Villiers Park Educational Trust

Villiers Park Educational Trust helps able young people to reach their full academic potential and develop a passion for learning. We are committed to fair access – enabling students from less advantaged backgrounds gain a place at a leading university. Our vision is a future in which all students with high academic potential experience a challenging and inspirational education, leading to an improvement in social mobility in the UK. For many years, our high quality residential study courses have made a real difference in the lives of over 24,000 able 14-19 year old students. Well over half of these students came from disadvantaged backgrounds and of that group, over 80% have gone on to study at a leading university. Despite government initiatives, many able children from our country’s poorest homes are still not making it to leading universities. At universities with the highest entry requirements…the most advantaged 20 per cent of young people were 6.3 times more likely to enter one of these universities than the most disadvantaged 40 per cent (Trends in young participation by student background and selectivity of institution, Office for Fair Access, February 2014). To address this we developed the Villiers Park Scholars Programme – targeted at able students from the least advantaged backgrounds. This four-year programme includes residential courses at Villiers Park, master classes at local universities, regular one-to-one meetings with a Learning Mentor and online provision to enhance learning. We work with the Scholars’ schools and with their parents.