Job Title: University Access Officer, part time
Salary: £24,570, prorated to £14,742 per year
Closing date: 16th September 2025
Interviews: w/c 22nd September 2025
Reporting to: Programme Manager
Contract: Permanent, Part Time (22.5 hours per week), Friday is a compulsory working day.
Job Location: Ashfield School, Nottinghamshire
Start date: Monday 27th October
About the organisation
The Access Project is an education charity; we believe that every young person can make the most of education, unlocking their potential and creating a fairer society.
Our mission is to support students from under-resourced backgrounds to access top universities, through a unique combination of tuition and in-school mentoring. We work with them to make good applications, get the grades and transition to university.
The programme combats educational inequality and improves social mobility by raising students’ grades and supporting them to understand the pathway to a top university. Young people on our programme are 50% more likely to place at a top university compared to statistically similar students.
Safeguarding Statement
The Access Project is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. Our safeguarding system is underpinned by a range of policies and procedures which encourage and promote safe working practice across the organisation.
Why work at The Access Project
People who work at The Access Project are motivated by the desire to create a fairer society. We all play an active part in achieving the mission to help students from disadvantaged backgrounds access top universities. At The Access Project, we’re a friendly, collaborative, supportive and inclusive team, with passionate people working together in Delivery, Sales and Partnerships, Strategy, Finance and Operations to achieve our mission.
The vision of our people strategy is to enable and inspire all employees to achieve, grow, succeed and thrive. We regularly have opportunities for people to share their ideas in various working groups, generating strong teamwork across the organisation.
We value every individual who works at The Access Project, and we have a wide range of benefits that make this a rewarding place to work. In our last staff engagement survey, 90% said they’re proud to tell people they work at The Access Project.
Our values:
Empowerment
We support students and our people to develop the skills and knowledge to accomplish their goals.
Courage
We encourage our students and our people to be authentic, innovative and ambitious in order to reach their full potential and deliver our mission.
Impact
We evolve our programmes through an evidence-led approach, supporting our students to achieve their best outcomes.
Inclusion
We respect and value individuality and engage diverse voices to achieve our mission.
Ownership
We hold ourselves accountable in all our actions and efforts. We ask “What can I do to improve my results?”
About the role:
University Access Officers are responsible for delivering The Access Project’s high impact mentoring programme to students across our partner schools. This role works with a caseload of students supporting them from the start of Year 12 up to the end of Year 13 to understand the pathway to a top university.
The role also involves project coordination. You will work with our schools, volunteers and teams across The Access Project to ensure young people are inspired and supported to have the best possible chance of achieving social mobility and enhancing their future prospects.
This role is for a University Access Officer to work in one of our schools in Nottinghamshire delivering our Accelerate programme.
Role responsibilities
Mentoring - Work directly with young people by mentoring a caseload of students in a professional and safe manner:
* Deliver our University Readiness programme through in-depth, targeted 1:1 mentoring sessions with Year 12 and Year 13 students
* Assess student progress towards being able to make successful university applications.
* Support Year 12 and 13 students to complete self-paced learning modules on our dedicated platform, The Access Hub, delivering interventions where necessary.
* Use knowledge and information gathered through mentoring students to flag potential issues within volunteer/student interactions so that appropriate quality assurance can be conducted.
* Deliver high quality and informative assemblies to students across KS3 and 4 – introducing them to the power of mentoring, de-mystifying the path to university and building their motivation to succeed.
* Support partner schools with trip logistics, acting in a leadership position when accompanying students on school trips.
* Direct enrolled students to appropriate wider enrichment opportunities, encouraging both extra and super-curricular participation and reflection.
Project coordination and management:
* Support partner school with recruitment of students, leading on the enrolment and induction of selected eligible students to ensure that The Access Project has fully enrolled and engaged cohorts.
* Lead on student facing communications by collaborating with the wider delivery team to case manage students on the programme. This could mean acting as point of consultation for pairing students with coaches/tutors or coming up with solutions when students are not engaging across the whole programme.
* Support the tuition and coaching team in driving student attendance at volunteer sessions (coaching and tuition), including acting as a point of escalation through mentoring and liaising with schools to make decisions/actions to offboard/replace students if deemed necessary.
* Lead quality assurance of coaching pairings completing a caseload of drop ins.
* Send regular summary updates to school as their key point of contact. Work with school staff to ensure their cooperation and timely completion of activities contributing to the smooth running of the programme.
* Upload information onto the Salesforce database in a timely manner (training is provided).
* Support with creation of school reports and present at school meetings with Managers to report on programme progress.
* Support the wider team by attending university site visits which take place on occasional Saturdays and weekday evenings (paid time off is provided).
* Participate in working groups, programme design and annual reviews to drive continuous improvement.
* Any other responsibilities reasonably deemed necessary by The Access Project.
Person specification
* Engaging, confident and inspiring communicator with the ability to actively listen.
* Skilled in building and maintaining excellent relationships.
* High levels of organisation and time management, with the ability to deliver multiple programmes and projects at pace and manage administration accurately.
* Able to proactively work towards and meet deadlines with a solutions-focused mindset.
* Able to work independently.
* Good sense of attention to detail.
* Resilient and adaptable.
* Can demonstrate an ability to take action to keep young people safe and raise concerns.
Training and Development
You will be provided with regular monthly training so that you can develop your skills and succeed in the role. There is support from your line manager (Programme Manager), as well as guidance from more senior University Access Officers and the wider University Access Officer team across The Access Project. There are opportunities for progression, including several additional responsibility roles which are available for UAOs to apply for once they have completed their probationary period successfully.