Eton College case studies (28)

Impact of partnership work done in 2021 (ISC annual Census 2022)

• 450 state schools involved
• 2001+ state school pupils involved
• 18000 staff hours given

Academies or free schools sponsored

• Holyport College
• London Academy of Excellence

Impact Statement

Holyport:

Holyport College was founded in 2012 with Eton College as its sole educational sponsor, and opened its doors to students in Years 7 and 9 in September 2014. The UK’s first state-maintained boarding free school now educates 630 pupils from Years 7 to 13, and the link with Eton College has led to one of the closest cross-sector partnerships in the country. Holyport College was judged by Ofsted (May 2017) to be ‘outstanding’ on all counts, and has consistently enjoyed some of the strongest GCSE results in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead. The College is academically selective in the Sixth Form and after only two cohorts of school leavers, is already sending the majority of its Sixth Formers to Russell Group universities. Boarding is at the heart of life at Holyport, and this is reflected in many areas of College life for day students, as well as boarders, with a longer school day and a full and varied programme of co-curricular activities. This is a partnership in the truest sense of the word: Holyport has gained from access to Eton College’s facilities and expertise, especially through support for university entrance and an extremely successful Year 8 mentoring programme, but also in the co-curricular field with, for example, a joint CCF scheme and significant collaboration in the running of after-school clubs and societies. Holyport has also adopted a fair amount of Eton traditions as well as lexis. Eton, in return, has gained from Holyport’s expertise, particularly in supporting children with high levels of need. As Eton becomes involved in the Boarding School Partnerships scheme, it envisages benefiting from widespread support from Holyport in establishing robust pastoral structures for LACs and pupils on the edge of the care system. Both schools benefit from strong pedagogical partnerships and cross-sector collaborations, pupils on each side develop strong social relationships and community links, and both the Eton and Holyport Leadership Teams are immensely proud of all that has been achieved in a comparatively short space of time to make the partnership so successful and meaningful.

 

LAE:

Eton College is one of six independent school partners for the London Academy of Excellence situated in the London Borough of Newham. This summer, with Eton’s continued support, LAE achieved its best ever A-Level results: 61% of all grades were A*-A and 90% were graded at A*-B. For the fourth year running, LAE was placed in the top 1% of state schools nationally for ‘value added’, measuring student progress from GCSE through to A-Levels. These outcomes placed LAE in the top ten state schools and in the top two of sixth form colleges in the UK. These impressive results have enabled a record number of LAE students to take up places at their first choice university. In total, this autumn, almost 200 LAE students embarked on degree courses at some of the UK’s most prestigious universities, with many securing places on highly competitive courses. In 2018, 15 LAE students won places at Oxford or Cambridge, 12 students went on to study medicine, dentistry or veterinary medicine (MDV) and 88 students (including 54 girls) took up places on STEM courses. In January 2019, LAE confirmed that 26 students, a record number for them, had received Oxbridge offers. Eton’s support involves the provision of part-time teachers in English and Theology, a debating coach and numerous workshops to help LAE pupils prepare for Oxbridge entrance.

 

ISSP:

Eton College is a founder member of the Slough, Eton, Windsor and Heston ISSP (Independent/State School Partnership). In 2018, the partnership delivered a series of workshops in collaboration with the Orwell Youth Prize, engaging with over 250 pupils on questions of non-fiction writing and its relationship to ‘fake news’. The project culminated in the Orwell 101 conference, the ‘injustice commission’, where students from all schools came together to debate inequalities of wealth, education, gender and identity. The ISSP also delivered the ‘music project’, which saw 100 pupils come together to deliver a choral performance alongside Eton’s close harmony group in March.

 

TVLP:

Eton College is a founding member of the Thames Valley Learning Partnership (TVLP). Established in September 2019, the TVLP delivered a series of events, competitions and actions in its first academic year. This included cross-school speaker talks with experts and high-profile individuals including Lord John Bird, the Founder of The Big Issue. It also included a successful Student Environmental Photographer of the Year competition & exhibition which was launched by the Mayor of Slough, and a ‘Make a Change’ environmental event, before Covid-19 led to the first school closures in March 2020.

The TVLP responded to Covid-19 by moving events online, issuing a dedicated coronavirus newsletter in April 2020 with a list of online learning resources and mental health services, and creating a TVLP YouTube channel for student events, talks and staff CPD sessions.

An end of year report, and a celebratory video, can be viewed here: tvlp.org.uk/2019-20

 

System Leadership:

The Deputy Head (Partnerships) at Eton College was the chair of the Schools Together Group in 2017/18. This network brings together over 300 partnership co-ordinators from the independent and state sectors. ‘Over and above’ events took place in Wimbledon, York and Stratford (East London). The Deputy Head (Partnerships) also edited the first ‘partnerships in practice’ publication, which brought together outstanding practice in fostering and promoting cross-sector music partnerships.

 

Universities Summer School:

Since 1982 Eton College has hosted an intensive, residential, academic summer school for 130 students from the maintained sector. The positive responses which we receive each year from students and the teachers at their state schools make clear to us how the summer school has impacted on their independent learning, choice of academic subject to study at university, commitment and aspiration to apply to Oxbridge or Russell Group universities and engagement with both teachers and their peers in an academic and social setting. At present, we believe that 605 of the students who attended the course in recent years have gone on to study at Oxbridge. We are particularly proud of our work with Spark and the Hounslow schools, the Northern Ireland integrated schools and the growing relationship with our two Eton-sponsored schools, Holyport and the London Academy of Excellence.

 

Rowing:

The Dorney Lake Schools Rowing programme works with over 10 different state schools providing enrichment rowing sessions, GCSE practical delivery and assessment. In the summer term over 250 local school children make use of the lake every week. For those that want to row in addition to school sessions or live in the local community, they can join Dorney Boat Club and even progress to competing. The club regularly sees attendance of 50 members weekly across the junior and adult sections.

 

Collections:

Collections Outreach has several different strands. Over the 2019-2020 academic year, before the Collections closed to the public in mid-March due to COVID-19, there were 67 visits by 29 different primary schools for free education sessions at the museums. There were also seven visits by five different secondaries. In total 1649 primary students and 137 secondary students visited Eton Collections, most of them from the local area. The Collections Education offer for primary schools has expanded to ten different National Curriculum linked sessions across all three museums. There were also three Family Learning Events, two at the Natural History Museum (Birds of Prey and Reptiles) and one focusing on the Ancient Egyptian collection held both in the Museum of Antiquities and in the Ancient Beings temporary exhibition. These events brought 166 local families into the Collections on weekends and during a half term.

Although on-site visits are not currently possible, Eton Collections is in the process of making our educational opportunities available online, both through creating digital teaching resources available to download from our website and developing live video link teaching sessions to allow students to access the Collections virtually.

 

Debating:

On Saturday 23 June, we hosted the Eton Open, a day-long tournament that serves as the finale of the schools debating season. This year’s version involved around 200 girls, boys and teachers from a range of state and independent schools, all gathering in the Jafar Hall. 17 other schools were represented this year (including 9 state schools): Bridge Academy, Brampton Manor Academy, London Academy of Excellence, Hill House School, Sydney Russell School, Urmston Grammar, Saint Dominic's Sixth Form College, Wimbledon High School, Wycombe Abbey School, Harris Westminster Sixth Form, Francis Holland School, RGS Newcastle, Wellington College, Roding Valley High School, Westminster School, Bromley High School and Dulwich College.

 

Facilities letting:

Following the official opening of the Eton Willowbrook Complex in September 2018, the facility has been used by several different groups under our “Community Use Agreement”. From local state schools we have had two groups of 15 students using the facility for 1½ hours each week and one group using the facility for 2 hours each week from October to mid-March. In mid-March due to Covid 19 we had to close the facility to all outside users. From September 2020 we have very limited evening usage for local clubs and organisations due to the school running a summer timetable until half term.

 

Scholarships and Bursaries:
Thanks to generations of benefactors and supporters we are fortunate to have a well-established endowment, which this year allowed us to budget £6.9 million for scholarships and bursaries in 2019. Bursaries are means-tested awards which are given to help support families who wouldn't otherwise be able to afford some, or all of the school fees. Scholarships are merit awards and usually (but not always) secure a fee reduction of 10%, irrespective of the boy's financial backgrounds. As merit awards the majority of scholarships aren't means-tested but there are one or two exceptions with particular schemes supporting talented boys who also need substantial financial support towards fees.  

Bursaries:
Means-tested bursaries are awarded to those pupils whose parents/guardians wouldn’t otherwise be able to pay the full fees. An independent company will assess the family finances during a home visit and make a recommendation to us. This isn’t a test but is designed to produce a fair assessment.

We support as many applications as possible. In 2018/19, 255 pupils were receiving a means-tested bursary (averaging a 67% reduction in fees), with 90 students paying no fees at all.

In particular, we have launched in 2019 the Orwell Award, which is a sixth form award for boys who have spent Years 9, 10 and 11 in a UK state school. Up to twelve places are usually awarded per year, however this depends on the quality of applications received.

The Orwell Award offers recipients a funded place in our Sixth Form subject to means-testing. We want to find boys for whom Eton’s warmth, rigour and breadth will be life changing, for example:

Boys on pupil premium

Those who are the first in their families to go to university

Boys with a need to board

Boys in care or on the edge of care

Or simply boys, currently with limited opportunities, who need a break, to enable them to take off and fly when they join our amazing community.