A pathway from school to university - reaching down to build up

The transition from school to university is a challenging one for students. In recent years engineering disciplines have found it difficult to attract secondary school leavers despite the real-world opportunities on offer. This paper describes a program to attract school students to engineering and built environment disciplines by providing them with opportunities to enter a gifted and talented scheme. The scheme involves the delivery of a first year built environment university course to a limited number of year 10, 11 and 12 students. It aims to attract high-achieving school students (especially females) to these programs by allowing them to take a first year course whilst completing their secondary school studies. The paper describes the ways in which the students engaged with their studies, and the support they received from the university and schools. The paper summarises student and staff feedback and concludes by identifying generic strategies that support such initiatives.