Working together to drive change

The Aspirations approach and data—coupled with ongoing efforts by teachers and school leaders to support their students—have driven some incredible results

Aspirations in numbers

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secondary schools and sixth-form colleges shaping their support offer to student needs

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students with a personal development planner

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online resources & school activities made available to students

We measure our impact in two ways: how much we help schools and colleges improve their offer and processes using student data, and how much those changes improve student outcomes.

Our impact

Impact for schools and colleges

Our goal is to make it simple for schools and colleges to provide excellent, needs-driven personal development and support programmes.

We measure how well we are doing this using an objective framework which covers the four key ‘steps’ of delivering a programme: understand needs, plan support, deliver that support (‘act’), and review the impact it has had.

Despite some ‘unhelpful’ external factors in 2019-20, every single participating school advanced in at least one of these four areas, equipping them to provide better support to their students—which is something to be truly celebrated!

Impact for students

Aspirations exists to improve outcomes for young people—so while we call this our ‘indirect’ impact, at the end of the day it is all that really matters to both us and our partner schools and colleges.

Aside from the obvious benefits of having their own personal development plans, we have seen:

Increased participation in school/college activities
Increased engagement more generally (demonstrated by drops in absenteeism and disciplinary events, pre-Covid)
Improved destinations profiles for sixth form college leavers (more university places, more Russell Group places, more STEM subjects studied, more variety in subjects)
Increased self-confidence and optimism about the future

Case study 1: Salford City Academy (KS3-4)

Salford City Academy have used Aspirations to completely rethink their approach to student development, with exceptional results.

Data captured from the students has been used to:

Create an extensive programme of clubs and activities for students, based entirely on their interests and requests. Encouraging participation was a challenge to start—it wasn't the 'norm' for many—but it's now a part of school culture, with two-third regularly attending after school clubs after just one year
Plan targeted “Aspire Days” each term, combining trips, visits, careers fairs and other enrichment activities
Ensure every student gets the individual support they need. For example, data showed 135 disadvantaged students had never had a 'proper' conversation about their future—so the school arranged for all of them to have 1:1 career support with a trained advisor

You can see what Aspire means to Salford’s students in the video—although their results speak for themselves!

24%

drop in absenteeism

50%

fewer exclusions

77%

reduction in NEET

89%

higher after-school club participation