How Seren is inspiring pupils to aim high
A-LEVEL students in Wales are thinking more ambitiously in their university choices, but it’s too early to say how successful a programme to encourage more to apply to top institutions has been, a new report finds.
The Seren Network was launched in 2015 after concern over comparatively small numbers of applications to Oxbridge from Wales.
Over the last two years 11 Seren hubs have been set up across Wales to support the academically brightest A-level students to apply to leading UK universities.
Each hub received £50k from the Welsh Government for their initial two-year work period.
The first report into the scheme, commissioned by the Welsh Government, says it has encouraged students to aim high and helped them with applications, but it is too early for concrete conclusions owing to lack of data.
The evaluation makes 15 recommendations including better data to show destinations of participants and extending the programme to younger pupils before GCSEs.
It says falling numbers of students from Wales applying to study medicine may mean targeting subject areas should be considered and found a clear “rationale” for targeted intervention to encourage Welsh domiciled students to apply to Oxbridge.
“Very little data was available to evidence the difference made by the Seren Network upon the number of students applying to higher tariff universities due to the fact that 2017-18 represents the first full year of delivery and the absence of any robust counterfactual data,” the document says.
“Participants were of the view that the Seren initiative had been able to make the greatest difference to them in terms of getting them to think more ambitiously about their university choices and raising their aspirations.
“The majority of surveyed participants also thought that their involvement with the Seren Network would help them prepare a stronger application to universities.”
Across Wales more than 2,000 students took part in the Seren Network in 2016-17 with numbers of participants at the hub level ranging from around 100 to nearly 300 students.
In 2015/16, 702 Welsh domiciled students applied to study at Oxbridge and 143 accepted a place. The report says “there is a clear rationale for intervention targeted at increasing the number of Welsh domiciled students applying to, and securing, a study place at an Oxbridge institution given Wales’ historical under performance compared to other UK regions.”
Latest figures from university admissions body Ucas data shows a 6% increase in the number of Welsh domiciled students applying for courses with an October 2017 deadline - which would include most medicine/dentistry and veterinary courses as well as to Oxford and Cambridge. That increase is in line with a similar increase at UK level.
The report says there may be less rationale for work to support students into other top universities given that three-quarters of top achieving Welsh domiciled students already enrol at a Russell Group university.
“The historical downward trend in the number of Welsh domiciled applicants studying for medicine would suggest that there may be a need for targeted intervention to support students applying for specific, competitive university degree places,” the document adds.
Seren students said among the most useful aspects of the programme were guest speakers, being made aware of the need to read around their A-level subjects and encouragement to be ambitious in their choices.
Universities involved were also positive.
Dr Matthew Williams, access and career development fellow at Jesus College, Oxford, which has supported the scheme, said: “Seren is a fantastic network. It has been of enormous benefit to its participants, as well as being invaluable to academics like me who want to meet the brightest and best from across Wales.
“Without the expertise and help of Seren, we would never have made as many meaningful connections with Welsh students.”
Stephen Parry Jones, Rhondda Cynon Taf Seren Hub co-ordinator and steering group chair, said: “The increased confidence and ambition among Welsh students highlighted in the report are really pleasing.”
Sixth form student Lowri Morgan, from Abercynon, who recently received an offer to study at Oxford and is part of the RCT/Merthyr Seren hub, said: “Without these opportunities through Seren, and the help from my head of sixth-form, I would have been completely in the dark.
“I wouldn’t have had the confidence that I had going into that interview.”
The Seren evaluation made 15 recommendations including targeting students before GCSEs at Key stages three and four and better collection and sharing of data,
It said more data is needed on the overall destinations of participants.
Education Secretary Kirsty Williams, said: “I welcome the evaluation report – the progress and achievements it highlights as well as the challenges it poses.
“At the outset it is important to recognise that the Seren Network has only been operating on a fully national basis since November 2016 and the 2017/18 is the first full academic year where a cohort of participants from across Wales is fully supported from the beginning of year 12.
“I wish to commend the partners who come together in the Seren Network for what has been achieved in such a short period of time.