With Insight Education graduated from Cambridge Social Ventures in September 2020.
Idea
With Insight Education provides online mentoring programmes to black and black mixed-heritage pupils to increase the numbers progressing to top universities.
Their online mentoring programmes train black students from leading universities to be inspirational mentors to state school GCSE and A-Level pupils. They also work with companies who share their value for greater diversity by training their staff to be career mentors to the pupils.
Their highly structured programmes are co-created with input from teachers and university partners and enable the mentees to:
become more confident that they can fit in and thrive at a top university
make better informed university and career choices
improve the quality of their university applications, making it more likely that they will secure an offer.
People
The founder of With Insight Education, Christine Kinnear, is a social marketing professional with 15 years of experience in the not-for-profit sector. Christine’s own university choice was heavily influenced by a fear of not fitting in, so when her daughter expressed this same concern, Christine was determined that things needed to change.
She piloted the mentoring programme with support from the Teach First Innovation programme and incorporated With Insight Education as a not-for-profit organisation in 2018.
Christine is passionate about achieving equality in educational opportunities. She is also Chair of Governors at a North London primary school, a Vice Chair Board Trustee for an arts education charity and a member of the AccessHE BAME network.
Impact
Black pupils consistently have the lowest entry rate to top universities. With Insight Education’s social mission is to disrupt this trend by instilling pupils with the confidence, knowledge and ability to successfully apply.
By providing positive role models and structured guidance, their programmes have supported pupils to make better degree choices and secure places at leading universities that they often had not even considered applying to before.
Their programmes also benefit the mentors who experience the development of their skills. For example, communication and leadership.
With Insight Education’s long-term goal is to create a virtuous cycle of young people who receive support, secure places at leading universities and then ‘give back’ by inspiring upcoming generations to aim high.
Lead entrepreneur
Christine Kinnear
Get in touch
With Insight Education welcomes approaches from schools, universities or businesses who are interested in working towards a future where the representation of Black talent is truly reflective of the potential available.
withinsightedu.org
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