Key information for your visit
Let’s give your students a day to remember.
Visit days to the University campus are a great way for your students to find out more about uni-life, future courses and careers and to spend time with our students.
If you’ve booked a visit with us, you’ll be given a named contact from the Schools and Colleges Team who'll be your point of contact throughout the visit.
This page will provide all the essential trip information to help you organise things at your end, and ensure your students get the most from their experience on campus.
Visit day programmes
The programme for your visit day will be emailed to you ahead of time.
Risk assessment
You can download our risk assessment for campus visit days. This is reviewed and updated regularly, and if your visit days include specific activities that require additional risk assessments, these will be emailed to you ahead of time, along with your visit day programme.
Getting here
Minibuses and coaches
If you’re arriving with a minibus or coach as part of a school group, the closest options for parking are on Museum Road* or Burnaby Road. But there’s more information about city centre parking on the Portsmouth City Council website.
On street parking is Pay and Display and you can pay to park using the RingGo App. A half day visit will cost £4.50 and a full day visit will cost £12.**
If you let us know where you’ll be parking, our Student Ambassadors can meet you and walk you wherever your visit day is starting.
*Please note that in Museum Road minibuses must be parked on the South side of the road. The North side is for coach parking only.
**We can sometimes help with the cost of parking for school and college groups. Feel free to ask in advance of your visit by contacting us at schoolsandcolleges@port.ac.uk.
Check out where our main teaching and learning spaces are for school visits and where to park if you're joining us for an event. More travel information on our maps and directions page, including information on travel by bus, train or ferry from the Isle of Wight.
Accessibility support
Most of our university buildings are accessible for those with mobility difficulties. We can also tailor our visit day programmes to accommodate the specific needs of your students.
Please let your contact in the Schools and Colleges Team know well in advance of your visit about any additional needs for your students, so we can do our very best to make appropriate arrangements or adjustments.
FAQs
We aren’t able to cover full travel costs for your visit. We don’t have visitor car parks, however we can sometimes help with the parking costs for on street parking. Make sure to contact us in advance of your visit to discuss this.
We’ll happily provide you with a letter template you can send to parents, outlining the visit and what’s involved. Speak to your named contact in the Recruitment and Outreach Team.
We leave this to your school’s discretion. One thing to bear in mind, is that a school uniform can help identify your students easily when moving around the campus where there are lots of university students present.
Most of our visit days do not include lunch, but we’ll always provide time on the programme and a suitable space to stop and eat lunch if the visit day is longer than a half day.
As a visiting school or college group, you're responsible for ensuring you have sufficient staffing on the travel to and from campus, and throughout the duration of the visit day.
While at the university, there will be at least one member of the Recruitment and Outreach Team facilitating the day, and a small team of student ambassadors to assist with the activities and moving around campus.
Our student ambassadors are there to help bring the visit day to life and to share personal experiences of university. We don't expect them to take full responsibility for student groups or for behaviour management. We ask that a member of school staff remains with the group throughout the visit and where necessary remove individuals or groups from a session to deal with any issues if they arise.
Generally, we’ll leave photography to you if you wish to take photos of your students on the trip. On occasion though, we’ll arrange for a photographer to snap photos of the day.
This will be prearranged with you, and will require photography consent from your pupils (and their parents if under the age of 16). If students and/or parents have provided 3rd party consent, we can share these with you after the event.
The university campus does sit within the new Portsmouth Clean Air zone, but as far as we know, vehicles that provide school transport are exempt from paying the charge. You can check this on the Cleaner Air Portsmouth website.
Outreach at Portsmouth
The University of Portsmouth's school outreach seeks to:
- Identify learners that have the potential to study and succeed in higher education, but for whom there are limited opportunities to gain experiences of the processes and expectations related to progression
- Ensure opportunities and activities for learners that will grow their knowledge of pathways to higher education and will impact their aspirations and expectations to study in higher education
- Increase progression to higher education, and where appropriate to the University of Portsmouth, with particular emphasis on learners:
- From low participation areas
- From lower socio-economic groups
- From particular ethnic groups
- That are first generation higher education entrants
- That have a disability
- From military service families
- That are young carers, are in care themselves or who are care-leavers.
Where information about pupils is known, please prioritise students for outreach engagement who have the following characteristics:
- Are eligible for free school meals
- Are from minority ethnic groups, including Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities
- Do not have prior family experience of higher education (first generation)
- Have a declared disability, including mental health conditions
- Are from military service families, are young carers or who are in care or have experienced care themselves