Theme 1: Responding to the Pandemic

King’s Social Mobility & Widening Participation Department, in partnership with Citizens UK and the NHS, is helping primary and secondary schools in Southwark and Lambeth to establish Be Well Hubs. These hubs aim to destigmatise mental ill-health by providing a place where people can speak openly, access support and co-produce solutions with local mental health trusts to improve services.

We spoke to Sarah Cowdrey, Therapy Team Manager at Newlands Academy in Southwark, about the school becoming a Be Well Hub and supporting good mental health and wellbeing in their community.

Many students at the school experienced distress and social anxiety off the back of the pandemic, which led to an increase in school refusal (when anxiety builds up to the point that a young person cannot go to school), peer pressure, lack of trust in school staff and self-esteem issues. Missing out on a huge chunk of education has had a huge impact on the way they feel about themselves.

We hope to provide wrap-around service for the whole school community, taking a holistic approach to mental health and wellbeing which is less pathologising and stigmatising. Our goal is to provide a support avenue that encourages both students, school staff and their families to reach out, ask for help and access it. We would also like to create community networks in and around the school through the Be Well Hub and use them to create systemic change.

There will be three branches to our Be Well Hub: one for students, one for staff and one for parents/carers. By providing a space for people to seek help and find connection, we aim to remodel the school’s identity in the local community. Sometimes our students feel ashamed that they are at a special provision which impacts how they feel about school. We want to focus on building connections and fostering new relationships with local schools to shift the connotations of Newlands Academy, so students feel proud of where they are.

We hope to stay connected to and partner with local charities who can promote the Be Well Hub through posters and flyers so we have a more visual presence in the community. The school also looks forward to working closely with Citizens UK and King’s College London to explore further opportunities.

The King’s Wellbeing Survey is our first attempt to measure student mental wellbeing across the whole institution. It grew from King’s concern for student wellbeing during the pandemic, and interest in how students engage with their studies beyond attainment. What Works collaborated with colleagues from Student Success and the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neuroscience to build the survey which uses a combination of clinical and nonclinical scales to represent the complex nature of mental wellbeing.

With over 5,000 full responses, the What Works team identified statistically significant findings. Whilst variation in wellbeing outcomes vary by faculty, negative wellbeing outcomes are most associated to a series of demographic characteristics. This is most pronounced for LGBTQ+ and disabled students but females, students from underrepresented backgrounds and non-mature students with caring responsibilities also reported significantly poorer mental health.

Male students, mature students, and international students were more likely to report positive wellbeing outcomes.

We will collect data on an annual basis to track the wellbeing of students from enrolment to graduation. From this data, we will gather insights to inform both the university’s Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy and the design of student facing services

In spring 2022, the What Works team began to investigate key factors affecting attainment and awarding of degrees at King's. With a dataset of over 11,000 students across eight faculties (between 2016/17 and 2020/21), we carried out a regression analysis to understand the gap between different levels of degree awards: first-class, 2:1 and above, and 2:2 and below.

The regression analysis allowed us to explore the statistical relationships and analyse the relationship between degree awarding and factors like ethnicity, socio-economic status, 'widening participation status' and mode of study.

We analysed rates of awarding based on ethnicities using two methods. The first was a generic BME categorisation which included Black, South Asian and mixed home students. The second further disaggregated ethnicity data, splitting Asian and Black more specifically (e.g., Bangladeshi, Indian, Pakistani, African, and Caribbean).

The results of our regression modelling indicated that students from certain minoritised ethnicities were significantly less likely than white students to achieve a 2:1 or first-class degree. This was the case, despite achieving similar grades in first year, and while holding other key variables in constant. Additionally, our analysis indicates that Black students (both African and Caribbean) were significantly more likely to receive a 2:2 or below than white students, despite similar grades in first year, and while controlling for key variables.

The implications of these findings are powerful reminders that while King’s College London performs well based on Office for Student benchmarks, disadvantages persist for students from certain minoritised backgrounds. As a result of this work, the What Works team is carrying out a qualitative study that focuses specifically on students’ subjective experiences. From this, we aim to be more informed about the reasons for the awarding gap existing, especially from the perspective of Black students. This will then inform the plans of the Student Transition & Outcomes team who lead on this work.