The Brilliant Club

Find out more on about The Brilliant Club and The Faculty of Law collaboration

The Brilliant Club is an award-winning university access charity. 

They recruit and train PhD students and ECRs to support disadvantaged school pupils, access the most competitive universities and succeed when they get there.  The Brilliant Club provides PhDs and ECRs training in public engagement, teaching methods, and widening participation. Researchers are then paid to deliver academically rigorous programmes to small groups of pupils in non-selective  

state schools. The charity works in partnership with universities and schools across the UK; to date nearly 2000 researchers have worked as tutors.  

The Brilliant Club aims to increase the number of pupils from under-represented backgrounds achieving places at highly selective UK universities. To do this, the charity uses the passion and knowledge of PhD students who tutor high-achieving pupils who attend a non-selective state school. Oxford University DPhil students have joined the programme, and a number of Brilliant Club pupils go on to the most competitive universities. 

The Brilliant Club provides PhDs and ECRs training in widening participation, research communication, and teaching. Researchers are then paid to deliver academically rigorous programmes to small groups of pupils in state schools across the UK. 

How does it work? 

This year the Brilliant Club is running two programmes for researchers to get involved with: The Scholars Programme and The Brilliant Tutoring Programme. Each program is designed to support students in different areas. On the Scholars Programme, tutors are supported to create a course, including assignments, based on their own academic research. The Brilliant Tutoring Programme helps pupils who have been most affected by Covid-19 to catch up on lost learning.  

During each placement, tutors deliver a total of 30 hours of tuition. Tutors are paid from £500 per placement (with additional London Weighting), plus at least an additional £100 for designing a new Scholars Programme course. Travel expenses are also covered. 

What is the commitment from researchers? 

The Brilliant Club recognises that doctoral students have to balance this opportunity alongside their research and other commitments. Consequently, we ask tutors to submit an availability form on a termly basis. This enables them to regularly adjust how many placements (if any) they are able to do at a particular time, providing flexibility around lab work, university teaching, and viva preparations, for example. Before starting work with us tutors will be required to complete a series of online training modules, which will cover pedagogy, course design and delivery and safeguarding to prepare them to work in schools. As a guide, over the course of any placement, which takes place over 3 months, tutors on either programme should expect to work between 40 and 55 hours – longer if it is their first placement delivering a self-designed course.  

Who can I contact? 

Please see the Brilliant Club’s website for a complete list of contacts