WP Targeting Guidelines
Identifying the WP Cohort 
Please find below changes to the Aimhigher funding allocations for schools/colleges from August 2008.
HEFCE, the funding body responsible for Aimhigher, published guidelines on how funding is to be more tightly targeted at an Aimhigher cohort for identified by schools and colleges from August 2008.
Background to the Targeting Guidelines
Government ministers have been pleased with the Aimigher initiative but feel that expensive widening participation interventions need to be more tightly targeted at those people who can benefit most from them. The primary group to be targeted remain young people aged between 13 -19, with some flexibility to work with both younger and older groups of people. The guidelines, however, spell out in much more detail how Aimhigher partnerships must ensure that resources are more tightly targeted according to criteria laid down in the document.
The Guidelines: An Executive Summary
There are to be 3 stages in the targeting process
Stage 1: Area Level. At this level ( Leicester city and Leicestershire), the Area Partnership Committee, ( A.P.C.), which manages the Aimhigher partnership must target activity at institutions at those who have populations residing in the 40% most deprived areas nationally. This is derived by indices of multiple deprivation (I.M.D.) scores which are gathered by the government.
Stage 2: Learner Level. At this level schools, colleges, community groups etc must select their Aimhigher cohorts using the following criteria: At least 2/3rds of the identified cohort should conform to the following criteria
- Those living in the 40% higher I.M.D. areas
- Those students coming from families where the main wage earner is in an occupation in the 4 lowest occupational categories according to the National Statistics Socio Economic Classification tables.
- All students with a registered disability
- All Looked After Children
From this group a further selection criteria or filter should be applied, that of potential to matriculate for higher Education. This can be done in several ways but we will include those post 16 students who already have 5+ A* -C GCSE grades or recognised equivalence. For pre 16 students they should have at least a 60% chance of gaining this requirement according to previous performance.
Stage 3: Monitoring and Evaluation. Aimhigher partnerships will be charged with monitoring that institutions are targeting the cohort for interventions. Decisions regarding future institutional funding allocations will be determined by the effectiveness of their targeting.
Leicester shire Aimhigher A.P.C. Response to the Guidelines: Initial Planning
Clearly, the implications for schools and colleges of implementing the guidelines will be significant. It is incumbent on the APC to make the targeting process as flexible and manageable as possible for schools and colleges.
The Targeting Methodology.
We can provide centrally for schools and colleges a list of student names for each institution which will include:-
- All of your students living in the areas with the 40% highest I.M.D. scores nationally
- All of your students with a registered disability
- All of your Looked After Children
We can also apply centrally the further selection criteria of potential to matriculate using either actual GCSE performance or Fischer Family trust data.
This list, capturing 4 of the 5 targeting criteria will represent your institution’s cohort size.
Data we cannot provide for you centrally is that about the occupational category of the family’s main wage earner.
If school and college co-ordinators have to select students for an Aimhigher intervention (ie a masterclass limited to say 20 students) they should ensure that 2/3rds of the students selected are from the list of names we have provided. The following 1/3rd can be any student selected by the co-ordinator based on professional judgement. They may or may not be from the cohort list.
