“One of the best applications I have ever read”

At the end of the school year, we take a moment to catch up with one of our Access Champions to reflect on the programme and the impact it’s been making on students on the ground in Nottinghamshire.

Quarrydale Academy is a school that serves former mining communities in Nottinghamshire, where there are high levels of unemployment: 92% of students live in POLAR Quintile 1 areas, meaning they are among the least likely to go to university. There are 130 students on roll in years 12 and 13.

Leanne Straw is Quarrydale’s UCAS co-ordinator, and the school’s Access Champion. We’ve been working with her over the past year to understand the school’s situation, and identify ways to improve the academy’s support for students when working out what they want to do at the age of 18.

One of the first things we ask Access Champions to do is identify areas for improvement within the school. During her first year with us, Leanne prioritised changing Quarrydale’s approach to personal statements and references, and using OSCAR, our online platform, to personalise Information, Advice and Guidance for students during tutorial periods.

One of our Progression Specialists also spent time in Quarrydale providing one-to-one mentoring to students,  an important channel of support for prospective students in Years 10-11.

Leanne told us that being on the Access Champions programme has “helped a lot with planning”, providing structure for, and evidence to support, changes she’s made in the sixth form.

Using our OSCAR system has “completely changed our approach to personal statements and references.” Personal statements are now much more focused on specific courses and all “now include a topic of academic interest”, which helps present students in the best possible light to admissions tutors and offsets the disadvantage that many students face from a lack of opportunity to take part in work experience or placements while in sixth form. This led to one applicant, applying for Nursing at Nottingham University, being told by the admissions tutor that their personal statements was “one of the best applications I have ever read”.

Students have provided Leanne with “incredibly positive” feedback about mentoring, which has provided support that parents may not always be able to provide.

After analysing data, Leanne and her team will be targeting an increase in young male applicants applying for more competitive courses such as Medicine and Teaching in the next UCAS cycle.

We’re delighted to see how well things are going at Quarrydale, and look forward to working with Leanne over the next school year to make even more of a difference.

“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.

"Offer rates have been phenomenal"

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.