widening access: lessons from research · widening access: lessons from research loic menzies...

Widening Access: Lessons from Research

Loic Menzies – Director, LKMco cic. @LKMco

“”Society should ensure that all children and young people receive the support they need in order to make a fulfilling transition to adulthood”[email protected] - +44(0)7793 370459 - @LKMco – www.lkmco.org.uk

“””Society should ensure that all children and young people receive the support they need in order to make a fulfilling transition to adulthood”[email protected] - +44(0)7793 370459 - @LKMco – www.lkmco.org.uk


Three interlinked themes:

1. Partnership2. Parental engagement3. School culture

Three elements:1. Achievement2. Attitudes3. Knowledge

Parents

Universities

Schools

Pupils


Why partnership?

Parents as influencers:

• 93% of young people report that their parents influenced their education and career decisions.

• 57% say this influence was a ‘fair amount’ or a ‘huge amount’ (Mulcahy and Baars, 2018; Philips and Newton, 2014).


Variation by socio-economic background

• For young people from low-income backgrounds, guidance from parents and other family members may be relatively less important than guidance from teachers (Moogan, 2011). Desire not to “burden” working parents? Parents’ own inexperience of HE (David

et al., 2003)

• Young people from lower-income backgrounds value informal information (e.g. hearing from current HE students rather than university prospectuses)

Preference? Access? (Ball and Vincent, 1998; Greenbank, 2006; 2008). Issues for accuracy? (Hillman and Robinson, 2016).


• When their children are nine years old 81% of the richest mothers hoped their child will go to university in comparison with just 37% of the poorest mothers. (Chowdry et al. 2010)

• 70% of parents from A, B and C1 social groups thought it was ‘likely’ ‘that [their child] will apply to go to university regardless of whether they actually go’, compared to 53% of parents in C2, D and E social grade groups. (Yougov 2014)


Variation by age

• Outreach to inform parents (and their children) about HE is likely to be more effective if it starts early. (Mulcahy and Baars, 2018)

• For under-represented groups in HE, (e.g. low income groups) information, Advice and Guidance (IAG) may be more effective when it starts early (Moore, Sanders and Higham, 2013) .

• Early outreach to parents reduces the impact of socio-economic status on HE progression for their children (Dearing et al., 2009) .

• Young peoples’ attitudes to HE may be more malleable around important transition points, such as between primary and secondary school. (The Sutton Trust, 2008).


What does it look like?

High academic expectations communicated through powerful symbols and shared purpose.

“The simple graduations that we do in Reception when they leave us… the message is quite clear there to the parents, that standing before them is not just their little ones going off to Reception, it could be the next Prime Minister, the lawyer, a doctor, you know, but unless you believe and you say, then that shared vision is a vision for all of us.”

Senior leader, high-performing London primary

Other examples:• Explicitly telling nursery pupils that they will go on to achieve well.• Running skills-based workshops for parents in the early years.• Inviting visitors into Nursery to act as positive role models for future achievement• Highlighting link between achieving at school and freedom to access HE.• Idealistic aspirations as hooks.


Developing partnerships between staff and parents to build parental expectations for their children’s future academic and career pathways.

Recognising potential prior negative experiences and addressing these.

“For parents it’s that changing their idea of school that actually school is enjoyable, school is somewhere that is a positive environment for their child and for them… we take the work out to the parents and say, ‘Look, look at this book. Look how amazing your child has done,’ so that they get those aspirations, those parents from the disadvantaged backgrounds, they can look and see, go ‘Wow, look my child is doing well. I’m going to ask about that.’”

Teacher, high-performing non-London primary

Leaders’ prioritisation of parental engagement within their own roles

“I’m always finding those opportunities to create a community and for people to trust me and to be able to talk to me. If I don’t and I just stand at the front of the line in the morning and then we all troop in, I’m just a cipher for them. They don’t know that they can speak to me and I have to show that I am human too”

Head teacher, high-performing London primary


Knowledge

Parent power: Kings College London Widening Participation team

“We planned a pilot…to see if we could develop a team of secondary parents who could themselves build their skills for helping their children to get into university and at the same time campaign to break down barriers in the community. Thatwas the start of Parent Power.”

Senior Community Organiser, Citizens UK

Other examples:- Having universities at parents evenings. - Planning a parental element to university visits.


Key principles:

1. Partnership with all three actors and pupils at the centre. 2. Starting early3. Addressing achievement, attitudes and knowledge4. School-parent purposeful engagement5. Using the power of culture and ethos in school.

widening access: lessons from research · widening access: lessons from research loic menzies...

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