Abstract

In England, there is a growing need to improve the attainment in, and attitudes
towards, science among disadvantaged secondary school pupils. This project was designed to
support disadvantaged year 11 pupils (age 15–16) by pairing them with an undergraduate STEM
student mentor throughout the final year of their compulsory science General Certificate of
Secondary Education (GCSE) examinations course. The project found that mentored pupils did
statistically significantly better in terms of attainment in both mock and actual GCSE examinations
and also showed a statistically significantly greater improvement in their attitudes to science than
un-mentored pupils.