Evaluation of the NNECL Quality Mark
This Care Day we are delighted to publish the Evaluation of the NNECL Quality Mark report.
This Care Day we are delighted to publish the Evaluation of the NNECL Quality Mark report. This independent evaluation of the NNECL Quality Mark finds our change management programme is positively impacting on learners with care experience in further and higher education. Today we repeat our call on the government to make the Quality Mark mandatory for all post-16 learning spaces to urgently drive up the educational outcomes of young people with care backgrounds across the UK.
In Autumn 2024 NNECL commissioned The Lines Between to assess the impact of the Quality Mark. The evaluation scope focused on value for money, the impact on institutional attitudes and practice and, most importantly, the impact on progress of students with care experience through further and higher education. The barriers and challenges facing young people with care backgrounds have been well researched over the past 20 years, currently just 15% of young people leaving care go to university compared to 47% of young people without care backgrounds.
Launched in 2015, the Quality Mark is awarded to colleges and universities who evidence their approach to inclusion and how they are supporting students with care experience or who are estranged. Accreditation involves self-assessment and a review by a NNECL Assessor to consider current practice, identify gaps in provision and establish areas for future development.
The Lines Between found that;
Institutions choose to undertake the NNECL Quality Mark as part of their desire to improve the outcomes for learners with care experience and they consider it a valuable resource for review, recognition, development and continuous improvement.
The Quality Mark has a multitude of impacts, even for universities and colleges which have previously developed policies and practice relating to students with care experience.
There is evidence of positive change for leadership teams and for staff across a range of departments and faculties. This change is typically through staff gaining a greater awareness and understanding of issues affecting students with care experience, speaking up for them and being involved in policy and practice change leading to better educational outcomes.
All of 12 of the institutions involved in the evaluation reported that the Quality Mark is regarded as providing value for money given the impacts it has on policy and practice.
Participants said that:
“Having an awareness of our student's situation has been invaluable. Showing what we already do and if we can improve it was good to see. We work closely with our Student Wellbeing and Support services and we have been able to continue this. It has opened our eyes to external opportunities we can join in with.”
“Following the QM process, we made a decision to put more resources towards post entry support and ensuring our care experienced students enrolled at the university were better supported.”
“I think we had well developed support in place, developed over a number of years through universities sharing best practice, NNECL, Care Leaver Covenant, the QM helped us review this and ensure it carries on.”
Within the report Professor Neil Harrison (University of Exeter) has provided a timely update on what we know (and don’t know) about participation in further and higher education for learners with care experience. The evaluation report was not able to capture qualitative data on the impact of the Quality Mark within the institutions surveyed, this is because, currently, progression data published by the Department of Education offers only a partial picture. However, evaluation participants believed that there is a positive link to the educational outcomes with care backgrounds.
The full report and case studies can be found here.
