more information about this as you come into year 12. But pretty much what you see with the UTS course guide, are courses that you'll be eligible to apply for in the U@Uni Academy, with the exception of scholarship courses.

Another question we get is what if I can't make it to one of my scheduled sessions? So as I mentioned earlier, there are minimum attendance requirements for the academy program. But obviously, if you have unforeseen circumstances and you're not able to attend, please just let us know. We'll probably ask you to provide us with evidence like a medical certificate if you're unwell. And then what we'll do is review those on a case by case basis. So if you have a legitimate reason as to why you aren't able to attend. So, for instance, you are sick and you've provided your medical certificate. What it means is we can provide you with special consideration, or we might ask you to attend a workshop at a later date.

And another question is, do I have to go to UTS? Well, the U@Uni Academy will only provide you with an offer to study at UTS. However, if after the two years you decide that uni isn't for you or you're going to study at another university, that's totally fine. Whatever your personal goals are, we're here to support you in pursuing them. And regardless of what your choices are at the end, the program's going to give you a lot of information around post-school options to support you with that decision making process.

So that's the Academy. So now I'm going to go into what this Summer School program is, so Summer School starts on the 10th of January. So on the very first day of Summer School, you're going to meet in the UTS tower building in our foyer at 8:45 a.m. and just on the screen there you'll see a picture that's the tower building. You'll have registration with us in that tower building. You'll collect some merchandise, you'll collect your opal card and things that you need for the Summer School program.

After you register, you'll be split into your summer school faculties again for your official Summer School welcome. And what I ask is just make sure that you check your email and your text messages in that first week of January before Summer School, because we'll continue to send you reminders, maps and information that you need before you come onto campus. I

t's important to remember that from day two onwards, you'll go straight to your faculty locations and you won't need to meet at the tower building or register again. Your teachers and coordinators will remind you of this on day one, where you need to meet from day two.

Now a typical Summer School day, so Summer School runs from the 10th to the 19th of January. Most days it runs from 9:30 till 3:30. On week one, it's Monday to Friday. On week two, it's Monday to Wednesday, and breakfast will be available from 9:15 if you wanted to show up a little bit earlier. We provide morning tea and lunch every day. There'll be three workshop sessions per day, so you'll kind of have a morning, afternoon and later afternoon session in your faculty areas. There'll be opportunities for you to relax and hang out with old and new friends at lunch. And on the Wednesday, we will exhibit the work that you've done across the summer school program, so you'll have an opportunity to see all the culminating work that you've done across that one and a half weeks. You'll also have your online portfolio through review, so you'll have evidence of that work that you've done across the two weeks as well.

Now the U@Uni Academy is committed to providing you with a safe, supportive and responsive learning environment. We have a student code of conduct. It's really important that you follow that when you come onto campus, and our coordinators, mentors and ambassadors will also model these behaviours that are valued and expected as well. So we do ask that you meet the expectations of your faculty area.

Bullying and fighting of any kind will not be tolerated. And we do ask if you have been bullied, please tell your teacher coordinator, ambassador and mentor and that will be addressed.

We ask that you respect mentors, coordinators, teachers and ambassadors and think about the effects of your actions before acting.

During on campus activities please be mindful of other people on campus, including students and staff who may be working or studying. We also ask that you meet the expectations and comply with instructions for health and safety given by the university staff and your school. And this includes respecting COVID guidelines.

Please also ensure that you're using all university and school property in an appropriate manner, and we do also want you to come onto campus and be engaged. So making sure that you are attending all your U@Uni Academy sessions unless you've been excused, come to your sessions on time and prepared and making sure that you're staying on campus for that 9:30 to 3:30 p.m. timeframe for Summer School. Always try your best during the session and if you need help, just reach out to the U@Uni team. We're more than happy to help out.

And another thing is academic honesty. So we want all the work that you produce and submit to be your own work. Obviously embracing opportunities to work collaboratively. Just making sure that the work that you submit and say that is your own is actually your own and not somebody else's work, that's a really important skill for when you come to university as well.

When you come on to campus for Summer School, you'll probably be using public transport to get from home and UTS each day if you're not used to public transport or traveling on public transport. Here are some tips to help you out. So on trains, you can see near the guards department or on busses, you can sit near the front. For travel buddies, you can find some travel buddies or friends or other Summer School students, and you can travel together and make sure that you keep your belongings close to you at all times. Don't run across streets or platforms. Make sure that you have your student card and opal card with you at all times, or you can get fined if you don't have them. And make sure that you be polite to other commuters as well.

Now we're obviously operating in a bit of a weird environment with everything that's happening with COVID. So in order to attend Summer School, you will need to be fully vaccinated for COVID-19 or have evidence of a negative COVID test taken within the last two days and all our U@Uni Academy staff will also be fully vaccinated. So please bring proof of your vaccination or evidence of a negative COVID test in the preceding two days. This will be checked when you come onto campus, and unfortunately, if you don't have this with you, you won't be able to participate.

Don't come onto campus, even if you have the mildest symptoms of COVID-19 we'll be able to look at this under our special consideration work and look at this case by case.

Please wear a face mask when you're on campus. This will be compulsory and we will be asking you to do this. We can provide you with a face mask or feel free to bring your own and make sure that you follow New South Wales health advice around self-isolation and testing.

We'd obviously love to see you all on campus on January, however, if you're not vaccinated and you're unable to attend, we will have an alternative option for you. And this may just include attending Summer School the following year. So more information will come if you're in that category. But just keep an eye on your texts, emails and social media. And if things change between now and the January Summer School we'll obviously also be in touch with you, your parents and carers or your school.

When you come onto campus, we want to make sure that everyone is safe and healthy, so we do have the following COVID guidelines. Now these will apply all throughout Summer School, and they're pretty common sense considering this kind of new world that we're living in. But important things to remember. So we will have hand sanitiser, wipes and masks supplied for you. So please make sure that you're using them. You are required to sanitise and wash your hands before and after each activity session.

We do ask that you try and socially distance as much as possible, and this means keeping 1.5 meters distance away from people. We will also have you wearing that mask, so there will be certain activities where you can't keep that 1.5 meter distance, for instance, in our science labs, but you will be wearing a mask during those activities so we're all staying protected. So just please make sure you're wearing a mask and you listen to staff when asked.

Sometimes you might also have to help our staff with wiping down equipment after use. So please listen carefully to their instructions.

Try not to crowd exits when you're going in and out of rooms. We have plenty of time so just take your time and spread out. There's no rush.

If you're feeling unwell or have flu like symptoms and this happens at Summer School, please tell a staff member immediately. If you feel sick before Summer School, please don't come on the day. And most importantly, always listen and follow instructions of your faculty and academic staff, your coordinators, teachers and mentors they're here to keep you healthy and safe.

And now, if you have your phone on you, or you're on your phone right now, I ask you to get onto our Instagram and make sure you follow our social media accounts we'll be using Instagram a lot over summer school. So making sure that you use this handle, you follow this handle and use this hashtag. You can take videos and post them on your own account and tag us and use the hashtag and we can share it. We'll also be posting a lot of stuff on our own stories, so keep an eye on those. You might even see yourself on there over that week and a half.

And if you're interested in what Summer School looks like, you can check out some of our previous posts from previous Summer School years. It's a great, great way to see what what it kind of looked like across those couple of weeks.

So everything you need to know about the U@Uni Academy program and the things we've spoken about today are all available on our U@Uni website, so it's your one stop shop for all the information you need. It has a student portal, it has FAQ's, it has a parent and carers portal for your parents or carers if they have any questions and a school portal for your teachers. So do check it out after you finish this virtual O-day today.

And then that's it for me. So thank you so much for your patience. Now have fun going through the remainder of the online orientation where you will get to meet your faculty and find out more about the program. If you're not sure which of these faculties you're in, please check your @education emails. Ask your teacher, or contact us and we can tell you. We cannot wait to see you on campus at UTS on the 10th of January where you'll join your faculty and dive into that university experience. Have an amazing rest of the day, and we'll see you then. We're excited! Bye!