A-level results day tomorrow will involve many students achieving their grades and being able to look forward with excitement to the next chapter of their educational journey.
Yet all of us working in schools know that the transition from school to university can be challenging, particularly for those from more under-represented backgrounds.
Data from the Office for Students makes this plain, with research showing that students from disadvantaged backgrounds are more at risk of dropping out of their course and are less likely to earn a first or a 2:1 degree at university compared with their more advantaged peers.
Furthermore, there are significant attainment gaps between students of different ethnicities: 82 per cent of white students graduate with a first or 2:1, compared with 60 per cent of black graduates. Among Asian graduates, the proportion gaining a first or 2:1 is 72 per cent, according to the Office for Students.
A-level results day: the transition from school to university
We saw this first hand with one of our students, Loubna (not her real name), who left London Academy of Excellence Tottenham (LAE) with A*AB, winning a place at the University of Manchester to read Arabic and French, the first in her family to attend university.
While initially excited about the opportunity, she found both the practical and academic transition a struggle, lacking a support network of friends or family members and suffering with the independence afforded in a university setting.
Loubna was in touch with teachers from her school throughout the first year but they were not able, for confidentiality reasons, to proactively connect her with university staff.
Although aware of university support services, Loubna didn’t engage until it was too late. She went into a spiral of depression and anxiety, spending days alone in her university accommodation, before finally leaving midway through her first year.
This story is not atypical. So what can we, as those who work in schools, do to help better prepare our students for the world beyond?
How we can get better
To start this conversation, in the spring of 2021, we at the Reach Foundation and LAE invited young people, school leaders, senior university staff and representatives of other organisations that worked with young people to explore how we could better support young people with the transition from school to university.
This conversation included Kettering Academy and The Halifax Academy alongside Reach and LAET, the universities of Kingston, Manchester, King’s College London and Royal Holloway and organisations like The Brilliant Club, Citizens UK, the Careers and Enterprise Company and the West London Zone. We were also joined by recent and current undergraduates from different regions of the country.
With these wide-ranging groups on board, we then held a series of workshops reviewing the evidence and individual experiences to help us understand the problem in detail - and, critically, discuss the strategies that could help tackle it.
To do this, we examined research evidence that shows that using effective study strategies is the strongest predictor of university retention and is linked with improved achievement (Atanasov et al, 2013).
In addition, we looked at research that underlines the idea that being made to feel like you belong is not just a “nice to have” part of the university experience. Indeed, a very recent study from Pedler et al suggests that undergraduates who have a greater sense of belonging tend to have higher motivation, more academic self-confidence, higher levels of academic engagement and higher achievement.
Joining the dots
From this and the insights offered by current graduates and our own knowledge of the experiences of students like Loubna, we could see that better transition support, inspired by the transition from nursery to school, could make a huge difference to non-traditional students.
Collectively, we came up with the idea of ”Join the Dots”, with schools and universities working closely together to support the transition - with tutors and heads of sixth form staying in touch with departing students through their first term at university.
One of the original partners, The Brilliant Club, has developed the concept into a new programme, which it is launching this summer with 227 students from 36 schools working alongside six university partners: Kingston University; King’s College London; the University of Sussex; the University of Manchester; Royal Holloway, University of London; and the University of Southampton.
It is targeted at students who are most likely to face barriers during this transition, and who are therefore at risk of missing out on the life-changing opportunities that come from earning a degree from a competitive university.
The programme is based on the principles of three Cs: connections, communities and coaching. Join the Dots will connect schools, universities and students to share knowledge and set goals for a successful transition.
It will build communities of students to identify, discuss and address shared challenges and foster a sense of belonging at university.
Through one-to-one and peer group coaching, it will help students to develop key university study strategies and be a link for students to access university support as needed.
The start of the journey
Overall, this will strengthen the connection between schools and universities, giving teachers insights into transition and enabling them to build relationships with university staff.
We are delighted that the discussions we started a year ago have developed into a pilot programme that we think could scale up nationally. The Brilliant Club will publish an evaluation in early 2023 and we hope more schools will join the second cohort.
Meanwhile, Loubna is now back home and applying to universities in France - and clear that the support network provided by a programme such as Join the Dots could have helped her to make the most of her university experience.
Teachers interested in finding out more about the Join the Dots programme can contact The Brilliant Club at hello@thebrilliantclub.org
Ed Vainker is CEO of the Reach Foundation
Jan Balon is headteacher of London Academy of Excellence Tottenham
