Case studies for a new approach to university access, participation and success

The challenges to education brought about by the pandemic provide an opportunity to take a fresh look at how universities in England can best deliver on access and participation and accelerate education recovery. The following case studies highlight just some of the examples of what universities are doing to:

• support the state school sector and accelerate education recovery
• take a local approach to access and participation, prioritising levelling up and solving local and regional social mobility challenges
• enhance efforts on successful participation and student employment outcomes

City, University of London is a joint sponsor of the City of London Academy Islington, which formally opened in September 2008. The Academy is an 11–19 school with a higher than average proportion of students receiving special educational needs (SEN) support and free school meals. City offers a range of partnership activities with the academy, including a tutoring project to raise attainment in Maths and English for 9–18-year-olds. City students work as paid tutors to support pupils’ learning, confidence and skills development. Tutoring takes place in school or online on a weekly basis from November to May.

City also provide enhanced support to primary schools in close geographical proximity to the university. Attainment-raising activities include:

• Small group tutoring in key stage 2 Maths and English provided by City student tutors – 85–90% of tutored students achieve school-set aim of 1 to 2 level grade improvement.
• Subject-specific enrichment days on campus for key stage 2 students, which has produced significant benefits in behaviour and achievement in class.
• A week-long Summer School Programme for confidence and core skills development for select students who require additional support – evaluation has shown this has had a positive impact on aspiration and attainment.
• Specialist support in music and science through the use of City facilities and expertise.

In March 2021, Durham University launched Levelling Up, a new programme to open access to STEM subjects for students across the local region and beyond. Levelling Up aims to encourage and support students who are traditionally underrepresented in areas such as Chemistry, Maths and Physics to apply to study at a top university in the future.

They will be supported with academic tutoring and mentoring, working with undergraduates and staff from across the Faculty of Science as they prepare for their A Levels. The first cohort of over 100 Year 12 students will gain an insight into how studying STEM subjects could benefit them in their later career. All eligible students who complete the programme will be guaranteed an offer to study at Durham University.

Manchester Graduate Talent (MGT) helps source paid graduate-level jobs for University of Manchester students graduating in 2021. Graduate roles are available at a range of organisations based in Greater Manchester, from start-ups to multi-national firms, in addition to many roles within the university. The programme continued to run throughout the pandemic and further roles will be available this academic year.

Many MGT roles are within small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), which can provide excellent commercial experience from which graduates can build their careers. The programme aims to help graduates to use the skills they developed at university and build their professional network to fast track their career.

In 2013/14, Nottingham Trent implemented a learning analytics platform (StREAM from Solutionpath) to quickly detect concerns about students’ engagement with their courses. The platform shows students, their tutors and other support staff an overview of each student’s engagement, and generates early warning alerts when students are most at risk of disengaging.

Since Summer 2020, the university has trialled using a calling and contact centre to improve the alerts process. Early indications show successes in raising student engagement after the contact has been made.

Read our briefing to see the full collection of case studies.