Scottish Wider Access Programme (SWAPWest)

25/11/2025

Need help to get into University and College?

Scottish Wider Access Programme (SWAPWest) event at the Wallacetown Hub Friday 28th October 10am to 12pm.

Come along and find out how you can study at university, even if you have no qualifications.

Free hot rolls, tea and coffee provided, all welcome.

https://www.scottishwideraccess.org/

Thriving Communities - Employability
Skills Development Scotland

23/02/2024

SWAPWest and SWAPEast students enjoyed a great day out at the University of Stirling this week! Gorgeous campus and lovely people.

We also had two great days at the University of the West of Scotland Future paramedics even got a sneak peek behind the scenes in the paramedic science department!

Thanks to our university partners for providing SWAP students with such a valuable opportunity.

08/06/2023

03/05/2022

Thinking of a new career in a medical related field? Been out of education for three to five years? Places are available on our Scottish Wider Access Programme (SWAPWest) Access to Medical Studies course which could lead to a degree in medicine, dentistry, veterinary medicine, nursing or pharmacy biomedical science to name a few! Apply today at: http://ow.ly/GJlL50IS6HL

11/04/2022

07/03/2022

Great to visit SWAP tutor Ian Rodger and the fantastic 'Access to Integrated Health and Social Care' class Motherwell. Exciting plans being made for HNC and degree courses next year and we look forward to our next visit (with some celebratory cake 🥳🎂).

08/02/2022

At WCS Greenock, our Access to Nursing students have been busy delivering Health Promotion campaigns as part of their unit assessment. Students were responsible for their choice of topic, research and method of delivery and it's a great way to showcase learning and share knowledge.

Topics included 'Su***de Awareness', 'Oral Health for Children', 'Essential Skills for Young Families', 'Keep Calm and Beat Diabetes' and 'Domestic Abuse Awareness'. We had sensory games, mindfulness activities, teeth with blue dye, a sugar content quiz, a messy play table, a lovely snack table, stress reducing activities, Tik Toks, bubbles and more. Thanks to WCS tutor Vivian Young and to all the students who took part.

11/01/2022

Scottish Community for Access and Participation Practitioners Presentation

An exciting opportunity has arisen for SWAPWest to present the work of the FETI project to a meeting of the SCAPP group of practitioners early in February 2022.

Scotland’s Community of Access and Participation Practitioners aims to provide a practitioners’ network to support the development and professionalisation of a strong Widening Access and Widening Participation community in Scotland. This is open to all parties, with a focus on supporting those directly engaged in delivery, with the purpose of embedding, enhancing and supporting effective practice in Scotland.

SCAPP aims to be a sustainable, member-led community of practice and to be inclusive with a focus on supporting those directly engaged in delivery. The membership is growing to include representation from universities, colleges, skills, voluntary and public sector organisations and the network will continue to represent the diversity of interests, activities and work in which practitioners are engaged.

Find the event here:

Events available via SCAPP and other providers. You can sign up for anything that interests you

07/12/2021

SWAPWest is currently engaged in a project to enhance the digital skills of learners. We are working with organisations from Belgium, Romania, the Netherlands and North Macedonia to promote the importance of digital upskilling for citizens across Europe. Together, we will create a digital upskilling training package that we aim to
offer to SWAPWest students.
In response to the urgent need for digital upskilling in the rapidly evolving technological society resulting from COVID-19, ADVANCE project is an initiative launched to develop and implement digital upskilling tools, in order to deliver quality and inclusive training for the most underrepresented in our society.
The ADVANCE project aims to enhance digital and learning to learn competences, enabling citizens to confidently engage in further training/education and employment.

Within the framework of this project, we will develop an accessible learning module for people who seek to enhance their digital competences. SWAPWest aims to complement the SWAPWest programme of learning by providing supplementary resources focused on improving the digital skills of SWAP learners.
We held our first partnership meeting online in July. Since then we have been working on the project’s first output: Digital Competence Mapping and Learner Survey. Partners have surveyed the digital upskilling tools currently available across Europe to identify what resources are focused on adult learners, and what may be lacking . Additionally, each partner has conducted a Digital Competence Learner Survey to assess digital and learning to learn skills gaps of our learners.

29/10/2021

Helen Cormack from the SWAPWest team took some time today to attend the EBSN 2021 hybrid conference and to highlight the work being carried out within the FETI and MASTER projects on the conference padlet.
The padlet for the conference is open to everyone who wishes to learn more about the conference, the speakers and EBSN’s new initiatives.
https://basicskills.eu/ebsn-annual-conference-2021/