-----Original Message-----
From: aimhigher [mailto:aimhigher@harrisoncowley.com] 
Sent: 14 October 2005 14:18
To: aimhigher
Subject: Aimhigher Practitioner Bulletin - October 2005

Welcome to the October edition of the Aimhigher practitioner bulletin, designed to provide all those working for Aimhigher with relevant programme news and details of national resources.

If you have comments or suggestions on the content of the practitioner bulletin or website, or any other communications enquiries, please contact the National Communications Resource Team (NCRT) on 0117 929 7096 or email aimhigher@harrisoncowley.com.

Future of Aimhigher 2006-08
Funding arrangements for the Aimhigher programme from August 2006 were announced earlier this week.

Under the new arrangements, Aimhigher partnerships will determine how to allocate funds to partners according to their agreed priorities. This means that Aimhigher partnerships will have responsibility for agreeing the levels of funding allocated to each school, college, higher education institution or other provider involved in the delivery of their new partnership plans from August 2006. 

The new arrangements take into account the responses both to the consultation on new schools funding arrangements and to the Aimhigher consultation. Ministers have agreed that these arrangements provide most scope for building partnership work and address the concerns raised. In particular, they ensure that partnerships are able to support activity in schools, whether or not they had previously received Excellence Challenge funding. 

In the first two years of Aimhigher (2004-06) an amount of funding has been distributed to schools, colleges and others to meet existing commitments inherited from earlier programmes (Excellence Challenge and Partnerships for Progression). The move to the Aimhigher programme means that these commitments will finish in 2006. When funds are allocated for 2006-08, we expect partnerships to be mindful of the need to avoid disruption of existing activity as far as possible. Decisions should be made on the basis of stability, within the context of a reduced Aimhigher budget, and changes in priorities or funding follow partnership discussion and agreement. 

Funding for schools will be determined by Aimhigher Area Steering Groups (ASGs) from the overall area allocations and will be distributed by local authorities as a separate, non ring fenced grant. This will enable schools to link more closely with Aimhigher partnerships and contribute to Aimhigher plans. Accountability for Aimhigher funds rests with the school through its arrangements with the DfES, as is the case now. The DfES will encourage School Improvement Partners to support Aimhigher’s aims and objectives. 
 
Funding for other partners, including colleges, higher education institutions and others involved in the delivery of the partnership plans, will be paid by HEFCE to area and regional bankers. Partnerships will be expected to ensure that funding is allocated appropriately to secure the continued commitment and active involvement of colleges in Aimhigher.  

HEFCE is currently revising the Aimhigher guidance and will issue a draft to partnerships for comment in November. The call for partnerships’ revised strategic plans will be made in January, for submission in March 2006. 

The Learning and Skills Council has produced a statement for local LSCs about these new arrangements. Click on the link below for a copy of this statement.
http://www.aimhigher.ac.uk/practitioner/resource_material/about_aimhigher/funding.cfm 

Aimhigher review: results from consultation exercise
The Aimhigher consultation exercise took place between 9 May and 27 June. The original discussion paper is available at http://www.aimhigher.ac.uk/practitioner/resource_material/about_aimhigher/future_of_aimhigher.cfm. 

The consultation document was produced on the basis that funds for 2006-08 would be distributed directly to schools by the DfES, post-16 funding would flow through the Learning and Skills Council (LSC), and partnership funding through HEFCE. Although these assumptions changed as a result of Ministerial decisions, the consultation results provide valuable feedback that can be used in the revised Aimhigher guidance notes that will be issued in January 2006. The outcomes from the Aimhigher consultation will be available on the HEFCE website by the end of October. In summary, the consultation provided the following comments:

·       Respondents made positive statements about the distinctive role of Aimhigher, especially in terms of cross-sector working, ability to bring together a large and diverse group of partners, and the influence it has on widening participation generally.

·       Many felt that there were risks associated with the funding arrangements outlined in the consultation document, and were understandably concerned by the reduced Aimhigher budget. Respondents wanted a period of stability to allow partnerships to reassess their plans and consider the best way of building on the achievements to date.

·       Many respondents agreed that there should be continued support for summer school activity, and most welcomed an evaluation of the programme.

·       Most respondents agreed that funds should be held back to support Aimhigher coordinators.

·       The majority of people did not wish to see changes to the Aimhigher management and governance structure, and minimal changes to the guidance to partnerships. 

Aimhigher funding 2006-08
Comments received through the Aimhigher consultation expressed a desire for stability of funding over a change to the method of allocating funds to partnerships. We will continue to use the same methodology for 2006-08. Funds will continue to be allocated on the basis of ward level participation and school level attainment, although the split between the two elements has been equalised. Smoothing has been applied that ensures no partnership receives less in 2006-07 than 80 per cent of the equivalent funding for 2005-06, or more than this equivalent amount for 2007-08. 

There remain some minor issues relating to the clarification of data, which will not affect the figures significantly. The HEFCE Board will be asked to agree the Aimhigher budget for 2006-08 at its meeting in January, and figures remain indicative until formal Board approval is given.  This is part of HEFCE’s usual budgetary procedures and the Board has already signalled its continued commitment to Aimhigher.

Click on the link below for a more detailed description of changes to the funding method, together with revised regional and area allocations for 2006-08. 
http://www.aimhigher.ac.uk/practitioner/resource_material/about_aimhigher/funding.cfm 

The regional allocations do not currently include funding for summer schools or the healthcare strand. See below for more details on how this funding is to be allocated.

Summer schools
The National Partnership Board has agreed that HEFCE should prepare a bid for £3m ESF funds to support the summer schools programme for 2006-08, subject to agreement from all regional partnerships. HEFCE would provide an additional £3.6m funding in line with ESF requirements; no funding would be required from regional partnerships. The NPB felt that this was the best way to ensure continued summer school activity while allowing funds for work at the regional level. The proposal links with the regional funding described above.  
 
Should a bid for further ESF funds be successful the summer schools programme would continue to be run under the same criteria as the current programme, that is targeting years 10, 11 and 12 students who are eligible to take part in the programme, residential or non residential, 2 – 10 days in length. For more information about summer schools, click on the link below.
http://www.aimhigher.ac.uk/practitioner/events/summer_schools.cfm 

Aimhigher healthcare strand
In 2004, HEFCE and the Department of Health agreed in principle to provide £9 million over five years from 2004-05 to support nine regional Aimhigher healthcare projects. However, Government spending plans restricted the allocation of funds to 2004-06. The Department of Health has now confirmed its financial commitment for 2006-08 and partnerships will each be entitled to a further £200,000 per year over this period.

The call for extended healthcare project plans will form part of the overall Aimhigher timetable for 2006-08; that is, details will be contained in the Aimhigher guidance and information on funding to be issued in January 2006, and revised plans should be submitted in March 2006. For more information about the healthcare strand, click on the link below.
http://www.aimhigher.ac.uk/practitioner/resource_material/about_aimhigher/healthcare_strand.cfm 

Student Finance campaign launched
Bill Rammell, Minister for Further and Higher Education, launched the 2005 student finance campaign on 3 October and the television advertising is now underway. A short film including the TV advert, an introduction from Bill Rammell and information about the making of the advert can be downloaded from the practitioner website using Windows Media Player:
http://www.aimhigher.ac.uk/practitioner/resource_material/national_campaigns/student_finance/advertising.cfm (NB: file size is 12 MB)

For more information about the campaign, including details of the resources available and a list of Frequently Asked Questions, click on the link below.
http://www.aimhigher.ac.uk/practitioner/resource_material/national_campaigns/student_finance.cfm 

Roadshow update
Year 5 of the Aimhigher roadshow got off to a flying start, visiting 25 colleges from South London to Northumberland during its first week. Five roadshow presenters, all recent university graduates, were given a week of intensive training to prepare them with all the facts they need to pass on to students. 
 
Between 26 September and 18 November, the roadshow will tour sixth form and FE colleges, offering students advice on the practical aspects of student finance and applying to higher education. Then, from 24 November onwards, the roadshow will focus on Year 9 students, spreading information about the benefits of higher education to all areas of life.

Over the past four years, the roadshow has visited 278,000 students in over 1,960 schools, achieving a massive 64% swing in students' opinions in favour of higher education. The DfES is expecting 2005-06 to be another highly successful year, visiting around 75,000 students across England. To find out when the roadshow will be visiting your area, click on the link below.
http://www.aimhigher.ac.uk/practitioner/events/roadshow/2005_06_schedule.cfm 

2003-04 Performance Indicators released
The performance indicators (PIs) for 2003-2004 were published by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) on 22 September. The PIs provide comparative data on the performance of HEIs in widening participation, student retention, learning and teaching output, research and employment of graduates. They cover all publicly funded HEIs in the UK and are intended to offer an objective measure of how a HEI is performing. The full results are available from the HESA website at http://www.hesa.ac.uk/pi/.   

TDA and York Consulting: Survey of English Universities concerning outreach schemes or activities which place students into schools or colleges.
York Consulting would like to thank all those who have responded to their survey on behalf of the TDA by providing details of outreach activities concerning student placement into schools.  The information provided will be extremely valuable as an additional reference for the TDA and DfES when developing future schemes.

If you have not already done so, York Consulting would greatly appreciate it if you could provide details of activities being delivered out of your department which place students in schools. Where you know of other contacts in other departments who are running similar schemes, please forward the pro-forma on to them. This will enable us to gain as full a picture as possible.  

This survey is not anonymous and York Consulting would be grateful if you could email the pro-formas directly to louise.oneill@yorkconsulting.co.uk. The deadline for completion is Monday 17 October but responses will be accepted up to a week after this date. Click on the link below for more information or to download a copy of the pro-forma.
http://www.aimhigher.ac.uk/practitioner/resource_material/wp_research/tda___york_consulting.cfm

The impact of Aimhigher
Survey of Educational Providers
Some good news about the impact of Aimhigher is emerging from preliminary findings of a recent survey conducted by Sheffield Hallam University (Strand 4 of the Evidence Programme). The survey indicates that more than a third of universities and colleges already think that Aimhigher has had an impact on applications to their universities. Approximately nine in ten higher education institutions (HEIs) report that they offer visits to schools and colleges, subject-related taster events, campus visits, mentoring, community outreach, events for parents and carers and residential schools. The majority of this activity is wholly or partially funded through Aimhigher.

Widening participation is a long-term aim, with most institutions working with pupils as young as primary school age, as well as with secondary school pupils, young people and adults. Therefore, half of institutions think that it is too early to say whether Aimhigher has had an impact on admissions. But more than 70% believe that Aimhigher has added value to their widening participation activity.
http://www.aimhigher.ac.uk/practitioner/resource_material/monitoring___evaluation/evaluation/strand_4.cfm

Tracking Survey of Young People
These findings build on a suite of reports evaluating Aimhigher: Excellence Challenge that were published early in the summer. Aimhigher interim evaluation findings of the early (Excellence Challenge) years of the programme show that participation in the programme is seemingly having a positive impact both on attainment and propensity to go on to HE. But as we all recognise, there is no quick-fix solution to widening participation in HE but we hope and expect to see year-on-year evidence that Aimhigher is helping more young people from under-represented backgrounds to be able and willing to go on to HE.

The researchers concluded that, within the first two years of Aimhigher: Excellence Challenge, the initiative had a positive impact on some young people and institutions. These findings were picked up by the BBC in July 2005 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4656697.stm). However, some of the findings were more cautious and you may have seen coverage of these findings in some national newspapers in mid-September. 

Further analysis of this coverage and of the key findings from the evaluation of Aimhigher: Excellence Challenge is available on the practitioner website, along with a list of the available reports and links to PDF versions of each. Click on the link below for more information.
http://www.aimhigher.ac.uk/practitioner/resource_material/monitoring___evaluation/evaluation/evaluation_of_aimhigher__excellence_challenge.cfm

Area Studies
EKOS Consulting is currently researching case studies in seven Aimhigher areas as part of the Aimhigher Evidence Programme. These case studies are seeking to find out:

·         How is the programme operating on the ground and how can it improve the effectiveness of widening participation policies?
·         How do the different stakeholders work together in different areas?
·         Are some models of working more effective than others and why?
·         Which activities and combination of activities are perceived to be effective, in what circumstances, and for which target groups?

With three studies completed and a fourth about to start, EKOS has developed a taster of what young people, teachers, widening participation officers and practitioners reported as the most effective activities. For more information, click on the link below.
http://www.aimhigher.ac.uk/practitioner/resource_material/monitoring___evaluation/evaluation/strand_3.cfm