2020-21 Yearbook: Social Mobility & Widening Participation Department

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King's College London Social Mobility & Widening Participation Department

Yearbook 2020 and 2021

An accessible version of this document can be found on the intranet pages.

We want to change this.

We work with underrepresented learners and their supporters, empowering them to access and succeed in higher education. We aim to improve education equality and create a diverse community of students at King’s.

We promote social mobility by removing barriers to success throughout the school journey. Our actions help to create a world in which a young person’s destination is not limited by their start in life.

Reflections

During 2020 and 2021, the move to remote learning radically changed the context of our work. Responding to this gave us the opportunity to do things differently. Sometimes this had benefits.

Online activity expanded our reach. Suddenly we weren’t confined by geography and could connect with students across the country. But it often

meant finding new ways to accomplish our plans. During the pandemic, we still launched new programmes, though in ways far from our original intentions.

The pandemic demanded that we think harder and more creatively about our work. How do we generate a sense of belonging at an online summer school? How do we help alleviate the pressure schools and families are under? The stories told here are our answers to these questions.

The opportunity for a great education is not distributed fairly.

Contents

Three themes have defined our work over the pandemic. The stories in our yearbook illustrate these.

Change & Opportunity

Gypsy, Roma, and Traveller tutoring, medical work experience, and devices for King's Scholars

Reaching New Students

Medicine and Dentistry Lecture Series, Scholars+, and working class girls.

Wellbeing & Belonging

Family and teacher mental health, post-16 summer schools, and the institutional survey.

Also in the yearbook

Our impact, K+ ten year anniversary, and looking forward.

Our impact over the years

Percentage of enrolled UK undergraduate students from WP backgrounds

Number of programme participants KCLWP worked with in both 2019/20 & 2020/21

Number of KCLWP programme participants and priority group students enrolled at King’s

Percentage of enrolled UK undergraduate students from the most deprived backgrounds (IMD quintile 1)

Ethnicity of UK undergraduate students (18 years old) by proportion

Asian Black White Mixed Other

C h a n g e & O p p o r t u n i t y

King's Scholars Devices

Remote learning revealed the full scale of digital poverty young people in the UK experience. Many families did not have the technology needed to reliably engage with online learning. Young people from low-income homes faced the prospect of falling behind at school.

We wanted to make sure that our year 7-9 King’s Scholars participants had the devices they needed for their learning. With our partner schools, we carried out a device audit and identified 269 pupils who did not have one. We purchased tablets for these pupils.

Going forward, we pledge that every King's Scholar will have access to their own device. Whether for homework, revision materials, or research, access to online learning is essential. Providing devices is a way in which we can make education experiences more equitable.

Harris Girls' Academy East Dulwich

St Gabriel's College

Medical Work Experience

Having clinical work experience is a crucial part of applying to medicine. Yet, access to it is often dependent on personal networks and financial resource. For underrepresented students, relevant work experience is not easy to obtain. The COVID-19 pandemic only made it harder. Inperson opportunities disappeared and the social inequalities that created barriers became more entrenched.

The Outreach for Medicine team tackled this situation by creating online work experience. Eighty students from across our MedView and K+ programmes participated in simulated GP patient consultations. Patients, played by actors, presented with conditions that included depression, diabetes, and migraines. Participants were taught to conduct patient consultations and received support from final year medical students.

Gypsy, Roma, & Traveller Tutoring Project

The Gypsy, Roma, and Traveller (GRT) tutoring project was the first of its kind to offer one-to-one online tutoring for GRT young people across the UK. We joined forces with the Traveller Movement to ensure that GRT students could access professional tutoring whilst school premises were closed during the lockdowns. Over 120 students, aged between five and eighteen, signed up for the weekly tutoring sessions. Tutors worked with students and their families to design content that was engaging and focused on the core curriculum.

It was vitally important that students had easy access to their tutoring sessions. We distributed a huge range of physical and electronic resources to support learning. We supplied over 70 laptops to students and their families, as well as Wi-Fi dongles to those struggling with internet access.

"She is especially more confident in reading out loud. At a recent parents' evening, her teacher spoke about the improvement" - parent

"She was behind before, in the bottom sets, now she is the top sets, loves her new school and is making friends - a lot of this is down to the tutoring ” - parent

The average attendance over the course of the project was 80% and students made solid learning gains. Of those taking part, 49% made progress in line with their key stage and 6% made above expected progress. Some students were working

"He's loved it, and he's going to go to secondary school now, which he probably wouldn't have done before, that's a big achievement" - parent

Students, parents, and tutors were asked how the tutoring project had impacted confidence levels. They reported that 84% of students were more confident or much more confident since taking part.

R e a c h i n g N e w S t u d e n t s

Medicine & Dentistry Lecture Series

Most of our programmes engage students from London. Over the pandemic, the move to online delivery presented an opportunity to change this.

Attendance at our popular Medicine and Dentistry Lecture Series, funded by The Barbers' Company, was always restricted by the limitations of space and geography. After moving the lectures online, we enrolled 1,640 students from 469 non-selective state schools on to the programme.

Supporting students across the whole of UK is important. There are sharp disparities in the schools that medical applicants come from. Independent schools continue to be

overrepresented, whilst many state schools do not have any alumni studying to become doctors. By providing practical knowledge on the application process and insight into healthcare careers, the lecture series can make a difference.

The national expansion of the lecture series means we are closer to achieving our ambition of creating an NHS workforce that is representative of the population it serves.

"Overall I believe that this programme is one of the most useful things I could have done before applying to study medicine.

Being able to attend these lectures remotely has definitely given me a better understanding of the work a doctor does."

Lecture series participant from Wiltshire

"Scholars+ is inspirational. Even during pandemic restrictions students had first class support online. The year 10 tutoring programme is a great support for the students. It shows how much they enjoy the sessions when you do not have to remind them to attend. We have 100% attendance every week."

Teresa Crowley

Careers Coordinator at Notre Dame RC School for Girls

Scholars+

There is a strong and persistent link between family background and GCSE attainment. Underrepresented students often leave secondary school with grades that do not reflect their ability. The pandemic and remote learning threatens to widen the attainment gap further, so we launched Scholars+ to address this issue.

Scholars+ is a tutoring programme for year 10 and 11 pupils. We have partnered with the charity Team Up to train and support King’s students to tutor participants. Sixteen weekly tutoring sessions in maths and English take place for year 10 pupils.

Year 11 participants are supported to look after their wellbeing and learn metacognitive skills they can apply to their revision.

Four local schools are taking part in our two-year pilot and so far we have worked with 72 young people. Initial progress data is encouraging. Pupils improved by an average of 0.9 of a grade in maths and 1.3 of a grade in English.

Working Class Girls

No matter what their background is, all young people deserve to do well in education. Working class females are less likely to go to university than their moreadvantaged peers. The pandemic has only exacerbated these preexisting inequalities.

Focus has often been on improving access rates of males. But more research is needed on what prevents working class females progressing to higher education. To address this, we conducted 32 online interviews with year 12 students from five schools. We interviewed in London, Clacton-onSea, Wakefield, Northampton, and Leicester.

Placed-based differences

During the interviews, we expected differences to emerge between London and non-London students. Some of our preconceptions were accurate. Many wanted to leave their local area and study in a big city. One student explained that she lived at the end of a train line in a ‘dead’ area. Whilst she loved the place, she had negative associations with the area and some of the people. Others did not have the same mindset or aspirations as her. She felt a lack of opportunities and couldn't see herself progressing if she stayed.

Choices not well thought through

Overall though, the differences weren’t striking. Much in their experiences brought the students together. They were often helped by teachers but didn't have a wider social network to guide them. And whilst they knew they wanted to go to university, they didn't have a concrete plan of how to get there. Students were overwhelmed by choices and didn’t know how to research their options.

Turning findings into action

From our working class girls research, we will develop a self-guided course that encourages students to think deeply about their choices. We will test whether this intervention helps them feel more confident and informed about their decisions.

W e l l b e i n g & B e l o n g i n g

Family & Teacher wellbeing

The pandemic and remote learning took its toll on the wellbeing of families, pupils, and school staff. We were mindful of the pressures that our community faced and wanted to help reduce them.

We rolled back our King’s Scholars school programmes to reduce demand on teachers and families. In place of regular events, we created interventions that aided pupils and their carers to navigate remote learning and maintain their wellbeing. One of these was our KS Connect text messaging service. KS Connect signposted parents and carers to useful learning and wellbeing resources. It was also used to share advice between parents. The text messages received such a positive response that we are continuing them.

Alongside our pupils and families, the wellbeing of our partner schools’ teachers was a priority. Their ability to sustain high quality teaching throughout lockdown was critical. We wanted to do our part to support teacher mental health, so we sent out wellbeing packages and arranged one-to-ones with KCLWP staff. This was a way to listen and share our gratitude.

"Teaching is already quite an isolating job. Remote learning further isolated you. Yes, you're surrounded by 30 kids in the room, but you don't have meaningful connection with adults. It made a lonely job, even lonelier.

I thought it was wonderful getting a box of treats. It made me feel valued and put a smile on my face."

Ray King's Scholars teacher

Post-16 Summer Schools

https://www.kcl.ac.uk/wp

Developing a sense of community is crucial to successful outreach work. We knew that moving our work online would dramatically change how students interacted with us and with each other. When designing our online summer schools we made sure that content was as accessible and interactive as possible. Students were encouraged to make connections and learn from one another through team challenges, quizzes, and lunchtime cook-alongs. Our summer school managers also ensured students had space away from the screen to work on creative activities that supplemented their online sessions. Whilst our summer schools certainly looked very different, with careful planning the inclusive and celebratory feel remained the same.

"I’m Elsie. I'm 17 years old. I'm in year 13 and I live and go to school in Hackney, East London. I think I'm one of the only students in my school who comes from a Traveller background, which was one of the main reasons I applied to K+.

I managed to make loads of friends through K+ and feel like a part of a community. I wasn’t expecting this because we were online. So when I saw people in-person, I would look at them and say "ooh, you're the one who always has that teddy bear in the background?" That definitely gave a sense of community and brought us a lot closer."

Elsie

K+ Spotlight online participant

Tab 1: Elsie's Interview

Institutional Belonging

During the winter of 2020 to 2021, we were in the middle of a lockdown. Times were uncertain and unsettled. Throughout the university, there were concerns that remote learning and lockdowns would negatively impact King’s students’ sense of belonging.

In What Works, KCLWP's research and evaluation team, In What Works, KCLWP's research and evaluation team, we wanted to find out if this was the case. We asked we wanted to find out if this was the case. We asked students a series of questions based on whether they students a series of questions based on whether they felt part of a community and were able to make friends. felt part of a community and were able to make friends. We did this through the creation of an institutional We did this through the creation of an institutional survey. Launched in September 2020, the survey ran in survey. Launched in September 2020, the survey ran in four waves throughout the academic year. Each wave four waves throughout the academic year. Each wave was designed to reflect the concerns of that time. The was designed to reflect the concerns of that time. The survey helped us understand the student experience by survey helped us understand the student experience by capturing student voice. capturing student voice.

Understanding student experience

We found that community and belonging were negatively impacted by remote learning. This could have a knock-on effect on retention and attainment, so King's created more digital opportunities and promoted them widely.

Our institutional survey encourages a year-round approach to understanding student experience. It goes beyond student forums and KCLSU representatives, to generate feedback at an institutional level. This helps us improve services at King’s and make decisions based on data.

Looking forward

The pandemic will impact social mobility for years to come and the barriers young people face in getting to university will become tougher. We will continue responding and adapting so all young people can have high expectations for their futures. This means strengthening our focus on attain work outside of London, and putting you health and wellbeing at the forefront.

In 2022 our support for young people fro underrepresented groups will grow. Prid for LGBTQ+ young people, will launch. Th see the geographic expansion of our wo schools’ programme in Kent. Whilst the w to a new a normal, we are ready to drive educational justice. There is still a long w the power to make education fairer.