Oxford teenagers who had never dreamed of going to university have been encouraged to aspire to greater things as part of a national campaign.

Students at Peers School, in Sandy Lane West, Littlemore, said they are rethinking their futures following an Aim Higher roadshow.

Peers was one of three Oxfordshire schools targeted by the roadshow, which aims to encourage more young people from families with little or no experience of higher education to consider going to university.

About 70 Year Nine pupils at the school took time out from lessons to hear about life at university, and the options open to them, on Wednesday.

Recent graduate Michelle Hughes gave the students a 30-minute presentation and asked them to watch DVDs and use laptops to look at routes from GCSE to university.

She said: "Our main aim is to get students interested in, and excited about, higher education - and for them to realise that university could be a real option for them."

Kathy Wittet, Aim Higher co-ordinator at Peers, said: "We hope the event will inspire our students to consider going on to higher education.

"We want them to realise that getting a higher level qualification is a relevant and achievable goal for them, one that could lead to an interesting and well-paid job."

Mrs Wittet added: "Most of these children come from homes where there is no previous experience of going to university, so it might not have been talked about at all before.

"Also, in a university city like Oxford, it is often perceived that university is only for brainboxes."

Emma Maisey, 14, from Blackbird Leys, said: "I did not really know much about university before, but now I know more about the courses I could do and what to expect.

"I would like to go to university as I would like to get into nursing.

"No one in my family has been to uni before, but I might be the second person as my sister is in Year 11 and she would like to go."

Rachel Lewis, 13, also from Blackbird Leys, said: "I love art, PE and drama and would think about going to university to carry on my studies.

"I would either like to be a dance teacher or choreographer, and I know uni will give me a good chance of doing that and getting some good qualifications."

Ryan O'Connell, 14, of Littlemore, said: "This has changed what I thought about uni. I had thought it was just about boring lectures, but this has made it seem like a lot more fun than that. It is something I would consider now, whereas before I might not have done."

The roadshow also visited Drayton School in Banbury on Tuesday and Oxford Community School in East Oxford today.