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Brunel Urban Scholars

SHINE has supported projects at Cambridge and Stanford universities to stretch gifted students from disadvantaged backgrounds and raise their educational aspirations. The Urban Scholars programme at Brunel University is another such initiative. Over a four to six year period, gifted students like Clare regularly visit Brunel to be taught by university staff and visiting speakers, expanding and enriching their school work and enhancing their academic skills.

The grant recipient

Brunel Able Children's Education Centre is the first university-based research centre in the education of able children in the country. It developed the Urban Scholars programme in response to the continuing low numbers of children entering university from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The Urban Scholars programme

What it aims to do

• search for and fulfil the submerged talent of gifted teenagers (12-16 years old) from inner city state secondary schools
• raise the achievement and aspirations of pupils selected by urban schools as gifted and talented
• encourage more young people to join universities and consider entering professions which had not been previously considered by themselves or by their families

How it works

Groups of 100 students from schools across London attend Brunel University campus nine Saturdays each year over four years. Key features are:

• models of enriched learning for higher ability students are used
• the focus is on challenging students to develop their critical thinking, problem solving, research, training, presentation and study skills
• university staff and visiting speakers deliver the teaching
• undergraduates act as mentors

The Urban Scholars programme therefore matches closely recommendations made in the 2010 report from the Office for Fair Access (OFFA) into widening participation in higher education.* The report states that "co-ordinated, sustained outreach works best" and recommends that students should be recruited before they choose their GCSE subjects at the age of 14.

Results

The first phase of the project has now finished.

• 83% of the students completed all four years; an excellent retention rate considering the length of the programme and the transient nature of school populations in disadvantaged areas
• 97% of students achieved A*-C grades in English and 95% in maths
• over 43% achieved an A* or A grade in English and 41% in maths
• over 70% met or exceeded their targets
• initially 49% of students expressed a desire to attend university; this rose to 92% at the end of the programme

The funding and replication

Brunel now has a proven model which can be developed by other educational professionals. The programme's success has also attracted funding from other sources to replicate the programme.

SHINE's initial grants funded an Urban Scholars Tutor post and conferences to promote replication and best practice.

SHINE has recently given a further grant to extend the current programme for 50 of the same students to support them during their A levels and their applications to university.

Funding: £239,444 to Brunel University, over six years (2006-12)

Visit the Urban Scholars website

* What more can be done to widen access to highly selective universities?, Sir Martin Harris, Director of Fair Access, 2010