Leeds Conservatoire Access and Participation Plan 2025-26 to 2028-29

What is the Access and Participation Plan?

Our Access and Participation Plan (APP) sets out how we will improve equality of opportunity for underrepresented groups to access, succeed in and progress from higher education.

Key Points

We identified the following risks to equality of opportunity by completing an assessment of performance using the Office for Students (OfS) APP data dashboard and the OfS Equality of Opportunity Risk Register, as well as reflections and evidence from the music and performing arts industries:

Learners from the most disadvantaged backgrounds and learners from the Global Majority are experiencing inequitable access to pre-entre music and performing arts provision, advice and guidance.

A lack of access to a range of appropriate support, and other capacity issues, may be affecting continuation, completion and good degree outcomes (achievement of a First or 2:1) for students from the most disadvantaged backgrounds, and from the Global Majority.

We also identified that, as a small, specialist provider, having small cohorts of students means that there is less data for us to work with. This means it's often quite difficult for us to map trends accurately or with certainty, so we have taken steps to offset this.

We must also recognise systemic challenges in arts education and the creative industries we are connected to, which pose risks to equal opportunities.

Fees We Charge

The most up-to-date information about our fees is available on our Fees and Funding page.

For 2025-26, this was £9,535 per year
In 2026-27, this will be £9,790 per year

Our fees are in line with the maximum fee cap set by the UK Government.

Financial Help Available

Leeds Conservatoire provides a range of Scholarships and Bursaries to ensure that no applicant is deterred from applying for financial reasons. Audition fees are no longer charged for any applicant.

Audition and Offer Holder Event Travel Refund - We provide support to applicants from lower-income households to ensure that no one is deterred on the grounds of cost from attending an audition, interview or offer holder event at the conservatoire.

Leeds Conservatoire Bursary – The conservatoire provides a cash bursary for Home (UK) students from households with an income lower than £42,875. There are two levels of bursary available.

Leeds Conservatoire Postgraduate Progression Scholarship - 15 scholarships are available to alumni who have an offer of a place on an MA course at Leeds Conservatoire and belong to one or more of our underrepresented groups, a 10% discount will be automatically awarded on tuition fees, in addition to our alumni discount.

We are also able to offer additional scholarships through the generous support of our donors. These scholarships have specific requirements which may change; current details are in the full plan and also on our web pages.

Full details of the scholarships and bursaries on offer at Leeds Conservatoire are available on our Scholarships and Bursaries page.

Information for Students

Prospective students receive information on fees and financial support at in-person events, such as our open days, and by email communications. Up-to-date information is always available on our website.

Care Leavers and Estranged Students can find tailored information on our student information site. These groups of students also have a dedicated named contact, who they can get in touch with at any point. We are proud to have signed the Stand Alone Legacy Pledge and be part of Go Higher West Yorkshire’s Care Leaver Covenant.

Current Students receive information about fees and financial support through our student portal and through email communications. Current students can also book appointments with our fees and funding team as part of our student support offer.

For the most up-to-date information, see our student information site.

What We are Aiming to Achieve

Our overall aim is to support students to access music and performing arts higher education, with a particular focus on creating an environment where our students recognise the value in their skills and abilities, and can apply them to fulfilling lives and careers in the creative industries and beyond. These targets have been created using the data we collect around applications, student attainment and continuation - to explore this data further, see Annexe A, pages 33-63 in the full plan.

Whilst we will support all groups who are outlined as ‘At Risk’ by the Office for Students, we have identified key target groups that face particular risks at Leeds Conservatoire and have set targets to help alleviate these. We recognise that this work is a long-term commitment and, as such, all of our targets are set with an eight-year end goal.

Free School Meal Status

To support access and pathways into higher education and to Leeds Conservatoire for students who were eligible for free school meals (FSM) during compulsory education, achieving 18% FSM enrolments by 2031-32.

Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD 2019)

– A statistical measure to categorise levels of deprivation across the country.

To support access and pathways into higher education and to Leeds Conservatoire for students from the lowest socioeconomic backgrounds (IMD 2019 Quintiles 1 & 2), achieving 38% IMD Q1&2 enrolments by 2031-32.

To improve on-course outcomes for students from low socio-economic (IMD Quintile 1) backgrounds, closing the gap in completion and attainment outcomes for these students compared to their least disadvantaged counterparts (IMD Quintile 5), achieving gaps no greater than 4 percentage points for completion and 4 percentage points for attainment, by 2031-32.

Global Majority

To support access and pathways into higher education and to Leeds Conservatoire for students from Global Majority backgrounds (Black, Asian, Mixed and Other Ethnicities), achieving 18% Global Majority enrolments by 2031-32.

To improve degree outcomes for students from Global Majority backgrounds, closing the gap in attainment outcomes for these students compared to their white counterparts, achieving a gap no greater than 5 percentage points by 2031-32.

How We Will Address Our Key Risks to Equality of Opportunity

We have developed strategies to address risks to equality of opportunity and achieve our objectives. These strategies:

Outline activities to mitigate risks and meet objectives and targets.
Identify who will design, deliver, and evaluate the activities, along with an estimated cost.
Include an evaluation plan.
Are based on evidence from sector best practices and local insights from students.

Intervention Strategy 1 – Sustained, Targeted Outreach, Including Partnerships to Raise Attainment

The activities in this strategy are set under a coherent framework called Leeds Conservatoire Futures. This framework includes activities which provide a range of experiences for both learners and their teachers, both on our campus and in their own setting.

Intervention Strategy 2 – Role Model Coaching

Our coaching programme is an intense series of sessions matching students from a target background with an alumni or staff coach who comes from a similar background. The programme uses a solutions-focused model of coaching to help students celebrate their strengths and identify experiences to support the challenges they are facing.

Intervention Strategy 3 – Wrap-around Student Support

Intervention Strategy 3 is a holistic package of support on offer to students at Leeds Conservatoire. It encompasses activity across academic support, wellbeing, disability and student experience, as well as employability, enterprise and progression.

Full details of each strategy, including our evidence base and rationale, are available in the full plan.

How Students Can Get Involved

Our student body, through their representatives and the student union, regularly engages with and holds the conservatoire to account. We host two student-staff forums each academic year, where students can raise issues and ask questions of key staff members. The SU President and other representatives sit on all of our committees, including our Board of Directors, ensuring student voice is captured at all levels, and so that students are aware of the rationale behind decisions made by the conservatoire.

Students are informed of opportunities to engage with our interventions through their tutors, our online student portal and emails from our Access and Participation Team.

Evaluation

Leeds Conservatoire is supported by the SEER service from Applied Inspiration to evaluate our access and participation plan and related activities. Each intervention strategy has a detailed evaluation plan, which forms part of our overall evaluation of our progress towards our commitments.

We will regularly publish our findings in line with our publication plan to share our key learnings with the broader sector. This may be through calls for papers at conferences, submissions to academic journals, or simply published on our website.

Our access and participation activity has a clear chain of governance and quality assurance through our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee and our Board of Directors.

Full evaluation details can be seen on pages 28-30 in our full plan.