AC24 Rosa Smith The Brilliant Club: Impacting institutional research culture and civic engagement.pdf

Rosa Smith, Director of Tutor Engagement
Dr Katrina Roberts, Head of Tutor Engagement
DrMadison Kerr,Programmes Evaluation Manager

The Brilliant Club: Impacting institutional research culture and civic engagement

1. The Brilliant Club: Impacting
institutional research culture and
civic engagement
Rosa Smith, Director of Tutor Engagement
Dr Katrina Roberts, Head of Tutor Engagement
DrMadison Kerr,Programmes Evaluation Manager

2. Who are The Brilliant Club?
•We are an education charity, mobilising the PhD community
to become experts in supporting less advantaged students
to access and succeed at university.
•We work with over 400 PGRs/ PhD graduates each year, who
support over 16,000 school students across our programmes.
•We partner with over 50 universities and DTPs nationally to
deliver our programmes.
•Our PhD community bring their academic expertise into
nonselective state schools, gaining valuable skills and
experience in teaching and public engagement.

4. What’s in it for researchers?
Valuable
Training
Opportunities
Inter-sector
mobility/ skill
development
Fair pay and
professional
experience
“Each session has been a journey of discovery, not only for the students but for myself as well”
Celestina Atom, Teesside University

5. Tutor Journey

6. What do our tutors think?
“The public speaking and
pedagogical skills I developed
through the Programme will benefit
my academic career and the
personal confidence I gained will
be beneficial when applying myself
to new challenges in future”
Scholars Programme Tutor

7. Our approach to Researcher Development

8. Supporting researchers with teaching
Main findings: Most tutors believe their teaching and pedagogy has improved following
the programme, across all areas of pedagogy, including lesson planning, providing
feedbackand supporting learners' progress.
Sample size ~1100 PhD tutors from 2019 onwards

9. Supporting researchers with public engagement
Main findings: 90% of tutors feel more confident in being able to explain research to
non-specialist audiences and 87% that the programme has provided them with public
engagement opportunities.
Sample size ~1100 PhD tutors from 2019 onwards

10. Supporting researchers with career management
Main findings: 89% of tutors view working in The Scholars Programme as being important
to their professional development.94% of tutors feel confident they could use their
experience as a Scholars Programme tutor in future job applications.
Sample size ~1100 PhD tutors from 2019 onwards

11. Supporting researchers with equality and diversity
Main findings: 87% of tutors feel confident in creating learning environments that support
students from all backgrounds and 81% of tutors feel that they have a better
understanding of inequalities in the educational system.
Sample size ~1100 PhD tutors from 2019 onwards

12. Back to our mission & impact

13. TSP: Evaluation of Assessments
•On average –
1 overall
grade
increase
•Across all
measures
students
progressed
between 25%
and 28%

14. TSP: Evaluation of surveys

15. TSP Evaluations:
Impact on GCSEs
(New research)

16. Accessing GCSE attainment data
•As a member of the Higher Education Access Tracker
(HEAT), we can evaluate the impact of The Scholars
Programme on GCSEs through accessing data from the
National Pupil Database (NPD).
•Our latest data from HEAT shows the percentage of
students who achieve a 9-5 in maths and English for
participants in The Scholars Programme and students in
relevant Local Authorities.
•We have used this data to understand whether
participation in The Scholars Programme has a positive
impact on GCSE attainment.

17. Key findings
The analysis shows a positive
relationship between
participation in The Scholars
Programme and GCSE
results, with the largest
improvements for mid-prior
attainers, when compared
to similar students not
participating in the
programme.

18. TSP Evaluations:
UCAS Evaluation

19. Year 12 students who complete TSP are statistically
significantly more likely to apply to a competitive university
than students from similar backgrounds, andas a result they
also progress at a higher rate.
This UCAS evaluation was impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic – caution should
be taken when generalising the findings outside of this context.

20. Key Takeaways on Impact
•Cohort of PhD researchers developing inclusive teaching
practices and engaging with fair access/EDI.
•Providing opportunities for researchers to see their own impact
on society.
•Scholars Programme tutors are having an impact on individual
pupils – improving their tangible skills and GCSE scores.
•Tutors are contributing to address the access gap for less
advantaged pupils going to university.
•Potential to increase diversity at PGR level long term, as these
students will hopefully be part of the pipeline to PGR.

21. University
Civic
Engagement
Support
future PGR
Equality,
Diversity &
Inclusion
Detailed
evaluation
and impact
data
Benefits of partnership with us…

22. thebrilliantclub.org