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edward.watson@teach

Aims and Objectives of The Brilliant Club

February 2013

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erview

S

of privately educated children go on

to study at any university

of state school children go on to

study at any university

of state school children gain a place at a

highly selective university

of privately educated children gain a place

at a highly selective university

Contents

18%

Introduction

The problem we are trying to solve

Organisation overview

Partner School Programme

Professional Development Programme

Impact analysis

Who we are

Contact details

Testimonies

48%

96%

36%

of children eligible for free school meals

secure gain a place at a highly selective university 2%

of children eligible for free school meals

go on to study at any university 16%

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0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

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70%

80%

90%

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Students whoattend fee-

paying privateschools

Students whoattend non-

selective stateschools

Students whoare eligible for

Free SchoolMeals

Not attendinguniversity

Attend universitiesnot in the 30 mostselective HEproviders

Attend universitieswithin the 30 mostselective HEproviders

Aims and Objectives of The Brilliant Club

Our vision is an education system in which young people from disadvantaged backgrounds are proportionately represented at highly selective universities.

Our mission is to widen access to highly selective universities by placing PhD students in schools serving low participation communities to deliver university-style teaching to high performing pupils.

Introduction

The Brilliant Club is an award-winning organisation working to build a movement that mobilises PhD students

to help widen access to highly selective universities for pupils from low-participation backgrounds. At the heart

of this endeavour is our primary activity of recruiting, training and placing PhD students in low participation

schools to deliver programmes of university-style learning to small groups of high performing pupils. To do this

successfully, we are committed to working in collaboration with schools and universities both to create a

robust and meaningful widening participation and IAG programme as well as a sector-leading training and

support programme for our PhD tutors that develops teaching, transferable and leadership skills. This

document aims to provide an outline of The Brilliant Club’s aims and activities, including the steps we are

taking in our attempts to mobilise PhD students to work as Brilliant Club tutors, as well as outlining our

programmes and calendar of provision for schools and universities.

The problem we are trying to solve

Only 2% of school children eligible for Free School Meals and 7% of non-selective state school children will

secure a place at a highly-selective university, compared to 48% of children who attend fee-paying

independent schools. Furthermore, only 16% of children eligible for Free School Meals and 36% of non-

selective state school children will go on to study at any university, compared to 96% of privately educated

children. These statistics, as illustrated in the graph below, demonstrate the inequality of access to higher

education institutions for children from less privileged backgrounds.

In particular, there is a significant inequality of access to the most selective universities for children from less

privileged backgrounds. Considering these inequalities, it is not surprising that the most competitive graduate

careers are dominated by privately educated people. The Brilliant Club believes that these statistics are

representative of an education system that is not only unjust but also produces a huge amount of wasted

potential every year.

Fig 1. Access ratios to higher education

institutions, according to type of

secondary school provision

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Organisational overview

Primary activity: The simple and scalable way we work to achieve our vision is to recruit, train and place

outstanding PhD students in low participation schools to deliver programmes of university-style tutorials to

small groups of high performing pupils. Offering pupils sustained exposure to outstanding researchers in an

authentic academic environment develops skills, confidence and ambition, and this is supplemented by

traditional widening access activities such as university trips and targeted information, advice and guidance.

We are a non-profit company limited by guarantee and a registered charity and operate a sustainable model,

whereby Partner Schools and Partner Universities contribute some of the cost of our programmes and we pay

all of our PhD tutors a competitive wage.

Collaboration: An important part of our mission is to promote a culture of collaboration amongst schools and

universities, building on the many examples of good practice that each part of the sector can offer. We work

with our partner Teaching Schools as well the universities of Oxford, Warwick, Sussex and Kings College,

London to ensure that pupil learning and progression is at the heart of our programmes and that our PhD

Tutors receive excellent training before beginning to work as tutors. Further, we work with our Founding

Partners, The Sutton Trust and Teach First and our Strategic Partners, Challenge Partners and Goldman Sachs

to ensure our programmes are sustainable and supported by an evidence base of impact and good practice.

Programme: A standalone ‘Scholars’ programme

places a PhD student into a school to deliver

what can be thought of as a ‘short university

module’ including: a launch trip held at a top

university, a programme of six tutorials and

weekly assignments that lead to the completion

of a university-style extended assignment, and a

graduation trip at another top university, where

assignments are marked and returned to pupils.

Activities and demand: There is a high level of demand for our programmes from schools, PhD students and

universities and the organisation is growing quickly. We currently deliver programmes across London and the

South East, and have just begun our planned regional expansion into the West Midlands. Last year we trained

and placed 54 PhD researchers into 34 schools; this year we have already received bookings to work with over

3500 pupils in over 100 schools, placing over 130 PhD students. Our recruitment process remains selective; of

the 143 candidates we have invited to interview since September we have employed less than half.

Background: The Brilliant Club was founded in 2011 by two classroom teachers, Simon Coyle and Jonny

Sobczyk. After an initial research and consultation phase, they designed and delivered a series of successful

pilot programmes in 2011. As a result, Simon and Jonny subsequently left their roles working for educational

charities to set up The Brilliant Club with the support of an esteemed Board of Trustees, chaired by Dame Sue

John, and backing from key individuals in government departments including the Departments for Education

and Business, Innovation and Skills.

Recognition: Over the last academic year Simon and Jonny were named in the 'Top 10 Young UK Social

Entrepreneurs' by Ernst & Young, included in The Observer's 'Britain's 50 New Radicals' and shortlisted for The

Sunday Times ‘Social Enterprise of the Year’. In September 2012 The Brilliant Club was listed in the ‘Top 5

Start-up Companies of 2012’ by Social Enterprise UK. The programme has received positive endorsements

from outstanding Headteachers, PhD students and school pupils, as well as both the Secretary of State for

Education, Michael Gove MP and the Shadow Secretary of State for Education, Stephen Twigg MP.

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Partner School Programme

Working with National Teaching Schools and OFSTED rated ‘outstanding’ schools that serve low participation

communities we have developed a Partner School Programme which places multiple PhD students to work

with pupils at Key Stages 2 to 5. Up to eight PhD students are placed in a Partner School over the course of an

academic year, with placements aligned at specific times in the calendar to ensure a clear pathway for

progression. We believe that working closely with schools to embed our programmes over the long-term is the

most effective way to increase the number of pupils from low participation schools who progress to highly

selective universities. We also find that this is a productive way to build lasting, meaningful links between

schools and universities that are underpinned by a commitment to widening participation and sharing of best

practice. We currently ask schools to contribute £150 per pupil on an individual scholars programmes and

typically work with up to 24 pupils at each Key Stage. The Secretary of State for Education has stated that

schools should feel confident in putting Pupil Premium funding towards the cost of the programme and it is a

good allocation of resources.

School year overview

September - December January – April April - July

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Y8 PhD Placements Tutorials 2-5

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Supervised Study

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Supervised Study

Once a week 4 Sessions

Primary & Transition

Programmes

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Y6/7 essay

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Working With Universities, Widening Participation:

The Brilliant Club works in collaboration with a growing number of universities to deliver widening

participation activities, including the University of Cambridge, the University of Oxford, the University of

Sussex and the University of Warwick. These universities support our in-school provision by hosting our launch

and/or graduation trips, which are always a highlight of the programme for pupils, but are also a great

opportunity for universities to promote their courses and opportunities. The numbers for trips currently range

from 70-200 pupils (depending on the capacity of the universities) and as we expand our provision with

schools we hope to broaden the range of universities we partner with to host trips and deliver outreach

activities. Indeed, we are already being approached by several highly-selective universities who are interested

in working with us. Our Partner Universities also support the design and delivery of our information, advice

and guidance programme that supports our in School PhD placements. For example, we have recently run

UCAS and Careers conferences, as well as produced a SOW for teachers to deliver around securing a place at a

highly-selective university.

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Researcher Development Programme

Whilst we do recruit PhD students to deliver standalone Expert Learners programmes, we believe that the

benefits for pupils and tutors are far greater when tutors commit to delivering a series of programmes that are

accompanied by a training and support programme that builds upon their accumulated experience across all

age groups. We offer a one-year Researcher Development Programme, which requires the following of PhD

tutors: (i) deliver a ready-made programme at either Key Stage 2 or 3 during autumn, (ii) a second programme

(this can be ready-made or tutor designed) at Key Stage 4 during spring, and (iii) complete the year by

designing and delivering a programme based on their own research project to Key Stage 5 pupils in summer. In

addition to this, we run a Knowledge Transfer Project which coincides with a ‘Best Practice Sharing’ event (held

in the summer) to promote tutor reflection, peer-review and the opportunity for tutors to engage with

teachers and ambassadors from other educational organisations.

Year 1 September – December January - April April – July

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Training

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Working with Universities, Researcher Development:

The Brilliant Club has worked closely with the Graduate School at King’s College, London to develop the one-

year programme, which gives PhD students the chance to engage and communicate with low participation

communities through a high-quality training and support programme that develops teaching, professional and

leadership skills. In order to create a sector-leading programme within three years, we aim to work in

partnership with universities to refine our existing training and support, and to expand the range of

opportunities that we offer to tutors. In the long-run, we hope that this will attract applications from a large

number of outstanding PhD students, driving the growth of a movement to mobilise the postgraduate

researchers to engage with low participation schools.

PhD students delivering standalone Expert Learners programmes will take part in two half-day training

sessions that focus on introductory educational theory and aspects of pedagogy and classroom management,

as well as an induction to the context of low participation schools and working as a professional in the school

environment. Tutors on the Researcher Development Programme begin by taking part in the same two initial

sessions, but the following sessions will ask them to draw upon their accumulated experience in order to

develop their skills, including more advanced aspects of teaching including planning, questioning, assessment

and self-reflection.

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Impact analysis

Our pilot programmes showed a significant impact on student attainment. For example, over the course of one

Key Stage 4 Expert Learners programme, the number of pupils working towards 5 A*-A grades in their subjects

increased from 3/19 at the start to 13/19 at the end. From this group two pupils went on to secure places at

Oxbridge and in total 14 went on to Russell Group universities. Now we are working with over 3500 high-

performing pupils aged 10 -18 it is imperative that we take a long-term approach in our efforts to address a

deeply engrained social issue, and it will take years for a clear picture of the impact that our programmes have

on pupil outcomes to become apparent. This is particularly true of pupils who participate in The Brilliant Club

across more than one Key Stage before applying to university, with Key Stage 2 pupils who we work with not

finishing their A-Levels until 2019.

Nonetheless, we are putting in place a rigorous process of quantitative and qualitative analysis in order to measure our impact on pupil performance. In doing so we are receiving support from The Sutton Trust and Vera Solutions, who are ensuring that our analysis is well conceived and well executed, and are implementing a Salesforce system to record contextual data and track pupil progression. We are tracking all pupil baseline data and comparing it to their performance before, during and after our programmes to measure for improvement. Further, the table below illustrates the type of qualitative data that we collect. This particular survey of over 100 pupils is designed to assess whether pupils are developing the skills (BA01-05), confidence (BA06-10) and ambition (BA11-15) that help secure places at highly selective:

Further, we continue to receive positive feedback from pupils, teachers and PhD tutors. Most of our growth is

organic and driven by Head Teacher to Head Teacher recommendation. For example, according to Carly

Mitchell, a Head Teacher we work with:

“The Brilliant Club has helped develop in our pupils a thirst and a desire to graduate from top universities,

including Oxford and Cambridge. The project has acted as the beginning of their journey to this success and has

made our young people believe it is possible. There is a sense of pride and raised self-esteem amongst them,

which has correlated directly with their attainment at GCSE level.”

Sample Data Report, Summer 2012

Q-ID Question: Before After Change

BA01 I am able to carry out independent research and use it to support my written work. 2.67 3.88 1.21

BA02 I am able to understand and think critically about challenging material. 3.43 4.19 0.76

BA03 I am able to verbally communicate my ideas in an effective way. 3.71 4.38 0.67

BA04 I am able to complete extended essays to a university standard. 3.29 4.29 1.00

BA05 I am able to work independently to meet deadlines on time. 4.62 5.00 0.38

BA06 I feel confident expressing myself verbally amongst my peers. 3.33 4.24 0.90

BA07 I feel confident discussing my ideas with a university teacher. 3.57 4.24 0.67

BA08 I feel confident discussing my ideas in writing. 3.62 4.57 0.95

BA09 I feel confident that I have the ability to go on and study at university 3.95 4.67 0.71

BA10 I feel confident that I have the ability to go on and study at a top 30 university 2.76 4.14 1.38

BA11 I see how The Brilliant Club will help me to improve my performance in class. 4.10 4.76 0.67

BA12 I know the steps I need to take to improve as a learner. 3.57 4.52 0.95

BA13 I plan to take the steps necessary to improve as a learner. 3.76 4.38 0.62

BA14 I plan to go on and study at university. 4.29 4.86 0.57

BA15 I plan to go on and study at a top 30 university. 3.86 4.67 0.81

A01 This programme has been an enjoyable experience for me overall.

4.48

A02 This programme has provided a challenge that goes beyond normal lessons.

4.81

A03 This programme has made me work harder than I normally do.

4.43

A04 This programme has changed my opinion about what excellent learning is.

4.29

A05 This programme has made me feel more motivated to succees in my studies.

4.48

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Who we are

The Brilliant Club is a non-profit organisation that is a registered charity and a Company Limited by Guarantee. Our outstanding Board of Trustees is chaired by Dame Sue John, Head Teacher at Lampton School, Hounslow and a non-executive Director at The Department for Education. She is supported by her senior management team: Vice-Chair: Adrian Percival, CEO Haberdashers’ Aske’s Federation Secretary: Mathew Hood, North East Regional Director of Teach First Director: James Turner, Director at The Sutton Trust Director: Russell Hobby, General Secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers Director: Ben Williams, Manager in Transaction Services, KPMG Director: Sally Boyle, Managing Director, Goldman Sachs Founder and CEO: Jonny Sobczyk, Teach First Ambassador Founder and COO: Simon Coyle, Teach First Ambassador Jonny and Simon, who were both graded as outstanding teachers as part of their training on the Teach First

graduate scheme, left their roles working for educational charities to set up The Brilliant Club and pursue their

vision of an education system where young people from disadvantaged backgrounds are proportionately

represented at highly selective universities. They employ five other members of staff full time in their central

office and will be recruiting for four more over the next six months.

Contact Details:

Postal Address:

The Brilliant Club

4 More London Riverside

SE1 2AU

Telephone:

0203 117 1986

E-mail:

hello@thebrilliantclub.org

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Carly Mitchell Principal, Oasis Academy South Bank

The Brilliant Club has helped develop in our students a desire to graduate

from a top university. It has acted as the beginning of their journey to this success and has made our young

people believe it is possible.

Yr 12 student

You should offer The Brilliant Club to as many people as you can – it can really change someone’s

outlook on life.

Babak Somekh

PhD Candidate, Oxford University

The Brilliant Club is an excellent programme that has the potential to transform the UK education system.

I have enjoyed my experience tutoring and am proud to be associated with

such a worthwhile cause.

Yr 9 student

You shouldn’t change the fact that you let us think for ourselves.

Michael Gove MP

Secretary of State for Education

Placing PhD students into challenging schools is a great way to raise aspiration and attainment. The pupil premium was

introduced to ensure that targeted programmes like The Brilliant Club are made available to the students

who deserve them most.

Brett Wigdortz CEO, Teach First

By building a movement to mobilise the postgraduate community and engage them

with challenging schools, The Brilliant Club is already improving access to top universities.

More than this, they are taking real steps towards a cultural shift in this country’s

education system that helps address educational disadvantage by bridging

the gap between school and university.

Testimonies?

Lord Adonis

Director, The Institute for Government

The Brilliant Club does a simple but profoundly important thing. It enables some of our best young

university researchers to apply their skills in schools. Nothing does more to encourage teenagers to go on

to university than seeing dynamic university researchers and teachers in action.

The Brilliant Club makes that possible.

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www.thebrilliantclub.org