‘This is about levelling the playing field …’

Trinity’s Admissions Director Dr Glen Rangwala has welcomed new research showing that Cambridge’s STEM SMART programme has enabled more than 700 state school students to achieve better A-level results and secure places at leading universities.

To date, 6,500 students have taken part in the free 16-month programme, which includes online tutorials with Cambridge academics, the opportunity to stay at a Cambridge College and attend academic sessions in departments, as well as mentoring from current students.

UCAS, the UK’s university admissions service, has analysed the first two years of STEM SMART data and found that ‘STEM Smarties’ – as participants call themselves – were more aspirational, received higher grades, and were more successful at securing places at top universities.

Sixth formers from the most deprived backgrounds in the UK saw the biggest average grade boost in their A-levels across Maths, Further Maths, Physics, Chemistry and Biology, with Physics students on average achieving a grade higher.

Cambridge launched the programme in 2022, with the online platform Isaac Physics, to help bridge attainment gaps in maths and science A-level subjects, and mitigate educational disruption caused by the COVID pandemic.

Co-founder and Director of Isaac Physics, Trinity alumna Professor Lisa Jardine-Wright (pictured above) said:

We are helping to bridge that gap through free, weekly tutoring that would otherwise be unaffordable for A-level students from these backgrounds. STEM SMART has the capacity to support every STEM sixth former in every state school for free.

This is about levelling the playing field and enabling students from educationally disadvantaged and under-represented backgrounds to access Cambridge and other competitive universities. We’re providing top quality support through subject specific tuition and resources, mentoring and encouragement, and getting students from a B to an A, and from an A to an A*.

To date, Trinity has hosted more than 100 students on the STEM SMART programme. Dr Rangwala said:

Trinity hosts one of the largest intakes for the summer residential and a significant number of students go on to receive offers from Cambridge. I am delighted the STEM SMART programme has enabled many students to engage with Cambridge academics in weekly tutorials and then feel able and inspired to apply to leading UK universities including Cambridge

The UCAS research compared the outcomes of more than 1,000 sixth formers who joined STEM SMART in its first two years with those of around 9,000 demographically matched students who did not.

The analysis shows that students most engaged in the programme – more than 360 – saw their results jump by a grade on average across Maths, Further Maths, Physics, Chemistry and Biology.

They were more than twice as successful in achieving an A* in Maths, around four times as successful in achieving an A* in Physics, and around twice as successful in securing a place at Cambridge or Oxford than students from similar backgrounds who did not join the programme. A total of 80 students from the first two STEM SMART cohorts secured a place at Cambridge or Oxford.

STEM SMART and Isaac Physics are free to students, following support and funding from the University, the Colleges, alumni, The Ogden Trust, Raspberry Pi and previously the Department for Education.

Trinity runs a range of subject-focused residential programmes including the Humanities Summer Residential, Biosciences, Women in Maths and the Languages residential. Find out more Outreach Home – Trinity College Cambridge

Read more about Professor Jardine-Wright and Isaac Physics.