Promoting Academic Excellence (PACE) within secondary schools

This pilot project was set up by lecturers (Dr Sarju Patel, Dr Jeff Allen and Dr Thanasi Hassoulas) within the Centre for Medical Education to inspire students to consider applying to University.

From November 2018, 30 medical students ran weekly sessions for over 20 Year 9 pupils at Fitzalan High School, to enhance the teaching and learning of the science curriculum. This concluded in June 2019, when the pupils involved in the project attended a specially designed summer school held at the School of Medicine.

The key aim of this day was to start to give the pupils a feeling of belonging and show that university is not an unattainable aspiration. With the help of a small group of enthusiastic medical students, the group were given a taste of what University teaching and learning is about.

The pupils started off the day with a tour of the Cochrane Library and were encouraged to collect textbooks to aid their case-based learning. A taster patient case was developed, from which the pupils learned about heart attacks. This pathology was chosen as teaching in school had covered the heart and the Year 2 medical students’ teaching had also included pathologies with regards to the heart.

The group were given the opportunity to learn practical skills, including hands-on exercises to perform when someone is having a heart attack. Time was spent in the Clinical Skills suite to contextualise and embed the new knowledge gained and the day ended with pupil presentations, for which prizes were awarded.

This is a shortened version of the full article that features in edition 32 of ReMEDy.

Read the full article