Higher Education Access Tracker (HEAT. 6.3.1 QMUL is a member of the Higher Education Access Tracker (HEAT) membership service which assists Higher Education Institutions in England to target, monitor and evaluate their outreach activity. Subscribing to HEAT helps us to take an evidence-based approach to planning outreach delivery so that we can continue to invest in outreach activities that optimise progression with disadvantaged cohorts. Furthermore, being an active member of HEAT, by participating at Steering Group and Research Group level, allows us to be contributory in helping HEAT to realise its wider research aims.
6.3.2 Our institution records data about its outreach and participants on the HEAT database. This is entered into the HEAT longitudinal tracking system which matches records on individual outreach participants to administrative datasets spanning Key Stage 2 data through to postgraduate study and employment. Tracking reports received from HEAT will help Xxxxx Xxxx to better understand the relationship between our outreach provision and the attainment and progression of disadvantaged young people. We are able to track student progression to any HEI, so that we can assess the extent to which we are contributing to the increased participation rates of disadvantaged young people as a whole, not only to our own institution.
6.3.3 Being part of the HEAT service also enables us to engage with collective WP sector research. By using data from all members as an aggregate, the HEAT service is now able to explore new multi-dimensional ways of defining under-representation, disadvantage and differential outcomes and the effect that outreach can have on different groups of participants. Analysis of this aggregate data by the HEAT service tells us that outreach participants who engage in a sustained programme of activities, including a campus visit, have higher rates of progression. These findings have influenced our decision to continue our campus visit programme for Year 8 students and to incorporate a visit to our university into all of our initiatives. Similarly, students who engage in outreach early in KS4 in a sustained programme are found to be more likely to attain good GCSE results, suggesting that outreach contributes to raising attainment. These findings support our decision to introduce more multi-engagement initiatives at KS4, including a Year 10 study skills coaching scheme and Year 10 reading initiative for boys.
Higher Education Access Tracker (HEAT. In collaboration with other universities, we continue to subscribe to the Higher Education Access Tracker (HEAT) service; The HEAT service is a continuation of the collaboration undertaken by the South East AimHigher partnerships. Through membership of the HEAT service we are able to provide evidence, based on longitudinal tracking, as a group of HEIs in a common geographic area, on the progression and achievement patterns of our HE outreach participants. Further details of how we use HEAT to monitor and evaluate our work can be found on p.20. Knowledge exchange In line with our commitment to the collaborative sharing of best practice within the field of Widening Participation, we will continue to contribute to UK, European and International knowledge exchange and research conferences. In the UK we are active members of NEON and have been invited to join the Laser Awards’ Access Quality and Development Committee.
Higher Education Access Tracker (HEAT. The University will start to record participation of students on intensive outreach activities through HEAT from summer 2015. This will track progression to university and enable us to measure the impact of outreach activity to inform future projects. We anticipate seeing the first set of results in spring 2017. HEAT data will form part of our Outreach Evaluation Strategy.
