Life after school: The road most travelled?

Our founder Impetus-PEF has released new research into the attainment gap for disadvantaged young people in the UK. The report highlights how too many young people are failing to transition from school to work.

The research revealed:

  • An alarming number of disadvantaged young people are not achieving the crucial GCSEs they need to succeed the first time around. Their better off peers are nearly twice as likely as they are to get five good GCSEs including English and maths, by age 16.
  • If they have not achieved the first time, too many disadvantaged young people are not getting a strong enough chance to catch up. Only 46% of disadvantaged students achieved English or maths qualification at GCSE Level 2 by the time they were 19. Leaving 45,000 disadvantaged young people without the essential skills and qualifications to succeed in education and employment.
  • Meanwhile 71% of their better off peers achieved these crucial qualifications by 19.
  • If they have achieved qualifications at GCSE or equivalent, only 36% of disadvantaged young people moved on to achieve a Level 3 qualification by 19, compared to 60% of their more advantaged peers.
  • Once they achieve a Level 3 qualification, disadvantaged young people are moving at a similar rate into sustained education, employment and training pathways as their better off peers – 71% vs 74%, proving the need for quality post-16 provision to provide a level playing field for all young people

Yet this new research highlights facts that we are all too familiar with at ThinkForward . Which is why we intervene early in the lives of hard to reach young people to significantly improve their chances of making a successful transition into sustained employment. We work with young people in east London aged 13-19, who through personal or social circumstances are most at risk of becoming NEET (not in education, employment or training).

At the heart of the programme are our Progression Coaches who work full-time in schools providing tailored, support over five years to young people ensuring they have the experience and skills to be workforce ready. We work across all aspects of a young person’s life, providing connectivity between school, home and where necessary social services or youth offending teams. Working with other professionals, a Coach will help each young person overcome any personal challenges they are experiencing so that they can focus on their education and becoming ready for the world of work.

We believe, no matter what your background, young people should be supported to achieve their best both in and out of school. However as this report highlights, if they don’t get the grades at 16, most don’t get another opportunity to catch-up.

To find out more about ThinkForward or to support our work click here. To read the rest of the report click here: The road most travelled? The 16-19 journey through education and training.

 

 

New law to end ‘outdated snobbery’ towards apprenticeships

Education Secretary Nicky Morgan said schools must give equal airtime to the non-academic routes pupils can take post-16, under government plans to end the ‘second class’ perception of technical and professional education.

A new law would see apprenticeship providers visit schools as part of careers advice from early secondary school, to talk to pupils about the opportunities open to them. It will also mean schools will be required by law to collaborate with training providers to ensure that young people are aware of all the routes to higher skills and the workplace, including higher and degree apprenticeships. The move follows concerns from ministers about careers advice, with some schools currently unwilling to recommend apprenticeships or other technical and professional routes to any but the lowest-achieving pupils – effectively creating a two-tiered system of careers advice.

At ThinkForward we work with the most disengaged young people across east London to ensure they transition from school to further education or employment. However, we’ve found that although such new laws are much needed, they must be met by demand. Young people need to first be willing to take these opportunities and make the most of careers advice. Which is why our early intervention one-on-one Coaching model engages disadvantaged young people over five years from the age of 13. We ensure young people are offered business mentoring, work placements, work insight days and skills workshops, including CV writing and interview practice to make the most of opportunities offered post-16.

To put this in perspective, 44% of people who began apprenticeships last year were aged 25 or over where as figures now show a fall in the number of 16 to 18-year-olds signing up – a 1.4% drop to 129,90. Which is why in 2015 we came up with eight Ready for Work capabilities, based on recommendations from research into the behaviours, mind-sets and skills employers across all sectors looks for in their workforce, particularly for entry level positions.

ThinkForward Managing Director, Kevin Munday said: “We welcome the changes outlined as we’ve identified through our Progression Coaching model how critical good careers advice and ongoing support can be in supporting a young person into a sustained career path. However we would like to see more guidance for schools to supported disengaged students with such opportunities.”

 

 

Impetus-PEF: Making the best of mentoring

Our founders at Impetus-PEF have published an insightful article highlighting the value of mentoring in light of the Prime Minister’s new national campaign, led by the Careers and Enterprise Company to recruit more mentors to work with young people. ThinkForward’s Managing Director, Kevin Munday attended the Prime Minister’s speech on life chances last week and amongst other things the PM emphasised the importance of character education and work experience for young people. Please find an edited version of the article below.

At Impetus-PEF we know, from our work supporting charities working with disadvantaged young people to improve their educational and employment outcomes, that mentoring can be a valuable tool. Acting as a trusted and reliable adult in the life of a young person who does not have this support can help break damaging behaviours and encourage positive new ones.

There is also hard evidence that mentoring can be impactful. Meta-analyses of published programme evaluations show improvements across many areas including behavioural and social-emotional outcomes, such as involvement in crime and anti-social behaviour.

However the links to academic attainment are not as strong. The Educational Endowment Foundation/Sutton Trust Toolkit which evaluates the most effective methods for boosting attainment rates mentoring as low impact. Using their benchmarks, they judge that mentoring leads to, on average, only one or two months’ additional academic progress for children, compared to their peers who do not receive mentoring. Disadvantaged children appear to make the most progress.

For a target population at risk of failing their GCSEs, it is our experience that mentoring needs to be part of a larger support package. In addition, they are likely to need targeted support on their academic attainment, as well as careers advice and work experience. Mentors are then very well-placed to reinforce this by offering motivation and inspiration which keep young people focussed. Some of our partner charities, including ThinkForward, use mentoring as one element of their programmes in this way.

When we are looking at potential partner charities at Impetus-PEF we ask ourselves ‘Is it credible that *this* programme will get *these* young people to *those* outcomes?’ – is it fit to meet the need? Using the evidence base can help make the programme as credible as it can be, by revealing the things you should and should not do to increase your chances of having a positive impact.

When it comes to mentoring the evidence base shows that a clear, codified structure for the intervention, and expectations of both the mentors and mentees is important, as is initial training and ongoing supervision and support for mentors. Screening of mentors to assess their commitment and reliability over the long-term will not be a wasted effort, as mentoring relationships that end sooner are less likely to have an impact. Equally, effective mentoring programmes invest time in getting the match right between mentor and mentee – where they share interests, the impacts are greater.

There is also some evidence that mentors from a ‘professional background’ improve outcomes, and that community-based mentoring programmes are more effective than school-based programmes. As the EEF/Sutton Trust Toolkit makes clear, there have been mentoring programmes that have had a detrimental effect on young people. The impact, or lack of it, is in the detail of how the programmes are designed, implemented, and managed.

Mentoring is a less expensive intervention compared to some others – but any intervention is expensive which does not achieve its aims. It will be crucial that the ‘credibility test’ is applied as this mentoring programme is designed and rolled out, that the evidence base is used, and that the young mentees’ academic progress is tracked, and used to manage the programme. After all, the stakes are highest for them.

This article first appeared on the Impetus-PEF website on 26th Jan 2015