I recently blogged about the achievements of a former student at an AP for children who experience SEMH difficulties, I indulged myself in a little selfish pride for having been part of his journey. The warm feelings generated by stories like this sustain us in our work and show others what is achieved.
I’m also interested in systematic ways of ensuring that the young people we work with can firstly achieve meaningfully from their individual starting points and, as importantly, that we can show hard evidence of their progress in academic as well as social and emotional areas. This is important in the outside world, of course, for the student and their aspirations to college and work, and for the school or provision in proving impact. What’s as significant is the way in which being able to recognise progress affects the child’s view of themselves as a learner who can achieve. When they’re referred to AP, most children have a very negative view of themselves as participants in education – they routinely self-identify as ‘difficult’, ‘naughty’, ‘stupid’, ‘no-hopers’, and other internalised labels given to them over their careers in mainstream settings.
In Alternative Provision it’s our duty as the adults and the professionals in their lives to help children undo the learned scripts and overcome the social, emotional and physical barriers to them fulfilling their potential. I’ve been lucky enough to work in AP where the needs of students can be met through flexible and responsive provision – with small groups and/or one to one work, and off-site adventurous activities. In these circumstances we can take time to build authentic relationships and co-create outcomes together. These elements can help children to manage their anxieties about school; they can overcome setbacks because the systems are designed for patient work alongside children.
In my experience the best APs are creative and determined to meet the needs of their students; this entails a reflective approach to all aspects of policy and practice. Curriculum design is a huge responsibility in AP – where the setting must offer programmes which are broad and balanced and are relevant to the aptitudes and enthusiasms of students; they must also equip students for and encourage them to aspire to future achievement in the wider world. It’s key in this that students can see their achievements and recognise themselves in a positive way as members of the school and, by implication, in society at large
As a team we discovered that there was very little available in the way of recording progress for children who face barriers to do with their SEMH and/or complex needs; this remains the case to this day. Information Management Systems on the market when we were first encountering the issue, were largely designed for the mainstream and were completely inappropriate for an AP setting and its students. These days there are products available, which focus on qualitative evidence for various aspects of student progress. What wasn’t available was a system which was designed to evidence progress through quantitative as well as qualitative means. I’m guessing this is because it is not easy to produce such a system, and the numbers of children for whom it is important are relatively few.
I had the privilege, at the time, of being part of a group who were not only talented but believed, with a passion, in our students and were entirely committed to finding solutions which work. Over the course of 5 years we worked together on creating a web-based portal which would hold all aspects of student information, including attendance, engagement, behaviour, safeguarding and academic progress against curriculum. The process of developing a code-able system of noughts and ones out of the wide range of bespoke programmes students took part in at the setting was a long and often arduous one; relationships were tested and survived through humour and compassion.[1] Over time we produced a system which works; it records, monitors, reports on and analyses progress. Attendance is measured in the tiniest of increments, from, for example telling a mentor to ‘F*** off ‘ on the doorstep of the family home, through conversations from behind a bedroom door, up to attending on site and engaging fully. Engagement and behaviour are measured against a set of outcomes in each session, including breaks; in our setting these were based on indicators from Every Child Matters, [2] but the system allows for any framework, however bespoke. We broke down curriculum into the smallest possible units of achievement so that all progress can be identified and recorded.
We wanted the system to produce printable reports, complete with graphics to show achievements – this allows staff to plan around gaps and helps students and their families understand that they are moving forwards at their own pace. We wanted to use the portal to see where issues, internal and external to school, impact the student’s learning so that we can anticipate and address any deficits in what we deliver. The programme we have developed allows us to figure out what works for individual students and do more of it . All of this adds to a success-orientated environment underpinned by authentically warm and positive relationships.
What the portal is also doing is amassing a huge and growing body of (anonymised) numerical data (in the tens of millions of points to date) which can be analysed to identify what is effective and what isn’t. The data is as yet largely un-mined, but it has the potential to provide meta level hard evidence of best practice and impact which backs up the anecdotal and other qualitative material we all have readily available.
The sort of work needed to produce such solutions is strenuous and it’s not well-resourced; our piece relied on the accident which found the right people being in the right place at the right time, and on the determination of those involved to succeed in what we were doing, regardless of the challenges. This is crucial work ,not just in terms of evidence-based practice and proving our worth to funders and commissioners; our students deserve the best possible outcomes and there should be support structures for innovation in the field which will ensure excellence in what is delivered going forward.
[1] The process of developing the portal will be explored in an upcoming article in **co-authored with Dr Alexandra Gray, who was part of the team which developed the portal. For more information see @learntrek www.huistechnologies.com
[2] Every Child Matters, 2003, is a government initiative which sets out 5 themes in which all children are entitled to succeed: Be Safe, Be Healthy, Enjoy and Achieve, Make a Positive Contribution, Achieve Economic Well-being
I recently blogged about the achievements of a former student at an AP for children who experience SEMH difficulties, I indulged myself in a little selfish pride for having been part of his journey. The warm feelings generated by stories like this sustain us in our work and show others what is achieved.
I’m also interested in systematic ways of ensuring that the young people we work with can firstly achieve meaningfully from their individual starting points and, as importantly, that we can show hard evidence of their progress in academic as well as social and emotional areas. This is important in the outside world, of course, for the student and their aspirations to college and work, and for the school or provision in proving impact. What’s as significant is the way in which being able to recognise progress affects the child’s view of themselves as a learner who can achieve. When they’re referred to AP, most children have a very negative view of themselves as participants in education – they routinely self-identify as ‘difficult’, ‘naughty’, ‘stupid’, ‘no-hopers’, and other internalised labels given to them over their careers in mainstream settings.
In Alternative Provision it’s our duty as the adults and the professionals in their lives to help children overcome the social and emotional barriers to them fulfilling their potential, as well as the material ones. I’ve been lucky enough to work in AP where the needs of students can be met through flexible and responsive provision – with small groups and/or one to one work, and off-site adventurous activities. In these circumstances we can take time to build authentic relationships and co-create outcomes together. These elements help children to manage their anxieties about school; they can overcome setbacks because the systems are designed for patient work alongside children.
In my experience the best APs are creative and determined to meet the needs of their students; this entails a reflective approach to all aspects of policy and practice. Curriculum design is a huge responsibility in AP – where the setting must offer a programmes which are broad and balanced and are relevant to the aptitudes and enthusiasms of students; they must also equip students for and encourage them to aspire to future achievement in the wider world. It’s key in this that students can see their achievements and recognise themselves in a positive way as members of the school and, by implication, in society at large
As a team we discovered that there was very little available in the way of recording progress for children who face barriers to do with their SEMH and/or complex needs; this remains the case to this day. Information Management Systems on the market when we were first encountering the issue, were largely designed for the mainstream and were completely inappropriate for an AP setting and its students. These days there are products available, which focus on qualitative evidence for various aspects of student progress. What wasn’t available was a system which was designed to evidence progress through qualitative as well as quantitative means. I’m guessing this is because it is not easy to produce such a system, and the numbers of children for whom it is important are relatively few.
I had the privilege, at the time, of being part of a group who were not only talented but believed, with a passion, in our students and were entirely committed to finding solutions which work. Over the course of 5 years we worked together on creating a web-based portal which would hold all aspects of student information, including attendance, engagement, behaviour, safeguarding and academic progress against curriculum. The process of developing a code-able system of noughts and ones out of the wide range of bespoke programmes students took part in at the setting was a long and often arduous one; relationships were tested and survived.[1] Over time we produced a system which works; it records, monitors, reports on and analyses progress. Attendance is measured in the tiniest of increments, from telling a mentor to ‘F*** off ‘ on the doorstep of the family home, through conversations from behind a bedroom door, up to attending on site and engaging fully. Engagement and behaviour are measured against a set of outcomes in each session, including breaks; in our setting these were based on indicators from Every Child Matters, [2] but the system allows for any framework, however bespoke. We broke down curriculum into the smallest possible units of achievement so that all progress can be identified and recorded.
We wanted the system to produce printable reports, complete with graphics to show achievements, and to allow staff to plan around gaps to help students and their families understand that they are moving forwards at their own pace. We wanted to use the portal to see where issues internal and external to school impact the student’s learning so that we can anticipate and address any deficits in what we deliver. The programme we have developed allows us to figure out what works for individual students and do more of it . All of this adds to a success-orientated environment underpinned by authentically warm and positive relationships.
What the portal is also doing is amassing a huge body of (anonymised) data (in the tens of millions of points to date) which identify what is effective and what isn’t. The data is as yet largely un-mined, but it has the potential to provide hard evidence of best practice and impact to back up the anecdotal and other qualitative material we all have readily available.
The sort of work needed to produce such solutions is strenuous and it’s not well-resourced; our piece relied on the accident of the right people being in the right place at the right time, and on the determination of those involved to succeed in what we were doing, regardless of the challenges. It’s important, not just in terms of evidence-based practice and proving our worth to funders and commissioners; our students deserve the best possible outcomes and there should be support structures for innovation in the field which will ensure excellence in what is delivered going forward.
[1] The process of developing the portal will be explored in an upcoming article in Practice: Social work in Action co-authored with Dr Alexandra Gray, who was part of the team which developed the portal. For more information see @learntrek www.huistechnologies.com
[2] Every Child Matters, 2003, is a government initiative which sets out 5 themes in which all children are entitled to succeed: Be Safe, Be Healthy, Enjoy and Achieve, Make a Positive Contribution, Achieve Economic Well-being
