WELLBEING
6.5 % Apprenticeship 2.2 % Other
91.3 % University
Seeking to measure flourishing : a case-study from the Kent Academies Network
Isla Phillips-Ewen , Director of Kent Academies Network , Sevenoaks School
The Kent Academies Network
The Kent Academies Network ( KAN ) is a four-year university access programme that seeks to remove barriers to Higher Education by improving student confidence , knowledge , and agency . Fifty-one students from our first six Cohorts ( 2013-18 ) have completed KAN . We know the destinations for forty-six of our alumni and out of those forty-five received places for university degrees or degree apprenticeships . The percentage of ninety-eight percent of alumni progressing to a degree or degree apprenticeship is a meaningful topline measure of KAN ’ s impact . For context , all the KAN schools ( Knole Academy , The Marsh Academy , Skinners Kent Academy , Oasis Academy Isle of Sheppey , and The John Wallis Academy ) are all in areas of significant deprivation ( Ministry of Housing , Communities and Local Government , 2019 ) and low-participation in Higher Education ( Office for Students , 2019 ).
“ Although I have decided not to go down the direct route of university , I wouldn ’ t have been able to make this decision without the opportunities KAN has provided . I have grown so much as person throughout the program , the most obvious being my confidence . It has really pushed me out of my comfort zone and this has made all the difference in my personal life . I have attended three interviews for degree apprenticeships and have been offered all them since – something I never would ’ ve imagined had it not been for KAN .”
( KAN student , July 2023 Graduation event )
Measuring confidence , knowledge and agency
Despite our headline figure of ninety-eight percent , last year , I wrote a piece in Innovate ( fourth edition , October 2022 ) exploring some of the challenges of trying to measure KAN ’ s impact on a deeper level . This is a followup to that article , reporting on the results from baseline data and the first surveys from the four-year journey of our 2022 Cohort ( who began KAN at the end of Year Nine in 2022 ). Each year KAN entails two residential events , two meet-up days , three online mentoring sessions and a summer project . At this point , therefore , the 2022 Cohort have had at least seventy-five hours of contact time with their peer group and mentors at KAN events . To delve deeper into our impact , we wanted to assess how KAN improves confidence , knowledge , and agency . Improving these three areas for students are how we think the KAN programme holistically removes barriers to Higher Education overall . Last year , we began to regularly use two surveys to try to do this . They were both based on questions that we already regularly ask students ; however , we were able to collect baseline data for the 2022 cohort . This means that over their four-year participation in KAN we can meaningfully compare how these students felt from start to finish .
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