Ipsos | Uni Connect Phase 3 : Attainment-raising Activity – Final Report
45 pastoral roles ) helped manage these issues . In many cases , this involved school staff who had previously supported Uni Connect activities , but the new focus on attainment-raising also required input from different staff members that sometimes resulted in capacity challenges . Overall , there appeared to be an important link between schools investing resource and understanding the value of activities . Partnerships and schools have gained a better understanding of the resourcing requirements from schools , which will be important to communicate to new schools .
Schools were seen as best-placed to select learners though there is scope to refine how learners are identified . In most cases , schools identified learners for participation based on criteria provided by partnerships . This recognised that schools were best-placed given their knowledge of learners and their circumstances and provided them with a degree of autonomy . However , it was clear that eligibility criteria were not always used consistently and activities might not be reaching those who could most benefit .
HEPs were less likely to be involved in attainment-raising activities relative to wider Uni Connect activities . Partnerships attributed less engagement among HEPs to the mismatch in timeframes and requirements for Access and Participation Plans . Now that HEPs will have a greater focus on attainmentraising , partnerships should leverage more opportunities for collaboration , including sharing their lessons learned so far .
It was too early to say how these activities will impact attainment . School staff felt that learners were showing improvements in confidence , engagement , motivation / ambition and the development of new skills . While they felt these were positive short-term indicators , for many it was unclear whether and how much they would impact attainment over time and how this might vary across learners . More generally , the nature and quality of evaluation activities may preclude robust estimates of causal impact , for example , due to the lack of comparator groups and small sample sizes . Some Uni Connect partnerships have invested heavily in evaluation resource ( e . g . hiring dedicated staff members ) and have detailed approaches for evaluation , but this is not consistent across partnerships .
The absence of multi-year funding and funding reductions that were announced during the fieldwork period creates instability for partnerships and results in delivery challenges . For example , attainment-raising activities require considerable planning and timetabling discussions with schools . As a result , many activities did not take place in the autumn term . Equally , some partnerships expressed a desire to create longer-term programmes for learners to attend over more than one year , but funding made planning these programmes higher risk for partnerships and schools . Another core challenge is around staff retention .
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