Resources

“Every student has a story. But the data we rely on rarely tells it..” 

Reflections from the Beyond Guesswork Workshops 

In the Beyond Guesswork workshops, we explored what happens when we go beyond the usual categories and start listening to student needs more closely.

Over the last couple of months, I’ve had the opportunity to run a series of Beyond Guesswork workshops with access and participation professionals from across the country. The sessions were full – full of insight, full of challenge, and most importantly, allowed us to think differently about how we target support for students in post-16 settings. 

What brought us together was a common question: how can we target interventions more effectively, especially when time and resources are limited? And more to the point, how do we make sure the support we’re offering is actually reaching the right students, in the right way? 

One of the strongest takeaways for me was this:

We can’t rely on static demographic data alone to do that job. 

Postcode. Gender. Parental education. These markers can tell us something about disadvantage, yes, but they do not tell us everything. They don’t tell us what a student thinks about their future. They don’t tell us how confident they feel about applying to university, or how supported they feel in their decision-making. They can’t reveal whether a student is feeling overwhelmed, disengaged, quietly determined, or completely stuck.  

And yet, so often, we still design interventions based on these fixed categories, hoping that they will land, hoping they will resonate. However, intention alone doesn’t always lead to impact; and broad assumptions don’t lead to precise support. 

The Beyond Guesswork Workshops

In the workshops, we shared findings from a national segmentation study with over 35,000 FE students, looking beyond the basics to understand what actually drives student decision-making. The insights challenged a few assumptions we have probably all made. Students within the same ‘category’ could have wildly different attitudes to higher education, levels of knowledge, and feelings of belonging. In short, their needs were anything but uniform. 

That is where segmentation helps. It allows us to stop guessing. It gives us a way to identify who needs support, understand what kind of support they need, and match that with the right kind of intervention. It is targeted, but it is also human. And it’s a step closer to responding to students as individuals, not data points. 

My Final Thoughts

It was encouraging to see how well this landed. There were great conversations in every session, about what this could mean for student recruitment, for outreach planning, for how we work with colleges and partners. I recall one attendee saying that it felt like “permission to rethink everything.” It was a small moment, but it really felt like the whole purpose of the workshops had landed. 

When support is based on insight, not assumption, everything changes. Engagement improves. Resources go further. And perhaps most importantly, students feel seen. 

More Beyond Guesswork workshops are on their way at some point soon, but for now, I’ll leave you with the simplest version of what we explored together: 

Start with need. Understand it properly. And meet it with the right response. 

Stay up to date with everything education, by signing up to our Cosmos Connects Newsletter and get it straight to your inbox.

👉 SIGN UP

If we’re not already connected, also come and say hi on LinkedIn. I share regular updates, reflections, and behind-the-scenes from the work we are doing to improve student outcomes.

Until next time, 

Sarah