Teacher Engagement Workshop

Teacher Engagement Workshop

The first Teacher Engagement Workshop has taken place on Wednesday, 3rd July at the Innovation Rooms at Imperial White City campus.

The location was purposely chosen, as it represents the Imperial Community Engagement hub. Teachers heard from Farial Missi, Senior Community Partnerships & Engagement Manager, who presented all the programmes and activities taking place at the Invention Rooms, such as the Family Science Workshops for 7-11 year olds, the Maker Challenge Programme for 14-18 year olds and more. All of the information about all of the activities that take place are available on the website on this page. You can also sign up to the team’s newsletters here.

At the beginning of the day, we have asked teachers how confident they felt in helping students to apply to medicine and it immediately became clear that they would benefit from a collaboration to gain more insight to the admissions process.

We went through the admissions steps and minimum requirements, as well as myths and misinformation about GSCE and A Level requirements. The School of Medicine has created the Introducing our Medicine degree page which is a comprehensive first-step for teachers to get acquainted with the entry requirements of the course. This page also has useful links to further help, such as the Form-Time E-module, suitable for secondary school’s pupils, the MMIs information page, and a timeline of the application process. 

We discussed the concept of contextual applications and offers, and went through  Widening Participation information, including criteria and how to submit evidence.

Insights from Our Students, Faculty, and Staff

UCAT

Imperial Medical Students also shared their tips and understanding of the UCAT test and their experience in taking the test, what worked well and the support they had from their teachers. Students also created this UCAT Resources page which has links and information on the best free resources available that applicants can use to prepare.

Work Experience

Prof Elizabeth Dick and Joe Gilbert from Imperial College NHS Trust were also present and shared work experience opportunities and events that students could take part in. Among other events, they run a series of short webinars in collaboration with Imperial College and Medical students on UCAT preparation, personal statement preparation and interview preparation. An example of the MMI interview preparation webinar can be viewed here (please note they will run an improved version of this in Nov/Dec). Their flagship program is a 3/4 day virtual summer programme which runs in late June and had over 1700 sign ups this year. All of these resources are free and open to all and are targeted at students in year 11 upwards. Sign up to their mailing list here.

Student Welfare

Lydia Rattu from the Welfare Team shared all of the support tools that Imperial put in place to help students through their journey. You can watch a video about student welfare and find out more about how medical students are supported at Imperial in the different phases of the course.

Pathways into Medicine

Dr Claire Sweetenham, Medical Outreach Coordinator in the Imperial Pathways into Medicine team talked to teachers about the programme and the outreach opportunities that pupils in secondary schools can take part to from a younger age.

The MMIs session was also very effective, where teachers could have a go at answering some Multiple Mini Interview sample-questions.

Throughout the day, the presence of medical students in the workshop has really been the highlight, as they always shine in sharing their own experience as applicants and students. The Speed Dating session was particularly helpful for making the best out of the time, while also getting used to the “stations” element of the admissions process.

Finally, teachers have had the chance to lead a feedback session in the afternoon, and it was so inspiring to hear from them and their perspective of the admissions process at Imperial. One very interesting insight was that it is not always easy to teach pupils reflection. Claire has kindly made available this Reflective Diary which we hope can be useful to teachers and pupils alike. Another interesting point was on time: 5 minutes to reply to an interview question isn’t a very long time and sometimes this concept of “timed answers” should not be taken for granted.

We remain available for questions and observations, please do not hesitate to reach out for more information to feo-admissions-interviews@imperial.ac.uk and we will direct your question to the correct person.

If you wish to stay in touch with the School of Medicine Admissions team, please fill in this form, so we can email you with future opportunities.

Thank you for your collaboration.

Contact Details:

School of Medicine Admissions: feo-admissions-interviews@imperial.ac.uk

Imperial Central Admissions: medicine.ug.admissions@imperial.ac.uk

WEX (Imperial NHS Trust): imperial.medical.wex@nhs.net

Pathways into Medicine: pathways@imperial.ac.uk

Welfare Team: feo.welfare@imperial.ac.uk