Students must have been identified as being high achieving by their school/college to be eligible to attend Excellence Hub events.

Priority will be given to students who also meet one or more of the following criteria:

• The student is eligible to receive free school meals
• There is no history of higher education (studying at university level) in the student’s immediate family (excluding siblings)
• The student is living in, or has experienced a period of time living in, local authority care

If a student or group of students does not meet any of the criteria they are still able to apply to attend events, however priority will be given to students meeting the above criteria.

Schools and colleges

All bookings must be made using our online application form. All students must be accompanied by a member of school staff.  If you wish to attend multiple events you will need to complete a separate application for each. You will be asked to indicate how many pupils you expect to meet our eligibility criteria.

See our events listings.

We will contact you within two weeks of receiving your application, either to confirm your places or to request further information if required.

At this point you will be asked to provide specific information about your group if you were not able to provide at the time of booking (gender, eligibility criteria, access and dietary requirements). 

Please note that we will not request any names from you, nor will we request information that would identify individual participants.

You will also be able to request parking for the event (if available). This information must be provided a minimum of three weeks before the event takes place.

Unaccompanied students

Please note that all bookings to attend Excellence Hub events must come from a member of school or college staff. All pupils attending Excellence Hub events must be accompanied by a member of school or college staff, with the exception of small groups (ten students maximum) of Sixth Form students. In such cases, the booking must still come from a member of school or college staff and you will be required to provide contact details (telephone and email) for a member of school or college staff who will be contactable for the duration of the event should any issues arise.

Places are allocated on a first come first served basis, but will also take into consideration the number of pupils meeting our eligibility criteria.

Please note that if you book spaces for eligible students and then are only able to bring ineligible students, your spaces may be given to other schools/colleges.

We recognise that it takes time to coordinate groups of students to attend events and we're very grateful for your support. We will ensure we confirm places as soon as possible to allow adequate time for arrangements to be made in school.

We are keen to ensure fair access to all of our events and would encourage schools to consider this when submitting applications for large numbers of places.

If you are no longer able to attend an event please notify us as soon as possible.

In addition, we ask that you notify us of any significant reduction in the number of places you require.

Where possible we ask that at least two weeks’ notice is given for cancellations and reductions so that places can be re-allocated.

Cancelling or reducing places at short notice results in empty places, funding implications and wasted resources.

Schools that repeatedly cancel places at short notice, or significantly reduce the number of students they bring to an event without prior notice, may not be given priority on future events.