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🎓 Empowering students who are first-generation in their family to attend university.
🚀Your guide to navigating university
⬇️Join Membership

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FirstGens have partnered with A&O Shearman to offer 6 x £15,000 Scholarships for those set to study law and be the first in their family to study in higher education. Applications close on 11th September 2026, so APPLY NOW

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Bursary alert 🚨

FirstGens has teamed up with leading global law firm A&O Shearman to offer bursaries worth £15,000 each to first-generation students.

You’re considered first-generation if your parent(s) or guardian(s) did not complete a university degree. You can still be first-generation if your siblings or extended family attended university.

You could be eligible to apply if you’re starting your first year of university September 2026, studying law or a non-law subject, and curious about a career in law.

Successful applicants will receive £15,000, paid as £5,000 per year over three years, which does not need to be repaid, alongside:
⚖️ A visit to A&O Shearman’s London office
🎤 Exclusive events with legal professionals
🤝 Support from a dedicated A&O Shearman professional throughout their degree

Find out more: https://firstgens.co.uk/funding-opportunities

⚠️ Application deadline is 11 September 2026.

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Are you a first-generation student? This means your parent(s) or guardian(s) did not complete a university degree/Bachelors. Even if your siblings or extended family have.

Being part of the first generation in your family to go to university is an exciting milestone. But like anything you do for the first time, having the right advice makes all the difference.

The Navigating University Membership is your community for navigating university with confidence.
Built with hundreds of first-generation students across 76 UK Universities, it brings together the advice, guidance and exciting opportunities students wish they had sooner.

As a member, you’ll get access to:

🎤Online Events - Live events with students, graduates and professionals sharing honest advice

📚Insider Guides A library of insider tips, tricks and insights that make university easier to navigate

📖The ‘Navigating University’ handbook - your roadmap to university, created by people who've been in your shoes

🤝Friendly group chat - a welcoming community where you can ask questions, share experiences and get support throughout your first year.

Membership is free and open to first‑generation students entering university in 2026. Applications open 24th July 2026.

💰Plus, if you’re studying law or aspiring to become a lawyer, A&O Shearman are offering six £15,000 bursaries for eligible first-generation students starting university in September 2026. That’s £5,000 a year in funding you won’t need to pay back. Plus, visits to the firm in London, exclusive events with legal professionals, a dedicated professional to answer your questions and support your journey getting into law.

📧Any questions, please email us at community@firstgens.co.uk.

🔗 👉Start your journey with us - Apply here - https://firstgens.co.uk/students/undergraduates

#UniversitySupport #Lawstudent #UKlaw University #UniLife #StudentLife

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Student flashbacks….

Delighted to be at @cambridgeuniversity @homertoncollege as a guest speaker for the @elydiocese conference

I’m reminded of why this work on justice and tackling inequality is needed. It’s easy to assume that all students here have privilege, but the reality is very different

It reminds me of navigating university as a low income student. Such great learning, albeit hard at times

Thank you to colleagues for welcoming this conversation and for engaging in these important topics

#cambridge #TacklingPovertyInEducation #HomertonCollege

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‼️£25,000 distributed to young women of colour based outside of London‼️

Ten outstanding business leaders have each received a £2,500 flexible grant through the Dream Fund, a collaborative project between ourselves, @itsgirldreamer and funded by longstanding Hatch partner @natwest_business - aiming to uplift socially impactful businesses operating throughout the country.

Between them, funded ventures are tackling key challenges including access to education, economic exclusion from industry, and working to improve social mobility for underrepresented groups in various ways🤝

This fund was incredibly important to us. It’s about equity, focusing on trust, and seeing the potential in young women of colour without the need to jump through hoops.

Read more about it on our blog, available to read now ✏️

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A random DITL from last week which already feels like forever ago as we hurtle into yet another packed week culminating in my eldest daughter's 15th birthday 😱 HOW AM I THE MUM OF A 15 YEAR OLD?!

I don't know if we're still doing these types of videos anymore but I wanted to capture some of the joy and playful moments amidst all the *other* more serious stuff.

I'm definitely low on reserves atm and looking forward to my first bit of time off this year in a few weeks. Until then... Onwards we go! 😅

#BodyHappyKids #BodyHappySchools #BodyPositiveKids #BodyRespect

Shout-out to @_thefea fellow award winners @_thefireflyproject @thatpovertyguy @theaspiringmedics @theearlyyearsmovement @firstgensuk

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What makes a board truly strategic - not just operational? 🧐 That's what we explored in this week's Innovation Award incubator with the brilliant Natasha Porter OBE @unlockedgrads. We also heard from Lisa Raftery on the power of social finance and how it can fuel sustainable growth without losing sight of mission!

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It has been brilliant collaborating with colleagues at the Fair Education Alliance this week in London.

Our discussions centred on the narratives we craft and the crucial role they play in addressing systemic inequality. As someone who frequently writes about disadvantage and poverty, it was invaluable to reflect on how these narratives are constructed within the realms of practice, policy, and place-based approaches.

Storytelling is a complex but vital craft….

Despite my extensive experience working with the media and as a freelance education journalist, there was still much to learn, and the sessions offered a timely opportunity to reassess some of my own ingrained practices.

Thanks also to the fellow innovators, contributors, and colleagues whose efforts made this event possible!

#FEA #Media #Storytelling #TVEd #PLACE #ThatPovertyGuy #Collaboration #Partnerships #Comms

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This is how Studio Self-Made mentoring helped Alaya secure £18,000 in funding for her business FirstGens! 🎉

When I met Alaya through the Ingenuity Impact programme in 2024, I loved her passion for supporting first-generation students and all she needed was access to the right funding opportunities to take it further

Through our mentoring, I introduced her to key funding opportunities like The Conduit Young Innovator Award which helped her secure £18,000 in funding, office space in London and the opportunity to attend events with other social change makers 👏

If you’re looking for support in growing your business, comment below and I’ll send you the link to our mentoring sessions!

#career #founder #creativecareers #femaleentrepreneur #mentoring

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A beautiful day in #London with @joinmultiverse thinking about partnerships, innovation, funding and social impact

Some important mentions…
💡Thank you @joinmultiverse for hosting us and for pushing our insights, critical thinking and learning

💡Thank you @_thefea for the intricate design and planning of this learning journey

💡 Thank you @bloomberg @rankfoundation @_thefea for supporting aspects of our #PLACE work with financial resource and helping us to enable impact in the #TeesValley (even if we were more Thames based today!)

💡 And thank you to the fellow innovators for making the learning so much more!

#Partnerships #Place #People
#TVEd #TeesValleyEducation

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💫 Innovation Award winner Alaya of @firstgensuk shares her key takeaways from the corporate fundraising and partnerships incubator last week...

1. Words matter—social enterprises aren’t 'grantees,' but rather partners, working together and combining resources and expertise to achieve a shared goal.

2. Mission statements are more than just a quick read. We agonise over them because they reflect our values, ways of working and beliefs which are critical for establishing partnership alignment, especially for early-stage social enterprises.

3. Never forget that your impact goal is achievable. The theme of possibility was a key theme throughout the day, which reminds me of a quote by Angela Davis.

"You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time".

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Brilliantly busy week at Body Happy Org! Swipe for some of the highlights…
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1. Our Body Happy Heroes in Y5 and Y6 at a Devon primary school, who are piloting the peer advocacy element of our whole school programme, delivered their first group project. They led a Body Happy assembly to the whole school for Children’s Mental Health week and did an amazing job! They designed the entire assembly themselves, right down to the activities, song and books - and even the beautiful PowerPoint slides. This project taught them public speaking and confidence skills, team work, IT design skills and empathy skills - all lovely impacts that show this programme is about even more than body respect!
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2. We delivered a day of workshops to Year 9 at a school in Orpington, Kent. 10 sessions across the day, which included a Body Happy pledge activity at the end. Swipe to see some of the student responses and meet our facilitators for these sessions.
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3. We took part in a day of training on funding and corporate partnerships, as part of our journey on @_thefea Incubator programme. ICYMI we were named as one of six innovations to win this prestigious award back in September which comes with grant funding and intense support to help us develop the Body Happy Schools Programme. (Second pilot begins on Monday! 🥳)
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4. We launched our content collaboration with our friends at @kidscape on body image and appearance based bullying for Children’s Mental Health Week. Check out the blog posts on this subject on both of our sites as well as the posts on our grids 😊
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Meanwhile, behind the scenes there’s all the usual meetings, funding plans, resource development and impact evaluation that goes into building an educational social enterprise… but the photos of that work are less interesting 😅
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Happy weekend everyone! ❤️
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#BodyHappySchools #BodyPositiveKids #childrensmentalhealthweek

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