Goal 4: Quality education
Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
Our research
Research looking into identifying and redressing educational injustices has received an award of nearly €2 million from the European Research Council. The project, led by a researcher from our School of Education, will explore the mechanisms of persisting inequities in schooling, and the possibility of reparation within school systems. This interdisciplinary project, which started in 2023, will bring together researchers and primary schools in the Bristol area with local communities, policymakers, and the public to address important questions about equity and fairness in education.
The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on the education and wellbeing of school-age children, according to research also from the School of Education. A study, published in 2022, looked at the consequences of varied home-schooling provision, and the impact on young people’s mental health. Looking at the experiences of children, parents and teachers, the research made policy recommendations around examination practices, curriculum changes, and providing young people with space to speak, reflect and understand what they have been through.
Our students
A group of young people from Bristol group Tackling Diversity in Teaching shared their experiences of race, diversity and multiculturalism in schools with PGCE students from the School of Education as part of a day focused on diversity and decolonisation in March 2023. The day aimed to help increase understanding among these future teachers on valuing and reflecting diverse experiences through the curriculum, and recognising and addressing our own unconscious biases and actions.
We are committed to providing lifelong opportunities for access to education and learning, including to those who are not following a traditional pathway. In 2023, we highlighted five short courses targeted towards supporting adult learners to learn new things, develop skills, and explore further educational opportunities. These five covered writing a memoir, re-learning Black history, working as a freelance journalist, reading English literature, and gaining practical skills for decolonialised teaching of history.
Our communities
In 2023, a group of Year 12 students participated in a workshop on immersive technologies, delivered by Bristol academics and current students as part of the Sutton Trust Summer School with partners at MyWorld. The students got involved in a discussion on the ethics of emerging technology, were invited into virtual reality to view immersive films, and had a hands-on tutorial with 360-degree cameras and immersive audio recorders. The workshop allowed the students to see the different educational paths and career options within the immersive technology sector.
The Building socially-just mathematics classrooms project ran in 2023 and focused on improving mathematical learning experiences for students. It was a collaboration between the School of Education and Gordano School, a large secondary comprehensive which had recently changed its mathematics teaching model to mixed attainment grouping, with the aim of supporting the most vulnerable and disadvantaged students. The project sought to co-design effective curriculum materials for this mixed set approach, and resulted in the development of fully resourced classroom tasks and activities for Years 7, 8 and 9.
Ourselves
A range of opportunities are available to help support students from under-represented backgrounds to enter higher education. Programmes include our Bristol Scholars scheme, where teachers can nominate students based on their academic potential and individual circumstances to receive personalised pre-entry support, a contextual offer from the University, and ongoing support throughout their time at Bristol. Another programme, Insight into Bristol, is a free Summer School that offers Black and Asian Year 12 students the chance to sample university life, and to receive a contextual offer to study at Bristol.
The University has been making contextual offers for admissions since 2016, but in 2023 a new criterion of receiving free school meals was added to the list. The aim is to help tackle the continued inequity in admissions that results from the structural and personal challenges faced by some students, especially in light of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Contextual offers can already be made for care leavers, those from deprived areas or schools, and those who have participated in one of the University’s targeted outreach programmes or who attend a University-sponsored school.