Using 1:1 coaching and experiential micro-interventions helps raise student interest in environmental science
Villiers Park is a national social mobility charity that uses evidence-informed programmes to help young people realise their full potential. The Inspire-Involve project explored how a programme of 1-to-1 coaching and educational micro-interventions impacted engagement and academic attainment of 24 Year 9 students over the 2023/24 school year. The educational sessions were held on-site at two partner schools, and off-site at two partner universities. Central themes of biodiversity and the climate crisis helped provide a real-world context for life-sciences curriculum learning. A Possible Selves methodology was used to explore whether the programme extended the parameters of what the young people considered to be both interesting and attainable careers.
This project was funded as part of the 2022 Evolution Education Trust (EET) Challenge Fund. This Challenge Fund explored ways to improve appreciation of nature and biodiversity within communities facing economic or access challenges. EET collaborated with the British Science Association to deliver a wrap-around programme of support for all Challenge Fund project teams via a Community of Practice (CoP) model. Project leaders were brought together every three months to share insights, develop ideas and overcome common challenges. The CoP was also a platform for training in how to build, use and evaluate a Theory of Change. This helped the teams better communicate their goals, maximise learnings and set up their own impact measurement.
The value of peer-to-peer support
The CoP fostered a supportive environment for honest dialogue between member organisations. The opportunity to meet regularly created space for in-depth thinking and action, away from the demands of day-to-day project delivery. These insights have since been applied to broader organisational practices within Villiers Park.
“The intimate nature of the group was a real strength – a safe space that helped me get out of my own head and maintain a consistent focus on the project. The diverse perspectives of others and the continuous reflection were exceptionally useful.”
Alex Grant, Assistant Director, Villiers Park Educational Trust
Lessons learned
This project showcases the importance of laying groundwork for learning by first helping students develop self-reflection skills, framing educational interventions so that young people find the lessons personally relevant, and taking time to co-design those interventions with teachers.
- Taking a student-centred approach from the outset provided a crucially important foundation for engagement. The one-to-one coaching was based around a ‘Possible Selves’ model that took into account young people’s lived experience, developed trust between the students and educators, and helped the students learn metacognitive strategies to develop their self-awareness. This approach is a break from the traditional ‘raising aspirations’ models which often lack support for young people to place an educational or career intervention into a personally relevant context.
- Place matters – programmes must accommodate the variety of opportunities available, and the social and cultural capital that each young person brings to coaching in relation to their place and community. This was explored through the comparison of the Hastings/Tyneside split of the project.
- The experiential learning activities that worked best were the ones that connected the students’ current personal interests to the educational experiences. One very successful activity involved flying a drone and showing how it could be used to map the local environment. Another activity revealed how computer game technology could virtualise the experience of climate change.
“It was really cool, it was a chance to get out of school which is a win but it was also something new and exciting…it does make me want to learn more about environmental sciences.”
Ark Alexandra student talking about the University of Brighton trip
- The role models who delivered these interventions shared similar backgrounds and personal interests to the students. This connection at both a technical and personal level helped the young people relate to the programme content and see where they might fit in the environmental sciences sector.
- Maintaining a balance between on-site / classroom-based intervention and off-site activity was important. On-site activities, such as the Treezilla initiative, provided accessible and cost-effective ways to engage students over a sustained period without major logistical challenges. Off-site visits to universities and field trips offered highly memorable immersive experiences.
- Taking sufficient time at the start of the project to introduce the students in the cohort to one another was key. These inter-personal connections enhanced peer support and collaboration amongst students and increased enthusiasm for the project’s objectives.
- Engaging teachers as partners and linking back to the curriculum was also critical. This fostered mutual respect and ensured that the intervention supported teachers’ educational priorities and timetable constraints. Their advice also helped to shape the programme to cater to the individual learning needs of students.
- Maintaining a flexible approach to delivery was pivotal in responding to the dynamic nature of school environments. This meant adapting activities and plans in real-time, remaining open to last-minute changes and being responsive to feedback.
Where next?
Next steps will involve a full evaluation of the intervention’s impact on student engagement and attitudes towards learning, with a focus on understanding the long-term effects on education and career aspirations. This will be followed by tracking students’ attitude to learning over the next few years. The team hope this will provide valuable insights into the programme’s sustained effects.
Initial insights from the project suggest that similar interventions, particularly the use of coaching, could be scaled and adapted to different contexts. This could prove transformative if embedded across the wider curriculum, over an extended period.
