Lifelong Learning Project - School Inclusion - Preventing Early School Leaving

One of the main factors which influences a student’s enjoyment of education and keeps them on the course is the quality of teaching. Poor quality / un-stimulating teaching can lead to poor classroom behaviour and this in turn can lead to ‘drop outs’ or course failure.

Poor quality, boring teaching, for whatever reason, has to be identified and put right, perhaps with high quality training, better resources, or strong, supportive systems of performance management.

The extensive and long term use of supply teachers can also have a serious detrimental effect, particularly if the supply teacher is not an expert in the subject they are covering and lacks the relationships with the students enjoyed by their normal class teacher.

High quality educational leadership is essential to ensure that educational policies at national, regional and local levels are not too rigid, inflexible or lacking in vision.

It is important to offer differentiated learning to meet each student’s different learning styles. When educators show students there are different ways to learn, students find new and creative ways to solve problems, achieve success and become lifelong learners.

There is much evidence that each of us learns in different ways – Visual Learners - they like seeing diagrams and respond well to graphical illustrations, maps etc. Auditory Learners respond best to hearing things, sometimes musical but not always. Kinaesthetic Learners often like to physically do something to reinforce learning. Further information about different learning styles is available using this link.

It is important to have the right climate for learning for student retention. Although some negative factors are difficult to resolve without adequate funding e.g. poor quality buildings, a lack of laboratories or equipment, teachers can achieve much by setting the right climate in the classroom. It is important to create an environment that maximises pupil’s opportunities and motivation to learn and where teacher and student have a good working relationship. Students have to feel safe and cared for in the classroom. Activities which counteract such a feeling are unacceptable e.g. ridiculing, forcing, compelling, punishing, threatening, blaming, putting down, nagging, bribing, badgering.

Key points for a good learning environment are:-

Motivation is optimal when coercion is at a minimum and a trusting, caring climate is at a maximum.

Involuntary relationships become voluntary when students are where they want to be and learning is promoted in this type of climate.

For an interesting article on this topic from the Teacher.Net Gazette use this link to Learning climate

Assessment of individual students is essential to decide what stage students have reached in their learning, where they need to go and how best to get there. In the UK this is addressed through a strategy called AfL (Assessment for Learning) designed to support schools in using assessment information to improve and plan provision. AfL practices such as target-setting, pupil self-assessment and peer assessment have been adopted by many UK schools. AfL is also one of the aspects which can make the most difference to children's achievement when planned effectively. For further details see:
Teachernet Assessment of Pupils
Assessment for Learning Guidance
Ten Principles of Assessment for Learning

Communication between schools has to be good. Problems encountered by teachers and students at a younger age (and successful strategies to deal with them) need to always be passed on when they change school.

It is also important that teachers at the receiving school know the ability levels, particularly levels of numeracy and literacy, of the transferring student so that they can be linked with the right peer group and any skills level weaknesses addressed.

Having said that the opposite can apply and teachers at the receiving school can be overly influenced by the views of teachers at the feeder schools and it is important that new students are welcomed with an open mind and given a fair chance in their new school.

Families living in ‘Social Housing’ are felt to be particularly vulnerable when changing schools and moving to a new area.

Turning to communication in general, when problems are identified one strategy which has been tried and works well is a system of weekly contact with parents / carers. Although this can be heavy on staff time, it can pay dividends with the most vulnerable students as both the students and their parents / carers know the contact will be made and students tend to try harder to receive good weekly progress reports.

The incidence of students identified as having special educational needs within the area of BESD (Behaviour, Emotional and Social Difficulties) is rising faster than any other category of Special Educational Need. This in turn is placing pressure on the mainstream and Special School systems to meet their needs and it is crucial that students are placed in the most suitable school and given the right level of support at all times.

‘Traveller’ culture can play an important part in whether ‘traveller’ children ‘drop out’. Although gypsy traveller parents are not generally hostile to education, there is a fear of dilution of ‘Gypsy Values’ and the exposure of children to the ‘immoralities’ of non-gypsy society.

Gypsy traveller children also have the problem of a lack of school continuity as they move around the country. It is therefore important that schools and local educational authorities take care to put in special provision to meet the needs of such communities.

In this connection a new review of articles and papers has just been published, which we strongly recommend, on improving outcomes for Gypsy, Roma and Traveller children (then go into publications then input – Gypsy Roma Traveller in the search box)

In a similar way, teaching continuity is important and students are more likely to be engaged if they have the same teacher for the whole of an academic year. Extensive use of ‘supply’ teachers can have a very detrimental effect.

Poor course selection whether when selecting optional courses during the period of ‘compulsory’ education or when older and selecting courses post compulsory education, can have a major impact on whether a student completes the course. There can be many reasons the ‘wrong’ course is selected e.g.

• Lack of choice (because their preferred course is over subscribed or not available)
• Distance of travel – subsidised travel may be one possible solution
• Inadequate basic skills levels leading to dropping behind in course work (e.g. we have found that a poor literacy level makes it difficult to successfully complete psychology courses)
• Lack of information to students, parents and carers about the curriculum, examinations and course requirements

In some countries, possibly most countries, the choice of the curriculum is set by the central government. Sometimes, this can have only very limited flexibility, particularly when education is not a top political priority and this can have a very detrimental effect on students for whom the standard curriculum is not the most appropriate choice to generate enthusiasm and interest and encourage them to stay in education.

Our investigations also identified other ‘school related’ factors

• Treatment by staff – many of the students interviewed complained about the way they were treated by teachers, particularly those ‘Post 16’, after compulsory education – students wished to be treated as adults and their relationships with teachers was felt to be an important factor, however some students have an immature understanding of how an adult should be treated and how an adult should behave
• Inflexible school disciplinary systems also influenced ‘drop out’ decisions, many students interviewed felt that a rigid disciplinary system led to inconsistencies in application between teachers and this in turn led to feelings of discrimination and unfairness – ‘I was punished for everything’
• Too many examinations and unrealistic target setting can also lead to students feeling over pressurised and unhappy in school
• Opportunities for ‘extra-curriculum’ activities were generally well received and felt to have a positive influence on remaining in school
• Inability to study courses with a particular friend and feeling lonely and isolated e.g. if the course is at a different school, also has a negative influence
• The perception that education after the age of 16 is only for students who are academic rather than ‘vocational’
• Distance of travel is also a factor when students are excluded from their school. Usually their second school is not so close to their home and this can be another factor ‘encouraging’ absenteeism. One possible solution here would be on-line distance learning such as The University of the First Age
• There is some evidence that gender split is significant in that more boys are seen to drop out. One possible reason could be that the early curriculum does not suit the learning style of boys, who fall foul of the disciplinary systems early in their school careers and as a result become ‘labelled’.

Perhaps the most obvious indicator of students in danger of ‘dropping out’ is poor attendance. In the UK, a Persistent Absentee (PA) is defined as having more than 63 sessions of absence (authorised and unauthorised) during the year (typically more than 20 per cent absence)’.

For ‘Key actions to reduce Persistent Absentees’ please use Persistent Absentees.

Further information and guidance on attendance is available from the ‘School Attendance’ web site

Another significant indicator of a potential ‘drop out’ is ongoing poor behaviour, usually leading to regular disciplinary action by the school. It is very important that schools have a clear and consistent disciplinary system, which is fairly, but sympathetically, applied.

This is an area where support and guidance should be available from colleagues within school but in the most challenging cases, external support should also be available. Two sources of help in the UK are the ‘Behaviour Support Service’ and Pupil Referral Units

Sometimes dropping out of school is due to circumstances beyond the control of the young person. e.g. through personal illness, Mental Health issues, psychosomatic complaints, or a long term injury.

The power of peer group pressure can often be underestimated and being part of a ‘High Risk’ group or gang can often lead to:

• Poor behaviour and poor attendance
• The use of illegal substances
• And even pregnancy / parenthood
• Poor relationships with peers can also be an influencing factor

Bullying is often suffered by many young people, particularly those with a Personal Learning Disability and this is something which teachers can easily identify, but whereas a Learning Disability is relatively easy to identify, young people who are suffering from bullying can be less easy to recognise and it is important to have in place a system which allows students to talk in confidence to a senior member of staff or a trained student mentor. We have an ‘Anti-bullying’ group, led by one of our Assistant Head Teachers with student mentors who all receive ‘anti-bullying’ training. See also ‘Learning Climate’ Paragraph 3 above.

The internet offers a wealth of sites which give guidance on how to identify and deal with bullying. In the UK there are also a number of organisations set up to help and listen to children’s problems e.g. Childline

Many students who are potential drop-outs have low self esteem and it is important to build up their self respect at every opportunity. One solution is to operate a ‘rewards’ system and actively look for opportunities to reward and praise, not only directly to the students but also to their parents. Parents are delighted to be told of their children’s successes and this will have a ‘knock-on’ effect on family and family-school relationships.

Less obvious factors can also lead to ‘drop outs’, often linking with ‘Course Selection’ above, our Case Study investigations identified:

• Lack of interest or boredom with the course, leading to a lack of effort
• • Students with close friends outside school, (perhaps students previously ‘excluded’ from the same school), often exhibit poor classroom behaviour land this can lead to their own ‘drop-out’
• Difficulties in meeting course requirements e.g. falling behind with coursework and failing to meet deadlines, or obtaining poor marks in interim examinations or coursework
• A feeling that the course lacks relevance to a chosen career e.g. one of our interviewees was simply marking time until he could join the army and felt that very few of his compulsory courses had relevance to his chosen career
• A belief that work experience will be more beneficial to future career prospects than examination success

The amount of time and effort that a young person has made to their course - our research suggests that young people who left after completing a significant part of their course found the decision harder because by leaving education they were wasting the time and effort already invested in the course. If teachers ‘front – load’ the work, i.e. increasing the workload at the start of the course this makes leaving at a later stage much harder.

Students come into education from a wide variety of backgrounds and how they perform can depend on how much the family as a whole value education and see it as beneficial either to their children or to the family as a whole e.g. Traveller families, families with low educational levels of parents and siblings.

Cultural expectations and practises can also be a major influence e.g. the different expectation for girls in some cultures.

Quite often parents / carers don’t see the need for education or simply aren’t able to manage, and fail to ensure their children attend school every day and this can lead them into conflict with the education authorities.

In the UK this conflict is likely to increase as new regulations are brought in to extend the compulsory education period to 17 and then to 18. For further information on the UK Government’s Raising Expectations plans.

In the UK, parents / carers who do not ensure their children attend school when they should, can often find themselves in serious trouble, possible even court action. This can lead to them officially saying they will provide education at home (EHE).

Whilst some parents are undoubtedly able to education their children at home very well, for others, particularly when students are withdrawn in their final year of compulsory education, this can mean very little education is provided and even though the Local Authorities do their best to monitor the quality of education being provided, young people can be seriously disadvantaged by being withdrawn from school.

The influence of other people, particularly families, cannot be overstated when students are taking decisions to stay at school or to leave a course. Negative influences can arise for a variety of reasons:

The family may have split up or suffered a bereavement and the young person may only be living with one of their parents, or may even be living with neither and be in ‘Care’. (Only living with one parent is something which we are seeing more and more often in the UK). Such splits can also cause problems and lead to ‘drop-outs’ if the young person has to change schools and does not start the course at the start of the academic year. Having said that, sometimes moving to live with one parent / carer can have a stabilising effect.

Sometimes students come from families which have seasonal work requirements e.g. farming, fishing or families who’s main income comes from horticultural activities such as fruit growing.

Alternatively poverty may be an influencer, because the family has such a low income level, or such a large number of siblings, that they need every family member to start earning as soon as possible. In this context it may be appropriate to remind students that the number of jobs for which no qualifications or training are required is rapidly diminishing and may of the more traditional jobs such as the UK mining industry have gone for good.

Location factors may also play a part, if the school or college is too far away making attendance expensive or very time consuming.

Young people may also have to act as carers for their siblings or disabled parents or even parents with a mental disorder.

All of these types of family circumstances can lead to a lack of family contact with / or support for the school and a lack of family interest in school activities. Symptoms to watch out for are parents / carers not attending parents evenings, no support for homework (perhaps identified through no parental comments in homework journals), and failure to respond to attempts to make contact.

As families move across Europe and beyond, perhaps as economic migrants or fleeing persecution, meeting the needs of immigrant children and firstly enrolling them in school and then keeping them in school in their new country of residence can create many problems and barriers to be overcome.

The extent of the problem differs across Europe but not country has escaped and each immigrant child has to have their needs considered, planned for and addressed if they are to succeed.

There are a number of papers in this field and one paper which may be of interest is Integrating Immigrant Children into Europe

The background area in which the student is living plays an important part in long term career plans and ‘whole life’ expectations. This in turn influences the importance or otherwise of school activities.

If parents, friends and neighbours are living at a low socio-economic level, the view that a high quality education can help to change that and help the young person to ‘climb the ladder’ to a better quality life, is difficult to embed and worklessness is often the norm. You may also be interested to learn more about the economics of deprived neighbourhoods

Often linking with poor socio-economic status in an area is anti-social behaviour. With poor parental and poor social role models it is all to easy for a young person to link with the ‘wrong people’ and join a ‘gang culture’. This in turn can sometimes lead to criminal prosecutions and once started down this route it is very difficult to step off the slippery slope. This is why the courts and authorities place so much emphasis on prevention of further offending, once a first offence has been committed.

Again, if the norm in the area or within their community (e.g. Traveller Communities) is to begin earning as soon as possible then the local schools become undervalued, students prefer to spend a high number of hours outside school earning income, leaving little time for school work. The young people are likely to prefer to leave school as soon as possible and often end up in unqualified, low paid, ‘dead-end’ jobs which will affect their earning capacity for the rest of their lives.

If education is low in political priorities or there is significant media criticism about the quality of education offered, this can also play an important part in undermining the perceived value of education and indirectly lead to ‘drop-outs’.

A good example of this in the UK are the annual press articles about GCSE and ‘A’-level examinations becoming easier each year, or local press criticism of a school because of it’s position in examination league tables, completely taking out of context the ability level of students when they start at the school and leading to schools being undervalued by their communities.

Suggestions on what to do after identification of a potential problem are covered in the next modules of this training course. However, here are some strategies which have been tried and found to be effective in helping with prospective drop-outs’:

• Multi-agency meetings - make use of the guidance available from other staff in your school and the help of the external agencies supporting your school, practical experience suggests that multi-agency co-operation is the best way to address the many ‘at risk’ cases. As an example of good practise, our school has appointed a ‘Family Resource Worker’ to work alongside teachers in dealing with the social aspects that prevent families supporting their young people to attend school. The post has already had a profound effect on the attitude of parents, but the key to success is to have a realistic case load
• Early intervention - once a problem has been recognised, e.g. if a student has a poor attendance record, early intervention will give the greatest chance of success
• Learning Styles / Multiple Intelligences – show the student there are different ways to learn and help students to find new and creative ways to solve problems, achieve success and become lifelong learners
• Alternative Schooling – alternative schooling provides potential ‘drop-outs’ a variety of options which can still lead to graduation, with programmes paying special attention to the students individual social needs e.g. at our college we offer, construction, hair and beauty, horticulture, motor vehicle studies etc
• Family Involvement – research consistently shows that family involvement has a direct, positive effect on children’s achievement and is the most accurate predictor of a student’s success in school. Persevere if family support is difficult to achieve, try to make the school more welcoming, not all adults have good memories of their school days and feel comfortable in a school environment
• Out of school experiences - many schools provide after-school, lunch-time and summer school programmes, exchange visits etc that eliminate information loss and inspire interest in a variety of areas
• Community Collaboration – when all groups in a community provide collective support to the school, an infrastructure is created that provides a caring supportive environment where young people can thrive and achieve
• Career and course choice guidance – ensure the school offers the best possible guidance on course selection and career planning
• Learning / Peer Mentors – mentoring on a one-to-one basis will lead to a caring supportive relationship giving students someone to turn to, without embarrassment, if they have a problem
• Continued Professional Development – continued teacher training is essential to keep up to date with the latest techniques and ideas

Finally, in this module, we would like to recommend one internet site specifically dealing with the school ‘Drop Out’ problem – The National Dropout Prevention Centre/Network which has been very useful in writing this module and which we feel will offers many useful Effective Strategies. We would also like to recommend one book – How Children Fail