Libraries Plus supported university students to tackle educational inequality through providing academic support for young people at local libraries.
What is Libraries Plus?
If disadvantaged young people receive academic support from students they will benefit from improved confidence, subject understanding and motivation for learning. Ultimately leading to improved academic attainment, closing the attainment gap.
We work with local libraries running open access sessions for local families to join, this opportunity is promoted by the library and local schools. We often work with Widening Participation teams at our partner universities to work collaboratively and meet Access and Participant Plan (APP) priorities. Students provide academic support on a 1-1 or 1-2 basis, focusing on key topics such as reading, writing sentences and maths.
The students we work with are passionate about their subject and have the potential to be positive role models for young people and the training and support we offer enables students to develop the necessary communication and teamwork skills.
What’s the impact?
Libraries Plus aims to reduce the impact of educational inequality by supporting young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to have improved educational attainment. To meet this aim we ensure every young person who takes part in the programme:
- Has improved subject understanding
- Feels more confident in their ability
- Builds resilience
- Feels more motivated to learn
To achieve this our students are trained to create an environment which is safe, supported, respectful, interesting and challenging. An environment which supports key social and emotional skill development.
students agreed young people show increased confidence in their studies
students agreed they are learning about the challenges facing the young people
students agreed young people show increased subject knowledge
I have absolutely developed my confidence and leadership skills through this programme, as it has helped me to learn how to be responsible in a tutoring setting. By helping others to develop their own skills, I have become more confident in my own teaching skills; this has helped me to be more confident in other areas of my life, as a first-year student, and has helped me to be more outgoing and friendly in a relatively new environment. I have also developed my teamwork skills by working with other volunteers and the coordinator to ensure the best tutoring environment.
Alex Stilgoe, Southampton Hub volunteer
Why should we deliver libraries plus with your university?
What our university partners value about Libraries Plus includes:
- Supporting Access and Participation Plan and strategic priorities. Our programme has dual impact: along with supporting educational attainment and access opportunities for young people, our student outcomes can form part of your institution’s approach to educational gains as part of the TEF, and support students’ wellbeing, belonging, and employability skills.
- Creating community-focused delivery. Libraries Plus is exciting as it steps beyond the classroom, enabling our team of student volunteers to engage with young people and families in settings they are comfortable in, and reaching young people which schools-based delivery may not reach. Our community-based programme format also enables our staff team to share with you what support the community needs, and where to start in building more place-based capacity with student volunteers.
- Building internal staff capacity and expertise. Libraries Plus is a volunteering programme that reaches 15-30 students a year at our Hubs. For many Widening Participation or Education teams, scaling a programme based in the community such as Libraries Plus may fall out of scope of their core responsibilities. Partnership with us enables your institution to kickstart this delivery, build local connections, and use our tried and tested formula. Our external strategy means if you want to internalise the work, we can help – ask us about handover and quality assurance support.
You may also be interested in Schools Plus, our delivery in local schools of tutoring and extracurricular clubs and activities.
Libraries Plus delivery is part of our ‘Build’ and ‘Embed’ framework.