Why become a Linacre Partner School?
Young people now have a wide range of opportunities after GCSEs including A-levels at sixth form or other technical or apprenticeship courses. What A-level students do after sixth-form is under more scrutiny than ever before in what is a highly competitive market.
Ofsted make it clear that they will be examining “information about the destinations of those leaving the sixth form, to check the extent to which provision meets the needs of all groups of students”.
In a separate report, Ofsted say they are looking especially closely at:
- Why there is such disparity in admissions to Russell Group universities between a small number of mainly independent schools and the majority of comprehensive schools
- The quality of careers advice and its impact on A-level students, particularly in terms of their successful application to top universities
- Whether students receive good advice and support on how to complete their UCAS forms/personal statements
- Whether the most able students from disadvantaged backgrounds are as likely as the most able students from more affluent families to progress to top universities, and if not why?
How can Linacre help?
Linacre is uniquely positioned to help schools succeed in meeting the aspirations of A-level students that want to progress to higher education. Many of these students may not even know that they have the potential or the opportunity to win places at the UK’s leading universities, but by working in partnership with the schools, we can help them achieve that goal.
Many of staff and our academic and industry experts have all walked the path from state comprehensives to world-class universities themselves, and know the balance of reassurance and challenge needed to help others follow.
And we have a proven programme with an outstanding record of success.
- Wales High School saw the percentage of their sixth-formers reaching highly selective (Sutton Trust 30) universities almost double in their first year of working with us.
- Hall Cross in Doncaster have called our support “transformational both in terms of the attitude and attainment of our most able students, including grade outcomes as well as destinations”.
What Partner Schools provides
There are many benefits from becoming a Linacre Partner School including:-
- Access to places on the hugely successful Reach Higher Programme. This is our flagship programme and so far more than 9 out of 10 students have won offers from at least one of our 12 most selective universities including Oxbridge
- First-class advice and support (“beyond outstanding” – Hall Cross Academy) for both staff and students
- An inspirational presentation to students, which frequently results in over 85% of students being ‘more likely’ or ‘very much more likely’ to apply to highly competitive universities
- An annual CPD day for teachers at Partner Schools (“there has been a sea-change in the attitude of staff to highly selective universities” – Wales High School)
- Presentations and exhibition stands at open evenings to help you with Sixth Form student recruitment
- Access to a growing bank of resources that have helped us achieve unique success with Oxbridge applications
Costs to Partner Schools
The Linacre Institute is a registered charity and is dependent on raising funds to deliver our charitable activities from a wide range of sources including personal donors, grants from trusts and foundations and corporate sponsorship.
We do also need to make a small charge to schools which represents about half of the direct cost per student of delivering the programme. This is predominately used to provide intensive and highly personalised teaching and mentoring, but it also covers safeguarding and travel costs, and educational and cultural visits
The current (2022) charge to Partner Schools is £500 per student.
Please be assured that the charity is committed to keeping the charges to schools as low as possible and are confident that we offer excellent value for money.
Application
If you are interested, please contact Dr Matthew John, our Programmes Director partnerschools@linacreinstitute.org to arrange an initial meeting.
Ideally, it would be helpful if at some point you could provide the following information:
- basic information on the Sixth Form including size, areas and feeder schools you tend to draw students from
- brief overview of university destinations of your students over the past two years
- summary of Oxbridge and Russell Group success rates in previous years
- the proportion of Sixth Form students eligible for free school meals at some point in their school career, and the proportion of students in each Polar 3 quintile
- an estimate of the range of GCSE results of Sixth Formers and the number with very good results (4A*+)
- how many Y13s usually achieve AAA or higher at A level.
This information is not essential for your first conversation with Matthew but it would help to assess the benefit of becoming a Partner School.