Uni Connect: Guidance on priorities

Attainment raising

Uni Connect partnerships will deliver evidence-based collaborative approaches to raise attainment at Key Stage 3, and into and through Key Stage 4, in local state secondary schools drawing on the expertise and resources of local higher education providers.

The partnerships developed their approaches during 2022-23 ready for delivery during 2023-24.

Who is eligible?

Partnerships should undertake attainment raising with learners in Key Stage 3 and 4 in state secondary schools. That means a focus on Years 7 to 11.

For highly targeted interventions we expect partnerships to prioritise groups that are underrepresented in higher education.

Partnerships will work with their school and higher education provider partners to determine which groups to target.

Further education college students are not in scope for the programme attainment-raising element.

Partnerships will determine which schools to work with by considering:

• local school improvement priorities, for example those of the relevant Regional Schools Commissioner, local authorities, and other school-system partners including the Opportunity Area and Education Investment Area priorities if relevant
• the plans and priorities of higher education providers interested in channelling activity through the partnership
• available schools data
• economies of scale with respect to other Uni Connect activity, for example schools that are already engaged with Uni Connect targeted or strategic outreach activity
• the types of attainment-raising activity that the partnership may be able to offer and the fit with individual school requirements
• available resources.

What are our expectations of partnerships?

We expect Uni Connect partnerships to:

• engage local stakeholders, including schools, to understand their perspectives and potential future role in this work​ and work collaboratively to engage regional and national partners
• deliver evidence-based collaborative activity to raise attainment at Key Stage 3, and into and through Key Stage 4, in local state secondary schools
• work with local higher education providers to secure expertise and resources (including staff, materials and funding) to support these approaches
• take a strategic approach to identifying school partners and secure their involvement in the design, delivery and evaluation of these activities 
• begin effective and efficient delivery of these activities from September 2023
• effectively track and evaluate all activity designed to raise attainment.

The aim of activity within the attainment raising element of the programme is to improve the academic achievement (grades) of learners, to improve their opportunities to access higher education. We are aware that improved academic achievement may result from a number of factors outside of the control of Uni Connect and may occur on an extended timeline. For these reasons, we will give partnerships flexibility to determine their own success criteria for attainment raising activity, but expect partnerships to:

• identify and target appropriate intermediate outcomes that are linked by evidence to improved academic performance
• measure through evaluations the effectiveness of activity in impacting on intended intermediate outcomes
• begin to develop links between outcomes achieved and raised academic attainment of participants in the longer-term.

Support and guidance on identifying and targeting appropriate evidence-informed intermediate outcomes can be found on the TASO website. 

We expect attainment raising activity to be tightly focused on outcomes that will realistically improve learners’ academic attainment. Activity designed to deliver outcomes around learners' higher education expectations, higher education knowledge, future options, pathways or other similar outcomes do not fall under the attainment raising element of the programme.

What are our expectations of higher education providers?

We have set new priorities for the regulation of access and participation and are asking providers to refocus their access and participation plans so that they clearly set out how they will develop, enhance and expand their partnerships with schools and other local organisations to help raise the attainment of young people from underrepresented groups across England.

Uni Connect provides an effective, efficient route through which higher education providers can collaborate to deliver their attainment-raising commitments.

Examples of how higher education providers could contribute to the attainment-raising element of the programme include:

• providing funding
• providing other resources, e.g. staff or volunteer time and materials
• providing facilities or expertise to support activity
• providing management capacity to oversee parts of the offer
• using contacts with schools to help broker engagement
• inputting into the development of local Uni Connect delivery, tendering and evaluation plans
• providing the Uni Connect partnership with details of any attainment-raising activity they intend to do locally that is outside of the Uni Connect offer to support signposting and avoid duplication.

What activities can be delivered?

To support the academic progress and attainment of pupils from groups that are underrepresented in higher education the interventions that partnerships develop should support one or more of the following aims:

• upskilling and supporting existing teachers
• providing targeted academic support to learners
• tackling non-academic barriers to learning
• supporting curriculum development.

All interventions should be:

• coordinated, deliberate and aligned with local priorities
• Uni Connect-branded, potentially alongside other provider or local brands
• informed by evidence
• included in Uni Connect monitoring reports
• subject to local evaluation
• tracking their participants where appropriate
• match-funded (i.e. not only using Uni Connect programme funds).

Appropriate goals and outcome measures for attainment-raising interventions will vary depending on the age and stage of the pupils involved and the nature of the activities that are being delivered. Partnerships should work with their school and higher education provider partners to determine the intended goals and relevant outcomes measures for their planned interventions.

The following activities are out of scope:

• school sponsorship, governance and opening new schools
• initial teacher training in higher education
• teacher recruitment
• educational research.

We have published Attainment raising: A toolkit from Causeway Education to support partnerships in designing, delivering and evaluating attainment raising activities.

How will activities be resourced and funded?

As part of the Uni Connect funding allocation from the OfS, Uni Connect partnerships are expected to strategically facilitate and coordinate some attainment raising activity and determine which activities or target groups to prioritise.

We expect partnerships to broker collaborations between regional stakeholders such as higher education providers, third sector organisations and local authorities in order to bring to bear these organisation's expertise and resources.

While programme funds can be used to support the delivery of attainment-raising activity we expect partnerships to secure match funding from local partners, including higher education providers, where possible.

What do we hope to achieve?

Attainment raising within the Uni Connect programme aims to address Risk 1 in the Equality of Opportunity Risk Register: 'Students may not have equal opportunity to develop the knowledge and skills required to be accepted onto higher education courses that match their expectations and ambitions.'

Through this strand of Uni Connect, we hope to improve the academic attainment and progress of pupils that are underrepresented in higher education and therefore contribute to greater proportions of students from these groups accessing higher education.