“As a teacher with 25 years' experience, the programme has been a revelation”

As we begin the next round of training days for our Access Champions schools, we caught up with one Access Champion to find out what difference the programme has made to the way she helps prepare students for applying to higher education.

Teresa Lamb is the Head of Sixth Form and Access Champion at Brimsham Green School, situated in a new town ten miles outside Bristol. It’s part of a consortium with two other schools in South Gloucestershire and there are around 140 students on the roll in Years 12 and 13. Roughly half of students progress to higher education each year.

One of the first things we help Access Champions with is an assessment of the current situation in school, using our benchmarks to identify areas where provision can be improved. During this assessment, Teresa prioritised:

  1. Running staff CPD across the three schools in the consortium.
  2. Reducing workload on senior staff by sharing good practice and strengthening systems for writing references using OSCAR.
  3. Changing provision for parents on HE progression and bringing forward the school’s HE information evening.

Having identified areas for improvement, our Access Champions get support to put together a development plan that outlines the steps to take to make the changes necessary.

At the end of the first year of the programme, Teresa told us that tutors now feel “empowered” and are able to focus on emphasising a student’s academic suitability and skills when writing references.

Having used OSCAR, our online platform that provides guidance on how to write an outstanding personal statement and structures the personal statement writing process for students, Teresa’s found that this year’s UCAS applications had “the best personal statements [the school] has ever sent off”, with students having to complete fewer drafts.

Some students at Brimsham have also been paired up with one of our Progression Specialists, who provides each of them with a course of one-to-one mentoring sessions aimed at helping them choose the best approach to HE and providing support with the application process. After those sessions parents have been “hugely positive” in their feedback.

Over the next year, Teresa plans to champion a whole-school approach to HE progression, focusing on working with students before they start Year 12.

We’re really looking forward to working with Teresa to see how those improvements make a difference to the students who are about to start their exams this year.

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

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!