Shining a light on outreach

In the grand ancient dining hall of St John’s College, Oxford last week, I had the pleasure of talking with a host of teachers – heads of sixth forms, newly qualified trainees, senior leaders, and history, English and psychology specialists. It’s always good to hear candid views from education’s front line: looming funding cuts, recruitment challenges, changing tests and curricula among them.

But our dinner discussion focused on a topic that too often falls down the school priority list: how to ensure high achieving pupils from all backgrounds aspire to the country’s most prestigious universities.  The teachers were attending the Sutton Trust Oxford Teacher Summer School, a two-day residential conference to equip them with the best advice and guidance on selective university admissions.

The programme is just one example of the outreach work that the Trust and others support each year. Our flagship student summer school programme now supports some 2000 teenagers, the vast majority of whom end up going onto highly selective degree courses. What also distinguishes the programme is that it has undergone a thorough evaluation.

Sadly, that’s the exception not the rule. Hundreds of millions are spent annually by universities on outreach programmes aiming to dispel the ‘not for the likes of me’ attitudes that sadly still persist among many talented students from homes with no history of higher education. Yet most of these efforts have been effectively operating in the dark: we simply do not know which approaches have worked best, or for that matter those that have worked at all. Indeed some programmes may well have harmed the prospects of the students that they are intended to help. Earlier this year, the Trust published a summary of the slim evidence we currently have on university outreach programmes from the UK and the US.

At the same time, opening up our most exclusive universities to talented young people from all backgrounds remains an uphill struggle. At the Trust’s joint summit on academies this week we were reminded of the challenge again. New evidence revealed that the original sponsored academies established 15 years ago to turn around failing schools have enabled many more pupils to advance into higher education. But there was no improved enrolment into the most selective universities.

It’s why I’m so excited that we now at last are making the first steps to develop a more evidence led approach in widening participation. Last week the Sutton Trust with the Office for Fair Access announced that we are seeking researchers to deliver a special mission: to develop with universities the methods and measures that will enable us to evaluate outreach programmes properly in the future.

Our work developing our incredibly popular toolkit for schools and the creation of the Education Endowment Foundation has highlighted the many lessons and pitfalls that come with promoting evidence led practice. It is important that this is a genuine partnership between practitioners and academics. It is also critical to commission robust, independent and upfront evaluations.

But the potential benefits are huge. This work we hope will provide the evidence of effectiveness that the widening participation community so desperately needs to ensure that its important work does not fall foul of budget cuts as it has in the past. But most importantly of all it will enable us to improve the outcomes of the talented children we all want to help – a goal universally agreed upon by all the teachers around the dining hall last week.