A new chapter of The Brilliant Club’s ‘Parent Power’ has just launched in Barnsley. In partnership with the University of Sheffield, The Brilliant Club has now launched Barnsley Parent Power in the Dearne Valley area, with the aim of empowering parents and carers to support their children by tackling barriers to education, particularly around accessing higher education.
In the UK today, graduates from the most competitive universities are more likely to access professional careers and have higher rates of life satisfaction. Significantly, on average they will receive £160k more than their peers in lifetime earnings. But access to these life-changing opportunities is not equal and numerous things can get in the way. Whether those barriers are personal, societal or educational, sometimes it’s just about understanding the best way to overcome them. And that’s easier to do when parents and carers work together to drive change.
Free school meals and educational attainment
Nearly a third of UK children live in poverty, and food insecurity is rising. The impact is uneven: 49% of Black and Asian children live in poverty compared to 24% of white children, and 44% of children in poverty have a disabled family member.
In the Barnsley North constituency, 30.7% of students qualify for free school meals, of whom only 17% pass English and maths GCSEs, and just 4.4% earn a degree by age 22. Barnsley South shows similar figures. This has a huge impact on children’s education. Nationally, students who receive free school meals are 18 months behind peers by age 16, achieving three-quarters of a grade lower per GCSE subject.
In a country that for many years prided itself on its educational achievement – England, for example, is “one of the best-performing countries for school-age attainment” – it is staggering to note that this gap in attainment is at an all-time high.
Given all of this, it’s of no surprise to see that this negatively affects those students when it comes to higher education. Students from the least advantaged backgrounds have only a 2% chance of entering top universities, compared with 28% for the most advantaged students. Without intervention, this cycle will deepen inequality and limit social mobility.
The Brilliant Club
Addressing this has been the mission of The Brilliant Club since the charity launched in 2011. It does this primarily through three core programmes – The Scholars Programme, Join the Dots, and Parent Power:
- The Scholars Programme mobilises the PhD community to tutor students aged 8 to 18 in schools and colleges across the UK, sharing their subject knowledge and passion for learning and in so doing supporting these students to access competitive universities.
- Join the Dots brings together schools, colleges and universities to support students who are most likely to face barriers when transitioning to higher education.
- Parent Power builds parent/carer communities across the UK, each one supported by a local partnership. The focus is on empowering parents and carers to tackle barriers to education and lead change in their communities, ensuring their children have a fair chance in education and their future careers.
Parent Power
I joined The Brilliant Club as a Parent Power community organiser in Barnsley last month. Having spent the last five years at Yorkshire Bylines and the Bylines Network, where the focus is on providing a platform for citizen voices as part of an inclusive and participatory democracy, I knew whatever I did next would need to inspire that a same level of passion and commitment. At The Brilliant Club I’ve found just that.
Jimmy Pickering is director of communities at The Brilliant Club. Before he joined the charity, he worked at Kings College London within their widening participation programme. He told me that over the years the university tried many ways of encouraging students from less advantaged background to attend university, all with varying degrees of success. Then about five years ago they teamed up with Citizens UK to develop a model of community organising, working directly with parents and carers to identify, and overcome, the barriers for their children accessing higher education.
Parents from all backgrounds want the best for their children and can have a big influence on their child’s future outcomes. In fact, the Education Endowment Foundation estimates that parental engagement can help children make an average of four months’ additional progress in education.
Parent Power Barnsley
Parent Power Barnsley, based in the Dearne Valley area (in the Barnsley South constituency), is the 16th such chapter in the UK. Commenting on this latest development, Jimmy said:
“We are excited to launch Barnsley Parent Power in collaboration with the University of Sheffield and to welcome the chapter to our national movement. For too long, many parents and carers in Barnsley have felt unable to take action to improve their children’s futures. Parent Power provides an opportunity to build local higher education knowledge and leadership which will change this in the long term.”
By bringing parents together to identify and overcome the barriers that currently prevent many Barnsley children accessing higher education, it is our hope that we can start making changes that will one day change lives.
Launch meetings will be taking place over the next few months, so watch out for more details. For more information, contact parentpowerbarnsley@thebrilliantclub.org.
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