First catch your teenager

Blackpool sixth-form college student Alexander Gallagher

Blackpool sixth-form college student Alexander Gallagher decided to apply to do medicine at Oxford after attending a summer school there Photograph: Christopher Thomond

Going to a university summer school can change a young person's life. After experiencing the reality of higher education and seeing what students get up to outside of lectures, pupils teetering on the edge of a degree course are often encouraged to apply.

Before he went on a week-long residential last summer, "it was either uni or a commission in the armed forces", says Alexander Gallagher, 18, from Blackpool sixth-form college. None of his family has studied at university. Living as a student for a week, he says, "made a big difference, especially coming from Blackpool, where you don't hear of many going to the big universities, and do hear stories about elitism".

Gallagher now has an offer to read medicine at Oxford. After meeting tutors and students, and getting excited about the prospect of studying there, he says: "I felt much more comfortable with my decision, that it was something I wanted to do."

If nobody in your family has been to university, it can be hard to envisage getting a degree. Never mind being nervous about turning up for freshers' week - you may not even know what freshers' week is. Nor are the debts students rack up a great incentive for pupils whose parents can't testify from their own experience to the benefits of higher education. And misconceptions about "the kind of person" who goes to university still abound.

For pupils who have the potential to go on to further study but whose backgrounds make that journey precarious, universities run a variety of residential and non-residential summer schools. Pupils from years 9 to 12 get the chance to explore subjects such as music and drama, law, engineering, politics and philosophy, and maths and science. These summer schools provide opportunities that middle-class parents can buy for their children, but poorer parents cannot afford. Between 2008 and 2010, the Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce) is funding summer schools to the tune of £5m, and for underprivileged young people in its target group, they are free.

Why, then, are universities finding it so hard to fill the places?

Part of the problem is getting schools to appreciate the value of what's on offer and refer the right pupils. Summer school invitations seem frequently to get lost amid the literature that swamps teachers. "We're bombarded with information and it's difficult to sift out what will be good," says Helen Churchill, a music teacher at Robert Clack school in Dagenham. Despite this, she referred five pupils on to the City University music summer school last year and says they "absolutely loved it".

The pressures on schools whose catchments take in large numbers of disadvantaged families are so great, says Elly Hobson, the London School of Economics' widening participation manager, that teachers can't be held to blame for allowing these opportunities to slip through the cracks.

Engaging teachers and students

"The schools we target have many complex problems and are sometimes struggling simply to teach, never mind juggle resources, meet government requirements and assist students with complicated family lives or learning requirements," she says. "These may be the very students and teachers you need to reach, but it is often nigh on impossible to engage them."

Even for science and engineering summer schools, it has always been difficult to recruit boys, says Jean Baxter, head of school and college services at Leicester University. And, in the schools she wants to target most, students from poorer and more disadvantaged backgrounds are "more likely to have jobs or family caring responsibilities, creating more barriers".

Child protection concerns mean some local authorities have recently required any residential summer school to be deemed a school trip so that teachers accompany pupils, despite stringent safeguarding measures taken by host universities. Unsurprisingly, most teachers will not give up their holiday time, so at least one university has cancelled its summer schools planned for this August, and is awaiting news on whether its local authority will relent for future sessions.

The application process creates another hurdle. To prevent children from well-resourced families taking up valuable summer-school places, Hefce demands universities submit comprehensive information on each applicant's family background. The level of detail required makes the application forms "quite complicated", says Sarah Corley, widening participation co-ordinator at City University. "We do get to full numbers, but it's a lot of work."

Stuart Ormson, head of student support at Blackpool sixth-form college, who has referred many pupils in recent years, agrees: "Applications are quite involved, and often there's not much parental back-up."

Intimidating process

As well as factual information, supporting statements from students, their parents and the referring teacher are requested. For a child whose family is unfamiliar with this type of application, the process may feel so intimidating that it keeps being put off and the closing date slips by. Responsibility for support, chivvying and checking up on the progress of applications then lands on the teacher's shoulders, and this takes up a lot of time.

The University of Central Lancashire (Uclan) had 100 places on its Hefce match-funded summer schools to fill this academic year. Recognising the barriers inherent in the application process, senior external liaison officer Nicola Rostron took action to help pupils get their forms in.

"We run events for year 12s throughout the year, so we looked at the data they generated and contacted our target group for summer schools directly, at home - to take the pressure away from the school," she says. "Once we had engaged with a student, we continued to liaise with them directly." This involved setting up workshops in school or college time so pupils could ask questions, offering drop-in sessions in schools at lunchtime to give pupils support with their applications, and setting up a call centre. "We'd call them in the evenings to ask if they had any queries and if they'd filled in the form. It was for parents, too, as they have to fill in a section," says Rostron. Students could also email the widening participation office directly to get help.

Her system seems to be working: 77 out of 100 places are now filled, and her small team is cracking on with the final push.

Nobody has any doubt that pupils who attend summer school sessions gain enormously in confidence and motivation. In Blackpool, Ormson says he has good evidence that the results gained by the cohorts he refers are a marked improvement on their predicted grades.

But if Hefce's hope that 27,000 pupils from the poorest and most educationally disadvantaged groups attend a summer school between 2008 and 2010 is to be realised, more innovative support mechanisms, such as those introduced by Uclan, may need to kick in - and fast.
16/07/2009