Teenagers Falling Through The Gaps

This analysis by the Children’s Commissioner for England reveals that thousands of teenagers in England are falling through the gaps in the school and care systems.

The report sets out the risks affecting tens of thousands of teenagers including persistent absence from school, exclusions, alternative provision, dropping out of the school system in Year 11, or going missing from care.

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      string(4648) "what to do. For the first time in any of my schools my teachers listened to me.An Associate Teacher, who was my Key worker, got to know my family. They understood what had happened in my life. I went on an anger management programme which made me think about kindness and positivity.A big part of my life has been the Mentors in Violence Prevention Programme, (based on the Glasgow project where older students mentor younger students to stop them being a bystander) I now really enjoy being a mentor, helping younger pupils just as I was helped.My parents and I got involved in the Achievement for All programme which helped me, and my Mum and Dad work together with the school on my needs. All of the support has stopped me from being excluded, I am grateful for that.I am proud that I am now in the top set for English and History, and in the second set for all other subjects (I am working on these). I have turned myself around with the support of my teachers and my parents.Ashmal’s teacher comments:What keeps Ashmal and his peers in school begins with attendance and behaviour meetings a weekly forum on behaviour changes, focused on the reason for the behaviour. In the first instance teachers explore what is happening, what support can be given, this involves ringing the parent or carer checking on issues at home. Teachers also talk and listen to Ashmal, focused on positivity and help to support engagement in lessons.Ashmal was also supported by the school’s strong working partnerships with external agencies, which include social care, CAMHS will share the strategies rather than the student joining a long waiting list, primary mental health and Coventry MIND. We also work with the Boomerang programme to guide teachers on how to manage mental health, build resilience and self-esteem in all students.COMPASS work around protective behaviours, risky behaviour, substance abuse has provided much needed support. Educational psychologists have also provided and provide support for children with additional support needs, ASD support, and training on emotion coaching for all staff.Other services within the school involve the Citizens Advice Bureau who provide whole family advice and guidance. The police school liaison officer has worked with EAL students on how to ring police through to restorative justice. There is also small group work after school focused on child exploitation.It is not just pastoral needs that are addressed, we constantly review the provision, providing appropriate access to learning, allowing all students to learn rather than experience cognitive overload. The principles underpinning the curriculum are Safe, Acceptance, Intervention and Learning – if students are struggling, they move into Foundation classes, supported by an associate teacher who understands the relationship between social and feelings and academic learning.At Lyng Hall we are a community committed to all students. Lyng Hall is the school that never closes the safety and security provided during term time and holidays, closed only on public holidays.Just like Ashmal I see the difference they we are making to the life chances of all students. I am proud of Ashmal, and I am proud to be a Lyng Hall teacher.With thanks to Ashmal, Paul Green – Executive Headteacher, Patricia Grainger- Executive Director of Children and Families (interviewed by Sonia Blandford)ReferencesDepartment for Education Exclusion Data 30th July 2020Education data lab, 2019National Federation of Education Research 16th June 2020Professor Sonia Blandford is one of the country’s foremost experts on social mobility and author of two influential publications: ‘Born to Fail? Social Mobility, A Working Class View’, ‘Social Mobility, Chance or Choice?’Founder and CEO of the award-winning education charity, Achievement for All (https://afaeducation.org), Sonia is also visiting professor of education at UCL Institute of Education, University of Warwick, and Plymouth Marjon University.Currently Chair of ‘Learn’ for The Prince’s Trust 2030 Task Force and Head of Social Mobility: RISE Think Tank (co-chaired by Lord Willetts and Simon Blagden). Sonia is editor of the Teaching Times Inclusion journal, and author of 300 articles and books written for teachers, leaders, parents and carers, and children and young people.Sonia is married with two amazing, adopted daughters, and a wonderful granddaughter.Follow Sonia on Twitter at @SoniaAFA3AS"
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Blogs

Rescuing A Generation At Risk From Covid and Exclusions

11 Aug 2020

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      string(3114) "learner experience and are more aware of potential pitfalls.If you get the elements right- the people, staff training, technology and resources- they combine to deliver the right learner experience, and if the learner experience is right then the results occur almost incidentally. It’s a kind of alchemy.One of our first test cases was Tamworth Enterprise College in Cannock. We were due to work with a Health and Social care group and by the time the course started, three learners were in self-isolation so we started to extend the course into the home using technology. They were studying level 2 qualifications and in the first three weeks we had 60 learners completing the courses entirely on ZoomWe were anxious at first but soon discovered there are advantages to online learning. We have noticed people are less stressed now they don’t have to catch a bus to get to a particular place. The pace of learning is faster and sessions have a lot of energy as staff are getting good at identifying the barriers and helping people to progress.Even learners who find school difficult, are at risk of exclusion or who might normally succumb to peer pressure to mess around have embraced this new model of learning. For example, with mute you can deal with nip potential crowd control issues in the bud and stop the school joker from distracting others.In addition, those who find it difficult to ask for help in a classroom enjoy remote working. Online question and answer means everyone contributes and the answers are confidential so people are more willing to take risks and have a go.We’re achieving success in engagement with our interactive video lessons. Retention rates are as high with online learning as they have been face to face, and learners are getting their qualifications. Done in the right way, with the right staff and methodology, remote courses can reach many ‘unreachable’ learners and deliver amazing results.The futurePET-Xi Live is taking us in an entirely new direction. While ministers and some schools are talking about a return to the way things were, we plan to expand our online offering. We’d like to do 40 to 60% remote working in the future because it improves work/ life balance and has environmental advantages.It also has enormous potential for young people who are excluded. In the past they were left to work on their own from home or possibly be in the school in a separate setting with a TA.We now realise that we can support children who are carers at home, looking after somebody in their family. We can extend the service to that increasing number of children who will not be able to attend school in the foreseeable future. Think of a child with cystic fibrosis or autoimmune conditions. With this technology, they will be able to work from home but be part of a group.This time of lockdown has been challenging but it has opened our eyes to many possibilities. Remote learning will be an increasingly large part of the services that PET-Xi can offer to young people."
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Digital Learning

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3 Jun 2020

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      string(5688) "Vol 4.1 n www.teachingtimes.comHealthEvery Child Journal70ReducingteenagepregnancyThe UK has the highest levels of teenagepregnancies in Western Europe. In Bradford,the rate of under-18 conceptions was57.2 per 1,000 and the local authority wasranked 234th in the country. It was one of 112 LocalAuthorities with a rate of under-18 conceptionsabove 51.1 per 1,000 population.Bradford is one of the 15 most deprived localauthorities in the country with a unique set of socio-economic issues. It’s against this backdrop thatBradford embarked on its challenging programmeto reduce teenage pregnancy rates.Teenagers who become parents are at higherrisk of long-term social exclusion due to the positionthey find themselves in. They often find themselvesisolated from the support they need and in povertyand can end up raising their children alone. If theyleave education when they become pregnant, a lackof qualifications and a lack of available time to getback into education can trap them in poverty for therest of their lives.Reducing the rate of teenagepregnancy has been an elusivegovernment goal for many years.But now, it seems that the tide isturning, with some areas achievingspectacular results. Nicola Corriganoutlines how Bradford halved itsrates.www.teachingtimes.com n Vol 4.1Health Every Child Journal71Children born to teenage mothers generally face disadvantage. They are morelikely to have poor health, do badly at school while early pregnancy also raises the riskof infant mortality. Studies also show daughters of teenage mothers are more likely tobecome teenage mothers themselves, continuing the cycle of early parenthood andsocial exclusion.Reducingteenagepregnancy“Developingthe skills andconfidence theyneed to deal withreal life situationsand supportingthem to delay earlysex is important.”Who’s vulnerable? Risk factors associated with teenage pregnancy40 per cent of girls in local authority care become mothers before they reach 20, three times the average inEngland.Being a daughter of teenage mum.Ethnic groups over-represented in teenage pregnancy figures are mixed white and black Caribbean, other blackand white British. Asian ethnic groups under-represented.Parental aspirations – research shows that a mother with low educational aspirations is an important predictorof teenage motherhood.Teenage motherhood – 20 per cent of under 18s go on to have a subsequent birth whilst still a teenager.Low education attainments – Those with low levels of education, even when other deprivation factors are takeninto account, are twice as likely to become pregnant.40 per cent of teenage mums have no qualifications when they leave school. After the age of 16, 29 per cent ofthose with no qualifications give birth to a baby compared to just 1 per cent of those with qualifications.Early sexual activity.Poor contraception advice or access to services.Mental health, social disorder and involvement with crime are other risk factors.nnnnnnnnnnChanges in sex educationGetting young people to talk openly with parents and professionals about issues andfeelings is an important part of the modern strategy to deal with sexual health andissues around relationships.Developing the skills and confidence they need to deal with real life situationsand supporting them to delay early sex is important. It equips them to stay safeand healthy when they do become sexually active and helps them appreciate thechallenges and responsibilities of parenthood.Moreover, tackling teenage conceptions means addressing a wide range of issuesfrom welfare and housing to social care, health care and education and requiresworking across voluntary, health and local authority sectors.In Bradford it was decided that no one single issue was going to be able to workon its own and in isolation. A coordinated young person’s sexual health and teenagepregnancy team was created with a dedicated budget.George McQueen, Assistant Director of Access and Inclusion, says: “Teenagepregnancy is everyone’s problem. As well as the impact on the parents, it also has animpact on their family, friends, school or place of work.“We decided on creating a holistic approach to the issue. Tackling one part of theproblem will only get you so far, but if you make it everyone’s issue, fewer people aregoing to fall through the gaps.“There aren’t any quick fixes either. Changing behaviours, improving educationand awareness of the issues involved can’t be delivered overnight or in a single year.“Being the daughter of a teenage mother is the strongest predictor of teenagemotherhood, so good practice now will have an impact on future generations.”Vol 4.1 n www.teachingtimes.comHealthEvery Child Journal72First stepsWe started by looking at the services across the Bradford District to assess how youngpeople access and use them. A partnership of key organisations covering the NHS,Bradford Council and voluntary organisations formed a project called Upfront to tackle theissue.After looking at best practice, one of the first things the group did was to identify amodel of practice. 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Special Needs

Reducing teenage pregnancy

11 Dec 2013

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      string(352) "... lower income homes. Digital Access West Yorkshire’s Claire Garside reflects:“Lockdown happened very quickly andat a time when most schools didn’t have a school-wide policy for remoteteaching and learning. Teachers from all classes or subjects hadn’t receivedany/enough training and support to be able to adapt ..."
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      string(5769) "Only 51% of households earning between £6000-10,000 have home internet access The closure of all educationalestablishments was a shock to pupils, parents and schools alike. Pupils andteachers were forced to operate remotely at very short notice, pupils received fewer learning hours and had theircurriculum cut, and much of the work set by schools assumed families had accessto devices and home internet. Study after study  showed that these changes disproportionately impacted pupils from lower income homes. Digital Access West Yorkshire’s Claire Garside reflects:“Lockdown happened very quickly andat a time when most schools didn’t have a school-wide policy for remoteteaching and learning. Teachers from all classes or subjects hadn’t receivedany/enough training and support to be able to adapt to the change incircumstances. Digital exclusion and the impact on educational attainment,health and wellbeing needs to be addressed – people/families need to besupported to get online and connect with others.”Home accessIt’s easy to forget that digital is neither universal nor free. 22% of the UK’s population have lacked basic digital skills since long before the Covid-19 outbreak, and the less you earn, the less likely you are to spend your money on an internet connection. For example, only 51% of households earning between £6000-10,000 have home internet access, compared with 99% of households with an income of over £40,001.It’s clear that throughout thiscrisis, schools have been working hard to try to give their pupils the bestopportunities possible. But tasking children with work to do online assumed agood internet connection and access to appropriate devices. From the stats above, we can see thatthis approach excludes almost half of low income homes, and, to add insult toinjury, those children falling through the cracks are already less likely to succeedat school. When schools set learning tasks that require an internet connectionat home, the gap is only likely to grow further during this crisis. Teaching staff are of courseconfronted with the harsh realities of these inequalities every day. As one head teacher said:“I was talking to one family onFriday, when I was delivering free meals. I did take them a paper pack of work,because Mum said it was ‘pay the wi-fi or feed the children’ this month…Sometimes people simply can’t afford to pay for wi-fi.”To extract maximum learning potentialfrom the tech, there needs to be reinforcement across the board: socially andculturally as well as practically. The kit is just the start While it’s a great start to make devices available in family homes, there also needs to be a sensitivity to how the tech is used – what role does it play in the home? What happens if we try to change the purpose of familiar tools? Are children emotionally ready to repurpose their ‘toys’ for learning? This, coupled with the practicalconstraint of inaccessible devices, poses serious challenges to learning fromhome. Another head teacher explained:“The majority of children in schoolaren’t accessing any of the online learning that we’ve set. I know that some ofthem don’t have reliable internet. Most of them who have anything have phonesor tablets. They’re often shared with siblings, so their access to somethingappropriate to work on is quite limited.”The Government acknowledged the issueup to a point, distributing 200,000 laptops and six-month internet accesspasses to care givers and disadvantaged pupils, but even this failed to addressthe magnitude of the problem.Distributing equipment was a goodstart, but it was exactly that: just a start. It relied on the idea thatparents, on the whole, have the time, skills and space at home to supportschool work outside of the school environment. Parental engagement A survey of teachers by the National foundation for Education Research (NfER) found that just 55 percent of parents were engaged in their child’s learning, while a UCL study suggested that pupils learning at home spent 2.5 hours a day on school work, on average, with one in five doing less than an hour a day. That means that two million children in the UK were doing less than five hours of work a week, many of them were in the free school meals category.Issues for teachers Even if students can do their work, there can be issues with assessment. Evaluating academic progress in these conditions is very difficult without knowing the hours spent or what opportunities the pupils have had to engage with the material. It’s worth noting that setting and assessing work remotely can be extremely labour intensive for teachers, who feel a great deal of care and responsibility towards their students and have rapidly had to convert their tried-and-true methods to suit the new landscape. One teacher told us:“The most surprising thing was howmuch work was involved; it wasn’t a case of setting some work for an hour inthe morning and taking the rest of the day off.”Digital literacy is another, oftenoverlooked, part of the equation. 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Blogs

What Happened To Learning During The Lockdown In Leeds?

24 Sep 2020