Franklin Scholars was founded in 2013 with a vision to help more young people help each other through tricky transitions in school. We believed fiercely in the power of peer support. Grounding our programmes in the strongest evidence of what works, we hold a commitment to continuous learning and improving through robust monitoring and evaluation. Over the last seven years, working with over 4,400 pupils and 80 schools across nine regions of the country, we have gathered a huge range of insights and lessons learned, which we are eager to share.
2020 has been an unparalleled year for all of us. The crisis facing our country is going to have far-reaching effects on young people and it is expected that the gap between pupils from higher and lower socio-economic backgrounds will widen even further; not just in terms of academic progress but also, and perhaps more devastatingly, in social and emotional development and mental health.
At Franklin Scholars, we have decided to take the opportunity to conduct a strategic review of everything that we have done, and everything that we have learned, over the last seven years. This review has helped us answer a key question, which is: how are we really best placed to support schools and young people, in the broadest, most inclusive and most impactful way possible?
Today, we’re pleased to launch the results of this review, in the form of a seven-year impact report. We hope this report can be of value to the wider sector and highlights lessons learned through working with thousands of young people. In particular, we are excited to present the results of a large retrospective impact assessment of the Beacon Programme, presented in detail within the Technical Appendix.
Our impact: focus on the Beacon Programme
Over the last seven years, we worked with over 4,400 pupils and 80 schools across all nine regions of the country. In secondary schools, our impact – delivered through the Beacon Programme, a peer mentoring intervention working primarily with Year 10 mentors and Year 7 mentees – reached thousands of young people, of whom 47% were Pupil Premium eligible, 38% were BAME, and 60% were girls. Among the mentees, 91% were at risk of exclusion or future involvement in criminal activity and at least 25% had probable or possible depression during the course of the programme. In total, almost 47,000 hours of support were provided by almost 2,000 mentors across 61 secondary schools in England from 2013 to 2020.
Through a retrospective impact assessment (including data from 1,342 students who participated in the programme, academic data from over 11,000 students in our partner schools, and from over 200 parents of programme participants), we found that the Beacon Programme has positive impacts on students across a number of impact areas. This, despite the participants’ complex home and life contexts.
The Beacon Programme has positive impacts on students’ social and emotional skills development, academic attitude, self-perceived level of academic skills, and agency to participate in social action projects in the future. Four out of five students agree that Franklin Scholars has made a difference to them, and a similar proportion agreed the programme has helped them develop useful skills for the future.
At the end of the programme, students assess themselves as having significantly higher levels of ability in some non-cognitive skills, including optimism, leadership, and social awareness. In addition, the Beacon Programme positively impacts on academic attitudes, with significant increases in students self- reporting a desire to do well in school. The programme improves student attendance, behaviour, and enjoyment of school for at least one-third of students.
Regarding academic skills, half of all students agree that the Beacon Programme has helped in the development of academic skills, and just under half of mentees agree the programme improved their writing and reading skills.
Finally, for programme impact on social action, two out of three mentees completing the end-of-year survey agree that they would like to be a Franklin Scholar when they are older. Four out of five mentors agree that the programme makes them more likely to help others, and that they have developed leadership skills through the programme.
Looking forward: what’s next?
The unprecedented circumstances of 2020, while presenting many challenges, have also afforded us the opportunity to look both backwards and forwards. In compiling this report, we have digested, considered and scrutinised everything that we have done over the last seven years, and we emerge feeling immensely proud, but also compelled to do things differently in the future.
Looking forward, we will pause the delivery of our signature Beacon Programme for the 2020-21 school year. Likewise, we will pause delivery of the Beacon Box and Buddies & Bundles programmes, though our Franklin Fellows programme will continue to completion in October 2020. In place of in-school delivery, we are excited to be piloting a new way of working with schools and supporting young people which we hope, in time, will result in an even greater impact on an even greater number of young people across the country. This includes turning our expertise and lessons learned into an accessible set of open-source tools and digital resources for schools, young people and the wider sector. Alongside this, we will provide training, consultancy and other bespoke services to help schools and other institutions harness the undeniable potential of peer-to-peer support. Be sure to sign up for our newsletter to get updates on when these tools launch!
To support our digital pivot, we will be saying ‘goodbye’ to Kim, Georgia, and Laina at the end of July, and Jess will continue with strategic leadership of the organisation moving forward. This pivot will also see Franklin Scholars Charitable Trust closing, though Franklin Scholars – as a small social enterprise – will continue to share our learnings with the sector. We extend our thanks and gratitude to the staff of Franklin Scholars Limited and to the trustees of Franklin Scholars Charitable Trust for their proactive support and strategic leadership during this transition period.
We’d like to extend our thanks to every school and every young person that we have had the opportunity to work with over the last seven years, to every funder who believed in our mission, and every partner who has helped us push forward our work and keep on learning, every step of the way. We look forward to working with you in the coming months and years.
For more information on Franklin Scholars and our impact, please read our seven-year impact report here and sign up to our newsletter to get more information about our open source digital offerings. Want to work with us in 2020/21? Please get in touch!