Our response to the Government's review of post-18 education

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We recently contributed to the Government's major review of funding for post-18 education in England, which aims to ensure a joined-up system that works for everyone. Our submission focused on three key themes:

1. Making sure that Higher Education is “accessible for all”.

We welcome the prominence the review gives to disadvantaged students.

If the new funding system is indeed to be “accessible for all” then care should be taken to ensure that any changes in the funding regime do not deter students from under-represented groups from participating in Higher Education.

While the overall Higher Education Participation Rate increased to 49% in 2015-16 there remain troubling gaps in the ability of disadvantaged and part-time students to access Higher Education.  Whatever the details of the new funding system, access for disadvantaged students needs to remain the top priority.

2. Putting schools and colleges at the heart of post-18 progression

The drivers of fair access – good attainment and effective guidance – are to be found in the classroom, but schools and colleges are largely overlooked in debates about post-18 progression.

To ensure that students can make informed post-18 choices, we need to shift the centre of gravity towards schools and colleges.

Schools and colleges face significant pressures on their existing resources. In order to enable schools and colleges to improve their post-18 destinations, we advocate setting up a Student Outcomes Fund with ringfenced funds made available to improve systems in schools and colleges. 

3. Strengthening Information, Advice and Guidance in the classroom

Most adults struggle to choose between five energy suppliers, but we expect students to be able to make rational choices between 37,000 UCAS courses.

If we want applicants to make appropriate choices about what and where to study then we need to offer better support. Providing more information is not the solution. Information overload has now reached a stage that experts have argued that students are being encouraged to make irrational decisions based on crude heuristics.

Research shows that students respond more effectively to “hot information” provided by trusted sources, such as teachers, as opposed to “cold information” provided in literature and on websites. Part of a Student Outcomes Fund should therefore be directed towards supporting teachers and other key influencers to make provide effective and personalised guidance for students.

The independent panel, chaired by Philip Augar and supported by experts from across the sector, are currently reviewing evidence. We look forward to seeing how the review progresses.

Partnerships for Change: conference wrap-up

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We've just got back from our Partnerships for Change conference, and it was wonderful to see so many friends and colleagues from the Widening Participation sector for a packed day looking at how institutions can work together to ensure better outcomes for students.

A huge thank you to everybody who came along and contributed so much to the discussions on the day - we're really grateful that you could join us. 

If you weren't able to make it, here's a quick run-down of some of the highlights:

You can watch each of the speeches and panel discussions from the main stage below, starting with Professor Lord Winston's keynote about how the brain learns and how important empathy is:

Our Director of Research, Dr Michael Englard, introduced the idea behind the 'wicked problem' of Widening Participation, and the work we're doing to drive systemic change in schools to improve outcomes for students. You can read more about this in Michael's blog on the TES website.

Here's Chris Millward's speech and Q & A about the marathon of Widening Participation and his priorities for the Office Students:

Here's our panel discussion about working in partnership in the field, chaired by Natalie Perera from the Education Policy Institute and featuring contributions from Femi Bola, Nikki Lane (East Coast College), Simon Pedley (Ormiston Academies Trust), Anand Shukla (Brightside)  and Sarah Young (Impetus-PEF):

The afternoon started with Martin Lewis' keynote looking at the way student finance is seen by students and their families:

And finally our plenary session which rounded the day off by looking at the perspective of schools, colleges and students with contributions from Jill Eatherden, Miriam Keith, Saeed Mahmood and Bojan Stankovic:

Thanks again for everybody's contributions - it wouldn't have been the same without you!

"Offer rates have been phenomenal"

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It’s almost a year since we started running our Access Champions programme, and we’re beginning to see results as students get offers from universities. Here we look at how the programme helped Jo Wilson, one of our Access Champions and Head of Sixth Form at Pingle Academy in Derbyshire.

Situated near Burton on Trent in Derbyshire, Pingle Academy is a co-educational, comprehensive, secondary school for students aged 11-18 years in an area where 85% of students live in POLAR1 or POLAR2 postcodes – where the smallest proportion of students go on to higher education. There are 150 students on roll in Years 12 and 13.

During Access Champions training we ask schools to look at how they currently help students to apply to HE, and to set objectives for ways to improve the systems in their school.

After the first workshop, Jo prioritised changing Pingle’s approach to personal statements and references, appointing a link governor for Sixth Form progression, and incorporating OSCAR, our online support platform, into the school’s programme for Years 12 and 13.

At Access Champions events, Jo has used the opportunity to share and compare practice with other schools that have high numbers of POLAR1 cohorts.

Part of the programme involves one of our team of Progression Specialists visiting the school each half-term and holding mentoring sessions with a small group of specially selected students who would benefit most from one-to-one support. At Pingle the Progression Specialist also provided wrap-around support including guidance on Pharmacy interviews.

After the first round of UCAS applications closed in January, Jo told us that training subject teachers and using OSCAR, which provides structure and guidance for students when writing their personal statements, has “vastly improved” reference writing, and that offer rates have been “phenomenal”, with “only a handful” of rejections across all subjects.

Access Champions is about embedding this change in school systems to produce long-term systemic change. With a focus on data, Jo plans to target an increase in Pingle’s overall progression rate from 71% to 78%.

We're delighted to be working with Pingle, and are looking forward to seeing the difference these changes make over the coming months.