New project: Office for Students’ Equality in Higher Education Innovation Fund

13 Feb 2025

The Brilliant Club has been successful in its bid to the Office for Students’ Equality in Higher Education Innovation Fund. Over the next two years, in partnership with the University of Sheffield, London Academy of Excellence Tottenham (LAET), and Frontline, the charity will deliver an innovative project focused on what works for supporting children on a child protection plan on their educational journeys.

The project aims to draw sector focus to an under-served student community with some of the lowest school attainment and HE progression outcomes, and almost entirely absent from access interventions and contextual admissions processes. Our collaboration combines the work of a HEP with extensive expertise working with care-experienced young people, with two third sector organisations, The Brilliant Club, bringing expertise on attainment and university self-efficacy, and Frontline bringing deep understanding of social care and supporting affected young people. The inclusion of LAET (and its feeder secondaries) within this project is illustrative of the power of higher education providers actively listening to the needs identified by schools in supporting equality of access for all children and young people.

• The initial phase of the project will focus on capturing stakeholder voice, in consultation with social workers, teachers, and former LAET students with lived experience of education while on a child protection plan. This phase will culminate in a short report to be shared with the sector, and a half-day in-person symposium, hosted at the University of Sheffield
• Insights from this phase will be used to shape the design of both the intervention and the evaluation. The proposed format for the intervention includes:
  • an on-campus launch and graduation, where students receive tailored IAG and experience university life
  • tutorials with inspirational PhD researchers to study a ‘Big Question’, including practical activities for academic skill development
  • a short baseline assignment for benchmarking, followed by a final written assignment to showcase their learning
  • an audio-recorded discussion of the ‘Big Question’, considering the academic perspectives they have explored. Students’ audio clips will be edited together and played across different venues on campus during their graduation event, allowing students to hear the impact of their voices in a university space
  • three small-group coaching sessions with expert coaches from Frontline, experienced in working specifically within the social care sector, to support them to reflect on their journeys and consider next steps.
• In Summer 2026, after the first year of intervention delivery, all partners will reflect on the project so far, and then share honest reflections and learnings in a “lessons learned” webinar in the Autumn
• In Summer 2027, after the second year of delivery, the University of Sheffield will host a “what works” conference, bringing together key stakeholders, policymakers and sector decision makers to discuss the impact of the project, and the next steps for the sector.

The project is dual-sited, to allow us to explore the issues affecting children on a child protection plan in South Yorkshire and in North London, to ensure the insights and recommendations gathered from the project are of maximum utility to the sector.

The objectives for the young people participating are based around intermediate outcomes: increased academic self-efficacy; cognitive study strategies; and enhanced sense of belonging in higher education. Longer term outcomes, such as university progression, will fall outside the lifespan of this project, but will be monitored using HEAT.

Responding to the successful bid, Interim CEO of The Brilliant Club, Susie Whigham, said: “The Brilliant Club are delighted to have the opportunity to work with children on a child protection plan, with the support of the Office for Students’ Equality in Higher Education Innovation Fund. Government data shows that children on a child protection plan are accessing higher education in vanishingly small numbers, lower even than young people with experience of care. The collaboration we have built with the University of Sheffield, Frontline and London Academy of Excellence Tottenham will allow us to combine our varied expertise and to develop a nuanced programme of intervention with young people’s experience at the heart.”