Local University Students Supporting Secondary School Pupils With Their GCSEs

Aimhigher Sussex is working with undergraduate students from the Universities of Brighton and Sussex to help secondary school pupils improve their GCSE grades.

This year, the Aimhigher Sussex Subject Tutoring scheme will help pupils with their English and Maths GCSEs in 29 secondary schools across Sussex.

Aimhigher Sussex employs undergraduate students, who are studying Maths or English degrees, to provide support to pupils who may be struggling with these key GCSEs, as well as being involved in in-school and special revision sessions during key revision and re-sit times.

The subject tutoring and revision scheme has been running for two years and is now widening out to include all of Aimhigher Sussex’s target schools. Each subject tutor works with pupils in a variety of ways, including small group work sessions, one to one support and alongside teachers in classes.

Westergate Community School have requested the support of Maths subject tutors during half terms to support their revision sessions and have noted that using Aimhigher subject tutors for these sessions has a really encouraging impact on the pupils’ maths re-sit results.

Aimhigher Sussex will be running a revision event at University Centre Hastings on 6th April, on both Maths and English for Hastings based schools, with follow-up sessions in May. These larger revision events have proved popular in the past and are a key part of the Aimhigher Sussex programme for local schools in the area.

In February, Aimhigher Sussex is also running a GCSE English Language session with former teacher of the year, Phil Beadle – an event run in partnership with Bishop Bell and Causeway Schools. This event will be followed by two more run by Phil Beadle, working alongside English degree students.

Many of Aimhigher’s subject tutors pursue teaching careers as a result of their experience in the classroom, often considering teaching as a complete change of career. Luke Holmes-Siedle, a second year Maths undergraduate at the University of Sussex, planned on a career in finance but has now decided to become a teacher after working as a subject tutor at Falmer High School. He is now planning on undertaking a Graduate Teacher Programme at Falmer, supported by the Head of Maths who is keen for Luke to teach some supervised classes later this year.

Teachers at local schools have praised the subject tutors, both for their professionalism and their enthusiasm, and having university students placed within schools also gives the pupils the opportunity to find out more about higher education and what paths they may need to take after their GCSEs to reach university.

Debra Vice Holt, Director of Aimhigher Sussex, says

“many of these pupils have no family experience of higher education and this programme allows pupils to work with undergraduate students who not only support them in their GCSE work but also share their experience of Higher Education.”