Up For Uni Residential

Evening everybody. It is just gone six o'clock so we will get this meeting started. Hopefully it shouldn't take too long, should be only kind of 20 minutes or so just to talk you through things that you may have missed if you were unable to make the preparation evening at your school. Yeah, sorry. So hello, my name is Louise. I'm the Senior Outreach Officer at the University of Portsmouth. Got some very long job titles. My colleague Charlie is here today as well. So it's me, Charlie, and our other colleague who will be running the residential. So we are the faces that your young people will see when they're with us. What I'm going to cover in this next kind of 15, 20 minutes or so is just really quickly talk about what to expect from the residential, So some little bits about the timetable, some important information and the code of conduct. Talk about the travel arrangements for the young people attending, by school if we know them, what to bring, what the celebration ceremony is going to look like. So on the Tuesday afternoon when we invite parents and teachers in to celebrate everything that your young person has achieved with us over those last two days. And then there's just a few forms that we will need you to fill in, so we'll give you some links to those and then we'll give you contact details for us if you need to talk about any individual needs. So what will your young people be doing when you're with us, when they're with us for that Monday and Tuesday? These are some pictures from previous years residential so you can see there's loads of fun and fun activities. So they'll be getting tasters of some of the social activities that are available at universities, some of their sports and societies. They'll be giving academic tasters so lots of options of different subject workshops they can take part in. They'll be having their meals on university campus. And also I've been strictly informed at other preparation evenings not to call it a disco because apparently that sounds too yes-ex. So it's an evening social event and they will obviously be staying overnight in our halls of residence as well, which I'll talk about in a second. So some really important info, just about arrivals and things like that. On day one, in the afternoon, is when we do our sports and social activities. There isn't time to get changed before that, so we do recommend that young, but we do ask people to arrive in sportswear or comfy clothes on day one. Something they can move in, move around, stretch, things like. There is then a chance to shower and change before the evening, and some people do like to get really dressed up for the evening. Some people don't, and that's absolutely fine too. So there is a chance to shower and change later on, but there isn't a chance to get changed in the morning. So we do ask that young people arrive in trainers and comfy clothes they can move in. All food and snacks are provided throughout the 36 hours with us. So we will provide everything that your young person needs. If your young wants to bring their own snacks, that's actually fine. They can absolutely bring their things. But please no nut-based products, just because we may well have allergies amongst other young people attending. And there's no, they have to be things they can just eat, there's no kind of facilities in the room, so there isn't kettles and tea-making facilities in their rooms. So please make sure that it's just things they can eat straight away, you know, sweets, crisps, that kind of thing. But they don't have to, we will provide everything. And please don't bring any money, so the young people don't need to bring any cash or bank cards or anything like that, there is no opportunity to use it, so they won't be in a shop or a cafe where we're not already kind of sorting catering. Obviously young people are welcome to bring their phones, tablets, other electronics, particularly for use in the down time, so in the breaks kind of between sessions, but they are their individual responsibility, we can't take responsibility for any items, high value items brought. They can't be used during workshops and activities. The rooms are individual so we'll talk a bit more about where they'll be staying in a little bit but just to reassure you they have their own room with their ensuite bathroom so they've got their own toilet, own shower. The floors are split by gender so you only have access to the floor that you're on and bedding, hand and bath towels are provided as well. There is a full code of conduct for the residential available on our webpages. I'll just highlight a few points here. Touchwood, we've never had any of things happen, but we just do need to make you and your young person aware. Students may not leave the university site during the residential unless we have prior written permission from parents and a parent collects them and brings them back. So obviously if there is a situation where a young person has, you know, a dentist appointment that can't be rescheduled, we can let them go to that so we should come and pick them up. But other than that they will not be leaving university site and they will not be unsupervised by either a member of staff or one of our students at any point, so they can't leave the site and that includes on the Tuesday, on that last day they can leave unless a parent picks them up or we've had notification of prior arrangements. Obviously smoking, vaping, e-cigarettes and alcohol are not permitted and that's for all young people attending and all staff working. Any young person found with any of things will be asked to leave. And we won't tolerate any abusive or antisocial behaviour towards other students or staff. Accommodation is split by gender so students will only have access to the floor that their room is on and where possible we will group rooms by school as well so they should be with the students from their school of their gender. There are common spaces available for students to use before kind of lights out when they want to socialise. When they are getting ready to go out in the evening, they can absolutely, you know, go into. Their next door rooms, their friend's rooms to get changed together, get ready together and things like that. But once lights out, so it's been called, so once we get back from the evening social, students need to return to their own rooms and they need to stay in their rooms then until we get them up for breakfast. And we do have staff and ambassadors patrolling the corridors at night just to make sure that everyone's safe and secure in their rooms. And that also means we have an on-call system too, so if anybody has any issues at all during the night, they would have been told what room to knock on the door of. Who to come to for help and there will always be a member of staff available to help. Please check with your school, your travel arrangements, so they do vary per school. The majority of schools students are meeting at school and then travelling together to us by minibus, but there are a few schools where they've asked students to make their own way. So check with you school as to how you're getting there. We've also tried to keep that information as up-to-date as possible on our website. If you are bringing your young person yourself, then it's in Buckingham Building on University Campus and we will again put the postcode and details of that on the website and we asked everybody to arrive between 8.30 and 9. But like I said please check your travel arrangements with your school because they may vary. In terms of what to bring, we don't expect students to have their luggage on them at all times but there will be points where they need to move it themselves. So please make sure that students just bring one small bag or suitcase that they can comfortably manage or carry themselves. It is just one night and they won't need 20 outfit changes so you know like a little wheelie suitcase, a backpack, something like that that they can manage themselves. Think about wearing comfortable clothes and shoes, we will be moving around campus so think about you know what they're going to be comfortable walking around in. We will, for the evening event, obviously, they wanna bring, you know, their dancing shoes, their high heels, that's absolutely fine, but just be aware that they will need to walk from where we're staying to where the event is. Appropriate sleepwear. This always makes me laugh because obviously, the ideal is no one knows what's in their room. No one's in anybody's rooms anyway at night. But it is student halls of residence and fire alarms can happen. So we do tell young people just to think about what they're sleeping in, because if there were a fire alarm and they had to leave in the middle of the night, how embarrassing is what they were wearing in terms of, you know, is it really old and things like that, or just, you now, maybe just their kind of tatty, snoopy t-shirt or whatever. So think about appropriate sleepwear and maybe a dressing gown just to throw on or something in case there is a fire alert. Again, touchwood, it's never happened, but just be careful and think about that. Students need to bring all their own toiletries, although we will have a spare stash for people that have forgotten. And if students are bringing their own medication, it needs to be clearly labelled with name and dosage. Hopefully, everybody has already told us about any medication that a young person will be bringing on the application form. If you haven't, then obviously feel free to drop us an email, and whether you would prefer your young person to keep that on them themselves, which is absolutely fine, but they do need to make sure they keep it on them all day. Don't keep it in their suitcase because if they need access to it during the day, because the suitcases will be locked away in the daytime while they're doing activities. Or if you'd prefer us to keep hold of the medication and give it to a young person as and when they need it, that's absolutely fine too. If you have medication that needs to be in a fridge and things like that, again, please let us know so we can make the appropriate arrangements. Other items they might like to bring, so a hairdryer, straighteners, that kind of thing for getting ready in the evening. Students are welcome to bring those. It's the end of June in Britain, so we never know what the weather's going to be like. Last year we had the hottest day on record, but we've also had years where it's absolutely pulled down with rain. So keep an eye on the weather forecast, and if it looks like you might need a waterproof coat, please bring that because we will not stop moving around campus just because of the rain. And obviously bring sunscreen and a hat in case of hot weather. We won't be outside a lot, but there will be times for lunch and things when we're outside. If there is a really severe weather alert then we'll obviously let everybody know just in time but yeah just keep an eye on that. I've already said that all meals and snacks are provided but some students might wish to bring their own particularly if you do have a young person who is super fussy and you want to make sure that they've got kind of their comfort foods or you know their okay foods. We have considered all usual dietary requirements and every that we've been told of so if you've told us of a dietary requirement we'll make sure there's for that. And obviously, as standard, we'll have gluten-free, vegan, and halal options for everybody. But just please consider, you know, thinking about what you might want to bring. And I've already said, consider practicality. So you can't bring like microwave meals or anything because there isn't the facilities to cook those in your room and no nut-based foods just because of allergies. We will provide students with, as I said, all bedding and hand and bath towels in the room, breakfast, lunch, and dinner on both, well, from lunch on Monday. Through to kind of afternoon tea on the Tuesday. They'll get all of their din't meals and snacks. The meals are served in our halls of residence. So they're in, if you know, Portsmouth Rees Hall, which is down on the seafront, is the halls we'll be staying in. So it has its own canteen downstairs. They're pretty good at kind of food options. We have a member of our team who's the fuzziest eater I've ever met, and she can always eat something. But it is kind of standard. It's a step up from school dinners, Stop. You know, don't you? There's always chips, there's always salad, there's usually a pasta-based dish, something like that, the lasagna, something that. So for the young people, we will be able to tell them what the menu is on the Monday morning. And obviously, if it's gonna cause real issues, we've got time to sort something else out. For breakfast, there is always cereal, there's also toast, there's a always kind of cooked breakfast components. So you get eggs, bacon, sausages, things like that. Fruit, so hopefully, like I said. We know some really fussy eaters in our team and they've always managed to be fed. So, and we'll cater for everything that you've already told us about. We'll also provide a pen, pencil and notebook for the workshops, a water bottle, a bag and like a little lanyard for their room key and their ID that they'll have with us on them. So, like I said, what we would say is anything that they need during the day, have a small bag with them that they can keep on them But their overnight bag, we will take off them in the morning and then transport to where they're staying so they don't have to carry it around all day. So make sure that anything they need during the day is in their little bag. Celebration ceremony, this is everybody's favourite bit often of the whole event. So this is when we bring the students all together, their teachers come and you as parents and supporters can come and celebrate everything that they've done with us over the last two days. So it's like a little mini graduation. You can see they have the hats, they get a certificate. It's really, really sweet. So we ask where possible that parents can attend that because it's just a really nice thing to come to. And then obviously you can take your young person home from there. So that's on Tuesday the 30th of June. Arrival is from 5 to 5.30 and we'll just do have some teas and coffees and cake and things. And then the actual ceremony is 5. 30 to 6. 30. And then students will be able to leave from there if they've got parents with them. The ceremony will be in Richmond building. And again, full ceremony details, address, parking details will all be available on our webpages. If you can't make the ceremony, we do need to know. What the arrangements are for your young person to get home. We can't just let them travel home on their own. We need to have talked to you about the arrangements if you're not gonna be there to take them home yourself. Obviously. Tonight we will not be circulating the room to chat to you about the ceremony, but if we haven't already heard from you, there was a form that went out with the confirmation of this event. If we haven t already heard from you about how your young person is getting home, we will be in touch over the next few weeks because we've kept a record of everyone that's last night and we do need to know that before the event. If you can't make it, but you can just pick them up at 6.30, that's absolutely fine. If they want to go home with a friend, that's actually fine. We just need that in writing from you as parents. We can't just let anybody go home on their own. And I think, so that's pretty much all of the details that I need to tell you and everything that we spoke about in the in-person prep evenings. This one obviously is slightly different where we were online. So the only other thing that we need parents to do if possible is fill in this consent form for if you're happy for us to take and use photos of your young person while they're with us. And it's just for kind of our own. Recording and we might use it in marketing, the event for next year and things like that. So there is a QR code there on the screen, but I'm also going to put the link to that form in the chat as well. So yeah, if you're happy for us to use photos of your child to take photos of your young person while they're with us, then please click on that and let us know. We'll also share some photos with the school as well, which is really nice for them. So it's really nice for them. Usually, like I said, they use it to advertise the event for students who want to come next year. So that is everything that we needed to cover tonight that you may have missed if you didn't manage to make it your in-person event in school. I will just move that away. Please bookmark the residential webpages which will be coming out in an email in the next few days. You'll also then, both parents and students will be getting some update emails in the weeks before the event, just reminding you key times and locations. If you have any questions, then drop us an email. So there's contact us page on the website, or if you can drop us and email and we've got a dedicated email address just for this. So it's up for uni residential at port.ac.uk. And so any questions, anything that you didn't tell us about on the form, please drop us a line, but we will also be going through those and we may contact you or students individually if we are missing information. There are still, if your young person didn't come to the prep evening in school, we might not have their optional choices yet. And so their choices of sport sessions and academic workshops. So if we don't have those, we may be emailing your young persons soon just to check that what they want to do because for those sports I think there's about eight or nine options that they can do and for the academic sessions it's slightly more than that but they only get to do two of those so we just need to find out what their preferences are so you may get an email your young person may get an email from us asking for that or it might be that you just get our kind of standard updates but like I said take a note of that address and also on the webpage are mine and my team's phone numbers as well if you need to contact us for any reason and like I say those web pages will be going out in the next few days for everybody. So thank you very much. If you've got any questions just get in touch and we really look forward to seeing your young person in June and you hopefully to celebrate their achievements with us. So yeah thank you, very much have a lovely rest of everybody's evening.