The Brilliant Club is a UK non-profit organisation that aims to widen access to university for students from under-represented groups. It was founded in 2011 by Jonathan Sobczyk and Simon Coyle, with partner organisations including The Sutton Trust, Teach First, Challenge Partners and Goldman Sachs. The organisation has offices in London and Leamington Spa and operates nationwide.
Contents
Activities
The Brilliant Club runs two programmes. In The Scholars Programme, doctoral and postdoctoral researchers deliver academic tutorials in non-selective state schools to pupils aged 10 to 18. Researchers delivering the programme are called PhD tutors and they are recruited, trained and placed by programme officers. During The Scholars Programme, pupils have six tutorials with their PhD tutor, and visit a highly-selective university to celebrate their launch trip at the beginning and graduation event at the end of the programme. For the older pupils, PhD tutors design the courses based on their own area of research, whilst for younger pupils standardised courses are delivered. A third of places on the programme are reserved for pupils who have been eligible for Free School Meals in the last six years.
The organisation's second programme, Researchers in Schools, is a teacher training programme unique to candidates with a PhD, which began in 2014. The programme aims to increase subject expertise, promote research and champion university access in schools.
Expansion
The organisation began with a pilot programme in North London in 2011 and then expanded to schools across England, including the Midlands, North, East, South-East and South-West. The organisation delivered programmes to almost 4,600 students in 2013-14 and worked with over 150 schools.
Conference
The Brilliant Club holds a yearly conference. In 2015, this was held in conjunction with King's College London and had the theme: ‘Where can we find solutions to break the link between household income and admission to the UK’s highly-selective universities?’
Recognition and awards
In 2011, The Brilliant Club was named the winner of a Teach First Social Innovation Award. In the same year it was one of the top ten Future 100 winners and in 2012, The Brilliant Club was listed as one of Britain’s 50 New Radicals by Nesta and The Observer. In 2013, the organisation joined Ernst & Young's Accelerate programme. It was used as a case study by Equity Ideas, and mentioned in Ofsted's 2015 report 'The Most Able Students, an update in progress since June 2013'. In December 2015, the charity was named as one of The Guardian's Charity Award winners for 2015.
2013-14 Academic Year
Students had their introduction event at Sussex University. They met their PhD tutors here as well. Salisbury Primary School was chosen to study the topic of Fairness.
Year 6 students from across the nation attended their Brilliant Club graduation event at Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford. They received a tour of the college, University-style seminars, and lunch from the canteen. Among the students with the home chest honours were Ayesha Tabassum (Salisbury Primary School) and Adrian van Samen (St. Jordan's R.C. CoE Primary School.
2014-15 Academic Year
The children chosen to participate in The Scholars Programme in the academic year of 2014-15 attended their introduction event at Queen Mary, University of London.
They attended their graduation event at St. Andrews University. The children with the highest marks were Sageev Rajseelan (Salisbury Primary School) and Jumel Uddin (Salisbury Primary School).
2015-16 Academic Year
Year 6 students attended their Brilliant Club introduction event at Birkbeck University, East London. They were given a tour of the University, and met their PhD tutors after having lunch.
Year 6 students attended the first in a series of introduction and graduation events at Brasenose College, Oxford. They met current undergraduate students, graduate tutors, and academics at the College.
Year 6 students attended their graduation event at Robinson College, Cambridge. Students from across the UK, including from The London Borough of Newham were present at the event. Schools such as Salisbury Primary School, Essex Primary School, Avenue Primary School and many more had some of their students receiving distinctions. Congratulations to Adam Patel (Salisbury Primary School), Syed Muhtasib Al-Shafi (Salisbury Primary School) and Dawood Khan (Essex Primary Scholl), for receiving the highest marks in the country!
2016-17 Academic Year
On Friday 3 February 2017, Year 7 students from London visited SOAS, University of London for their Scholars Programme graduation event. Students from Mossbourne Victoria Park Academy and Forest Gate Community School were present at the event. Two students from each school were recognised for their exceptional work, Ayesha Mustafi and Jack Williams from the former, and Adam Patel and Eedie Baker-Thompson from the latter.