
Social Mobility & Widening Participation
Discover more about Social Mobility & Widening Participation at King's.
We value partnerships that take a collaborative approach to achieving shared goals. They extend our reach, increase our impact, and help us find creative solutions to problems.
These partners extend our reach and support the ways we work:
King’s College London partnership since 2019
Citizens UK is a charity that organises communities to act together for power, social justice and the common good. Community organising is based on the principle that when people work together, they have the power to change their neighbourhoods and the country for the better. This methodology creates change by building relationships and developing leaders. King’s collaborates with local and national professional organisers to engage our communities. We listen to what issues need addressing and develop leaders from those communities.
We are the first widening participation department to use community organising techniques. This led to Parent Power and Empoderando Familias and strengthens our working relationships across King’s.
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King's Widening Participation Partner since 2011
IntoUniversity is a nationwide educational charity that works with schools to support aspirations and attainment amongst underrepresented young people. From each of its local centres across the UK, IntoUniversity provides learning and homework support, plus a mentoring scheme.
We deliver widening participation activity to IntoUniversity primary and secondary school pupils. We host events that give hundreds of pupils the opportunity to visit our campus each year.
King’s staff and students’ mentor IntoUniversity’s young people to support their educational and career pathways. Since 2018, we have funded the IntoUniversity Kennington centre, supporting over 7,000 pupils and achieving a 56% higher education progression rate than the local average.
To date, nearly 600 IntoUniversity students have enrolled at King’s. In 2021-22 we introduced a new UCAS process so that IntoUniversity students receive additional consideration when applying.
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King's Widening Participation Partner since 2020
The Armitage Foundation is a charity that aims to increase the number of medical students from underrepresented backgrounds. Current medical students from widening participation backgrounds run after-school programmes designed to show that medical school is achievable.
We partner with The Armitage Foundation to deliver their year 8-9 Juniors Programme in four schools. Thanks to funding from the Medway NHS Foundation Trust, we have extended school engagement to Kent.
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King's Widening Participation Partner since 2012
The Brilliant Club is an access charity that delivers programmes with schools and universities across the UK to increase the number of underrepresented pupils progressing to highly selective universities and succeeding once they get there.
We support The Scholars Programme which places researchers in state schools to deliver university-style tutorials. We host launch and graduation trips, so thousands of pupils can visit our campus each year. King’s also supports The Brilliant’s Club Researchers in Schools scheme. This recruits and places PhD graduates as trainee teachers committed to closing the attainment gap and promoting university access.
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King's Widening Participation Partner since 2018
The Elephant Group is a headteacher-led charity committed to improving fair access to top universities through collaboration between school leaders, universities, and other partners. Their aim is for the top third of non-selective state school pupils to access top third universities. Over the last two years 60% of their London cohort achieved this.
We partner with The Elephant Group to deliver their access programme to year 12-13 pupils. We host events on our campus, deliver academic tasters and information and guidance sessions, and share our knowledge with school leaders. Hundreds of students from The Elephant Group have visited our campus and we have welcomed over 20 onto our degree programmes.
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What Works Partner since 2019
What Works was commissioned to set up a ‘What Works’ centre for higher education in collaboration with Nottingham Trent University, The Behavioural Insights Team and with funding from the Office for Students. This new centre called the Centre for Transforming Access and Student Outcomes (or TASO for short) has now spun out from King’s becoming independent after a year-long establishment phase.
Since April 1st 2021 TASO was set up as an independent hub for higher education professions to access research, toolkits and evaluation guidance to help improve equality in education.
TASO is a key partner with the What Works department working to collate and disseminate evidence on the most effective approaches to widening participation and student success.
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These partners help us deliver our core social mobility and widening participation programmes:
King's Widening Participation partner since 2012
Brightside is an online mentoring platform that supports young people to make confident and informed decisions about their future.
King's partner with Brightside to deliver online mentoring between year 12-13 K+ and Aspire participants and current King’s students.
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King's Widening Participation partner since 2019
Eggtooth is a not-for-profit social enterprise tackling challenges in Hastings and Rother. It takes a creative and therapeutic approach in its one-to-one and group activities, projects, and events.
We partner with Eggtooth to co-deliver our Hastings parental engagement project that increases the confidence of parents to talk about higher education options.
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King's Widening Participation partner since 2020
Team Up is a tutoring provider that reduces the attainment gap in schools. Through tuition, it helps disadvantaged pupils in years 5-11 with maths and English. Tutors are current university students.
We partner with Team Up to deliver academic tutoring on our Scholars+ GCSE programme. Scholars+ data from the first pilot year shows pupils made an average progress of 0.9 of a grade for maths, and 1.3 of a grade for English.
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Supporters of Outreach for Medicine since 2009
The Worshipful Company of Barbers is one of the 110 City of London livery companies descended from medieval trade guilds. Established in 1308, it is one of the oldest of these trade associations. Charitable activities underpin the ethos of the Company and reflect, in large part, its medical origins.
Funding from The Barbers has allowed the King’s Outreach for Medicine team to develop expertise in medical and dental outreach. Their funding enables Outreach for Medicine to support thousands more underrepresented young people each year, extending our reach beyond London and to prospective students in years 10-11.
Thanks to their support we have created a pipeline of underrepresented students accessing the King’s Extended Medical Degree Programme, which is also supported by The Barbers.
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King's Widening Participation partner since 2021
Up Learn Ltd is an online education platform that supports students with self-directed A-Level tutoring. Up Learn use cognitive science research and technology to create an effective learning experience via interactive videos, quizzes, exam papers, and 121 support. Up Learn make world-class learning accessible to all and tackle the attainment gap between socioeconomic backgrounds. This is reflected in their scholarship programme, where for every student that pays for a course, a free licence is given to a student that can’t. Students who partially complete a course, are 1.5 times more likely to attain A*/A compared to the national average.
We partner with Up Learn to address students’ learning loss caused by Covid-19. Maths & Chemistry accounts are provided to our year 12-13 programme students so they can use self- guided study to boost their learning.
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Discover more about Social Mobility & Widening Participation at King's.
Who our Social Mobility & Widening Participation teams work with.
Find out more about our teams and how to contact us.
Find out more about our projects for prospective students.