We are proud to announce a new collaboration with The Access Project to support students from disadvantaged backgrounds achieve their academic goals.

Mentoring students on their development journey

The Access Project is a charity that caters to disadvantaged students, providing them with a tutoring programme at no personal cost. Volunteers are trained to tutor students on a weekly basis with the goal of helping them achieve better grades and ultimately, inspiring them to apply for, and hopefully attend, a highly ranked university.

Six of our Gobeyond Partners colleagues received training from The Access Project to allow them to begin tutoring students, five of whom worked with students during the academic year that has just completed.  The Access Project has a list of subjects which are in high demand, frequently Maths, English and STEM subjects. Tutors are able to pick which subject they would like to teach and also the level at which they support.  For example, if you achieved an A-level in your selected subject you would tutor in GCSE and if you had a degree, you could tutor in A-levels. Therefore, you teach one level down from your highest qualification, meaning students are getting access to high quality subject tutoring

The Access Project provides lots of educational material, which tutors can use, including pre-prepared activities and games. Our own Judith Coole, Managing Consultant, chose to tutor in geography and was matched with an A-level student in South London. Each week Judith spent an hour on the lesson prep then an hour to deliver the tutoring session.

“It’s been great revisiting a subject I enjoyed at sixth form and sharing my enthusiasm.  With the support of the Access Project I was able to relatively quickly refresh my Geography skills and have some really engaging and rewarding sessions with my student.  It’s been a great experience”

Judith Coole, Managing Consultant, Gobeyond Partners

In particular Judith’s student lacked confidence when it came to speaking up in class and with the maths side of Geography. This knowledge was helpful and allowed Judith to structure their time together to help in these specific areas.  As a result, Judith’s student achieved a B in their mock exams, something they were incredibly pleased with.

Richard Davies, Principal Consultant, also took part in the programme.  Using a similar approach to Judith, Richard’s student also had a great outcome, achieving an A in A level Chemistry.


Looking ahead

We are proud to be part of this amazing initiative. It’s been a very rewarding experience so far and we can’t wait to help more students on their journey to higher education. As the programme allows non-EU qualifications, we are excited to invite more of our overseas colleagues to get involved for the next term in September.

You can find out more about The Access Project and how you can volunteer here.