Sheila Weeden, London Borough of Newham - London Borough of Newham and UEL case study

London Borough of Newham & UEL: a case study of collaboration

Sheila Weeden

LB Newham

Slide 2

Newham in context

• Large local authority in east London with a population of over 310,000

• 3rd most deprived local authority in England (IMD 2010)

• Highest birth rate in the UK & youngest population in the UK

• This impacts on education system and future education planning

• Most ethnically diverse population in the UK (36% Asian, 35% White, 25% Black or Black British)

• High percentage of residents with no or low-level qualifications

• Highest unemployment in London (12%) UK 7.7%, and high youth unemployment.

• 13,700 people unemployed, 970 vacancies

Education and skills are key drivers of socio-economic

change and employment in

Newham

Slide 3

Focus on employment and skills

The employment centres for Newham residents are the geographic area westwards into Central London, The City of London and Canary Wharf financial and business hub.

New opportunities in the borough provided by the Olympic legacy, Westfield Shopping Centre, and other regeneration projects

We need to ensure that young people in our local area have the right skills at the right level to successfully compete for jobs – particularly the higher level jobs being created in Newham and in London

Slide 4

Policy imperative

• We needed evidence and factual information about our young people achieving higher-level qualifications to inform policy and planning

• A high percentage of our young people study outside of Newham at age 16, so we did not know anything about the outcomes of their 16-18 and higher education

• It was important to us to understand the progression of our young people to higher education, and their post-study destinations and employment

• We wanted to know whether our young residents progressed to selective universities or not and whether our young graduates get graduate jobs

The research partnership• Strong history of partnership between LB Newham and

UEL, our local university located in Newham• My background in higher and further education was

also a factor• Discussion with UEL and Continuum led to a

collaborative project using HESA data to look at the progression to Higher Education of Newham young residents, and subsequently to extending the project to look at graduate employment destinations using the DLHE

• The collaboration then extended to a pan-London research project in 2013 with London Councils

Slide 5

Slide 6

Research questions• Which universities do Newham young residents

progress to?• What type of institutions did they progress from (FE

colleges, Sixth Form Colleges, School Sixth Forms), and which ones?

• Do more of our young residents progress to HE from 16-18 institutions outside of Newham?

• What subjects do they study at university?• What degree classifications do they achieve?• How many go on to further study?• What are their post study destinations?• What industries/job roles are our

young graduates going in to?

Slide 7

Education at 16 & 18 – linking the data

• LB Newham data showed us that 60% of our top performing GCSE students studied out of borough 16-18

• The data showed that they primarily study at high-performing school sixth forms and one high performing sixth form college in adjacent boroughs

• The research enabled us to use our own data together with HESA data to plot the journey of our young residents from their secondary school, through their 16-18 and university study to their graduate employment destinations

Slide 8

Snapshot of Key Findings

• HE participation of Newham young residents had increased significantly over a seven year period

• Over 2,000 Newham young people aged 18-20 progressed to HE in 2011/12

• The highest growth was in progression to post-92 HEIs

• Over half of Newham young residents progressing to Russell Group universities progressed from school sixth forms.

• More than half of those students studied medicine or STEM subjects at university

Snapshot of Key Findings

• Overall, there has been a decrease in the numbers of Newham young residents progressing to Russell Group universities in the last four years

• However, the numbers progressing to Russell Group HEIs from school sixth forms increased by 65% over seven years, but the number progressing from sixth form colleges significantly declined

• 41% of Newham young residents from one school sixth form in a neighbouring borough progressed to a Russell Group HEI, compared to 6% of young Newham residents progressing to RG HEIs

Conclusions

• Our high achieving GCSE students from Newham schools

want a school sixth form experience at 16 that matches their needs and high aspirations

• Newham young residents are progressing to Russell Group and pre-92 HEIs – but more are progressing from school sixth forms than from sixth form colleges, and mainly from school sixth forms outside of Newham

• Most of our local sixth form colleges have lower entry criteria for A Level study than popular school sixth forms, and most A Level students in sixth form colleges locally do not study 4 A Levels, therefore they would not meet the entry criteria for many selecting HEIs

• Many of the Newham young residents would not meet the entry criteria for studying 4 A Levels, as their GCSE scores are too low

Slide 10

Slide 11

Local Policy influence

• The research represents a step change in the way that we understand the educational journey of our young people, and how each phase of education influences the outcomes at the next phase and beyond

• The other local policy change that is a direct outcome of the project is a recognition that our mainstream 16-18 provision in Newham was not catering for the needs and aspirations of our most able young people at 16.

• If we wanted to improve Newham’s A level performance, we needed to retain more of our high achieving GCSE students in Newham for their 16-18 study

Slide 12

As a result, we have been working with a group of our 11-16 schools since 2012 to develop a collaborative sixth form centre in the borough for high achieving GCSE students

Newham Collegiate Sixth Form Centre, an A Level centre, specialising in Science and Mathematics opens in September 2014

www.ncs6.org