If you have been your school’s careers lead or
outreach co-ordinator for a while, you will know
that the government often change their mind
about how they want universities to support
schools.
The government’s latest priority for universities
is to support attainment raising. This should,
they say, boost equal access to university
because we know the attainment of student
groups underrepresented in higher education is
often lower than their more advantaged peers.
If pupils achieve better grades in their exams,
it should widen their options for post-16 and
post-18 study.
The first thing to say here is that universities are
not the experts in how to support attainment
raising in schools. And we know that. Teachers
support young people to achieve their best
every single day, and we are not going to
claim we have all the answers. We also know
that so many of the challenges young people
face happen outside of school, and neither
universities nor schools can solve these without
the support of other agencies. But we do
believe we can work in partnership with you to
complement your school’s attainment raising
strategies.
University outreach teams already do a lot of
different things that are designed to support
attainment. Some of this activity might have
an explicit focus on attainment like offering
revision or study skills sessions, tutoring or
academic mentoring from undergraduate
students. This type of work is designed to
boost skills used for learning (what you might
hear referred to as metacognition) or improve
confidence in academic skills (what we refer to
as self-efficacy). You may have taken cohorts to
university taster days - these are often subject-
specific, with extra- or supra-curricular activities
designed to enhance knowledge gained inside
the classroom.
Universities also deliver other types of activities
which might have the secondary effect of
boosting attainment, by helping young people
improve their motivation and give them a
route to higher education. This work is just
as important as work directly aiming to boost
attainment - good exam grades might widen
choice, but if students aren’t empowered to
understand their options or understand how
they can achieve their goals, they may not be
able to make an informed choice about which
university is right for them, or which type of
qualifications they should take at sixth form
or college to facilitate entry to the course or
university they are aiming for.
You should expect to see the continuation
of these types of information, advice, and
guidance activities, along with campus visits
which show young people the realities of
university life so they can picture themselves
there.
Supporting good attainment is only one part
of working towards equal access to higher
education. If we want to improve access to
higher education, we not only need to give
young people the tools (study skills, exam
technique, motivation) to succeed, but also
the knowledge to make informed choices.
Universities should be aiming to do both - and
you should not be afraid to remind them of that.