Rationale

Self-assessment reviews identified that attendance, behaviour, and retention were causing concern on some programmes. Partners were keen to explore why this was happening and what could be done to improve the situation.

This project was originally designed to encourage collaboration and research among practitioners working in alternative education, however, initial findings soon flagged its potential for most programmes targeting 16-19 year olds. It provided a cost-effective opportunity to explore the ingredients needed to create truly ‘alternative’ education programmes divorced from negative past experience and designed to focus on securing the skills and qualifications needed to prepare learners for further study and secure employment.

The project addressed 3 questions considered key to providing a successful fresh start and to ensure that we encourage our learners to take their next steps with the confidence, independence and resilience to succeed.
1. What do we need to know about these learners before they start on programme?
2. How does the ‘alternative’ curriculum need to differ to engage and prepare learners for progression?
3. What TLA strategies work well with these learners?

Project Activities and Outputs

Approach and Methdology

A mixed methodology approach which included learner focus groups, staff surveys, desk-based review, teaching experiments and peer observation was used to explore the three areas identified. Progress was reported against these areas and resulted in the development of a learner profile and guidance, an induction curriculum based on findings from the project and reflections on TLA resources and strategies used to overcome skills gaps all of which was collated on a Padlet site to be shared.

Professional Learning

Evidence of changes in teaching, learning and assessment practices.

Staff were able to shape project objectives following a review of recent academic research, government surveys, reports etc, reflecting on their own practice and the effectiveness of existing organisational procedures. This resulted in the collaborative development of a generic learner profile template and guidance document identifying the information /process needed to facilitate the induction of learners and the exploration of Growth Mindset assessments with one partner in particular.

A variety of learner focus groups highlighted possible reasons for learners struggling to stay on programme which subsequently informed the development of an induction curriculum. Teaching experiments and peer observations were used to explore strategies to be incorporated in the curriculum. These involved a range of different approaches including digital technologies, scaffolded learning techniques and collaborative learning all of which were designed to encourage confidence and support independence.

The lesson experiments conducted by Improvement Practitioners and the reciprocal peer observations conducted in the first phase of the project impacted explicitly on both practitioner and organisational practices. An experiment with a maths group, for example, focussed on ways of improving the learners’ attitudes to tackling new maths concepts and increasing their motivation to persevere when gaps in their previous knowledge cause them to give up. The experiment looked at the effect that learner support vs scaffolded tasks had on learner motivation. The findings which identified learners’ dependence on support staff for motivation resonated with the project team and has resulted in changes to the induction curriculum and has prompted more research into the effective use of support staff, a very valuable but diminishing resource.

Evidence of improved collaboration and changes in organisational practices

Adopting a bottom up research methodology firmly grounded in what the learner thinks and needs has resulted in greater collaboration between learner, support staff and tutors. This has impacted on the development of curriculum content, organisational practices e.g. IAG/ recruitment, and the identification of staff development needs e.g. embedding the development of character skills into the curriculum.

The project extension has improved collaboration within and between schools, with Improvement Practitioners acting as conduits for sharing ideas and project findings through project meetings and through the observation process. Experiments have been valued highly by staff as they feel that they have made it easier to understand individual learners

‘…especially those who had behavioural issues, to try to understand at what point they became distracted.’ and have relished the chance to ‘use new techniques & methodologies and be observed in a non-judgemental environment.’