James Turner reflects on the Trust’s first teacher summer school at the University of Durham

If half the battle – as many had predicted – was getting hard-pressed teachers to give up three precious days at the beginning of term, then the setting certainly helped. On a mild, clear late summer day there is no more sublime place in England than Durham, its magnificent cathedral and castle reflected in the glistening waters of the Wear.

And so fifty state school teachers came to the University of Durham last week for the first Sutton Trust Teacher Summer School hosted by the university, enticed away from their hectic day jobs. The staff – from all corners of the UK but with a strong North East contingent – took part in a series of activities based around three inter-related aims:‎ to provide advice and guidance on applying to top universities, to highlight the range of Sutton Trust programmes available to support their students, and – crucially – to help them provide academic stretch and challenge to their brightest pupils.

The Durham initiative was part of a new, refreshed Sutton Trust teachers programme that also ran at St Andrews and Cambridge, reaching 200 teachers in total this year.  Thanks to ‎generous funding from HSBC, the programme will be extended to other leading universities and hundreds more teachers over the next four years.  The focus of the Durham summer school was the EPQ (Extended Project Qualification) and how this can benefit students in the application process by providing content for personal statements and interviews, as well as compellingevidence of independent study skills. Admissions tutors often complain that state school students, particularly those from schools and colleges in poorer areas, lack the breadth and depth of knowledge of their privately-schooled peers; by providing students with the tools and opportunity to study beyond their A level curriculum, we can help to level the playing field.

As always with these events, the value was not just what the teachers learnt, and how that hopefully translates into better outcomes for their students, but what we and the university learnt‎ from the teachers.   Conversations over coffee, or a short chat between sessions, are invaluable for a charity like ours whose focus in on helping the very same students these teachers have contact with day-in, day-out.

What struck me particularly was the extent to which the teachers recognised how much universities were doing to broaden their intakes — and few thought that university academics wanted anything but the chance to give bright students from poorer homes a leg-up. But while none thought there was a social mobility conspiracy in higher education, the teachers‎ complained that the access work was not always high quality or well targeted (often going to the lowest hanging fruit in the state sector) and ‎sometimes did not fit well with schools’ own timetables.

A number of teachers also questioned the validity of using interviews and bespoke admissions tests‎ to make admissions decisions. One head of sixth form described how even her best students were deterred by interviews with unanswerable questions, and how difficult it was in a large comprehensive school to keep track of, let alone provide preparation for, the myriad of entrance tests now in use, as well as the latest preferences for subject choices.

But the teachers I spoke with were realistic too: there was an appreciation that widening access was a shared responsibility and that obstacles exist within schools and colleges too.  The relentless focus on exam grades and league table rankings, rather than student outcomes, had created a culture, according to some, that actively discouraged the sort of study skills and learning that universities wanted to see.   There was no incentive to encourage a student in, say, English to read any more than the set texts of the exam board.

Some teachers also spoke of colleagues who discouraged bright students from applying to elite universities because they don’t believe they will get in or fit in – a view backed up by research the Trust has conducted on teacher attitudes.   Breaking down these misconceptions has long been a priority for the Trust – after all, with the best will in the world, leading universities can’t admit students who don’t apply.

Concerns over the abandonment of AS levels in 2015 loomed large. Teachers were concerned that this would lead to less breadth in sixth form studies and disadvantage students who did not perform well in high stakes tests, or who used the current structure to find out what their strengths were before deciding on A2s. It would also mean that universities would have less data on which to make admission decisions, with GCSE grades the only concrete evidence of academic potential. Cambridge has warned of the implications of this for fair access.

So what of the future of the teacher summer school programme? Taking on board feedback from participants, we are refining the model to find the most effective formula to support teachers – in terms of timing (in holidays, over weekends, during term?) and the right mix of content to make the experience both appealing and useful in advancing the cause of social mobility.  The evidence that the Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring are collecting as part of the Trust’s Common Evaluation Framework is central to how the programme will evolve.  The teacher summer schools will grow too: thanks to HSBC, in a couple of years’ time we hope to reach over 600 teachers annually and for the majority of our university partners to host Sutton Trust teacher events too.

A huge thanks to the teachers who took part in this year’s programme and the staff who made it all work so smoothly.  And the most abiding memory from my time in Durham, aside from the imposing landscape?  The first night Ceilidh.  Judging by the enthusiastic participation, whatever else changes, this will be a core component of the teacher summer schools for many years to come.

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