The Academic Apprenticeship is Causeway’s longest-standing programme, partnering with universities and third-sector organisations to provide end-to-end application support for state school students. Academic Apprentices gain access to OSCAR, our personal statement platform, and are paired with one of our crack team of subject-specific mentors.

When I joined Causeway in 2018, there were around 35 freelance mentors on the books and mentor training sessions ran for 10-15 attendees. We were in the same room, no need for masks, and COVID-19 was just a meaningless string of letters and numbers.

Then 2020 happened and we were faced with the question: how can we scale up the programme while maintaining high-quality processes and outcomes, all during an unprecedented pandemic?