School-University Partnerships within the North East

This research project uses a mixed methods approach to investigate the effect of school-university
partnerships (SUPs) on progression rates to university within the North East. Building on the findings of
my Master's thesis, which explored perceptions of progression to Higher Education (HE) in a school with
low rates of HE participation, this project considers a range of factors that might influence the nature and
scope of SUPs. Universities are increasingly held accountable for widening participation (WP) by their
Access Agreements, agreed and monitored by the Office for Fair Access (OFFA). In contrast, schools
experience different forms of accountability, defined by Ofsted and GCSE attainment. Schools are, in
effect, gatekeepers who control access to pupils but accountability measures for progression are focused
within universities. The need to demonstrate the impact of WP is both time pressured and highly
significant to the current policy landscape. The autonomous nature of university WP, previously relatively
weak accountability measures and a lack of robust research and evaluation into 'what works' has led to
diverse approaches and had significant influence on SUPs. From a policy perspective, understanding the
challenges facing schools and universities, best practice and systematic approaches is crucial to
examining the impact of spending of over eight hundred million pounds per year on WP and whether
governmental social mobility policy is being enacted through this medium (OFFA, 2018). My research
contributes to academic debates in Education regarding 'performativity'; a culture of judgement used for
control, from a specifically WP perspective (Ball, 2003).