Targeted youth support: partnership between schools and a neighbourhood renewal programme

Partnership project

This pathfinder project aims to raise the achievement of young people who live in a neighbourhood of Burton-on-Trent. The area has a 25 percent black and minority ethnic population. Burton advantage schools and the education department of the local authority have operated as intermediaries.

The partners

• Heart of Burton
  Neighbourhood management pathfinder involving a core team of professionals accountable to a management board. The board is chaired by a local resident and has a membership of approximately 50 percent of residents - a network of 200 residents is well established.
  
  The pathfinder has some, limited, 'leverage' funding to pump prime initiatives. A successful wardens programme has been established which has, among other things, engaged children and young people. After an initial focus on community safety, the board has agreed a stronger focus on educational achievement and made around £450,000 available over a three year period, with the funding supporting infant, junior and secondary pupils in the pathfinder neighbourhood.
  
  
• Burton advantage schools (BAS)
  A programme covering an area including the pathfinder. It has a management board comprising key stakeholders and heads of local schools.
  
  It is focused on raising achievement through a variety of interventions, including deploying teaching assistants (TAs) to focus on basic skills, a transition project where a TA works with Year 6 pupils and follows them into Year 7, Saturday study clubs for GCSE students and learning partners in two secondary schools (academic mentoring 30 students per year). The three primary schools involved are located in the neighbourhood. The three secondary schools are located outside.

Evidence base

The pathfinder, with data supplied by the local education department of the local authority, established a baseline in 2000/2001 of the achievement of young people in the area. It has tracked progress against this.

BAS has been able to use pupil level data to track the impact of its initiatives on young people in value added terms (including Fischer Family Trust data).

What they did

The pathfinder organised a 'market place' event where potential providers presented proposals to the residents network. This has moved on to a more direct commissioning approach as the resident-led board identified education as a priority for the neighbourhood.

Detailed service level agreements have been agreed between schools, the pathfinder and the local authority with agreed hard targets for the attainment of students who live in the area. The agreements are signed by the school headteachers and chairs of governors, the local authority, the accountable body and the pathfinder. BAS is involved as representatives of the local authority.

The agreements have very clear targets depending on the issues identified. The schools, for example, have made themselves accountable to the neighbourhood organisation for the impact of funding (three years funding is available). The funding does not cover the full cost of interventions, meaning schools need to commit some resources. There is a commitment to make the pathfinder activities mainstream after the funding ends.

The pathfinder took a collaborative and consensual approach. All the local headteachers met with a representative of the pathfinder and of BAS. Together they identified issues including attendance and high levels of transience, poor attainment and low levels of basic skills. The interventions the Heads agreed varied, taking account of individual factors. This was followed up by one-to-one discussions and securing the approval of school governing bodies for the agreements.

All the schools agreed to informal quarterly reviews of progress and a formal annual review that may result in a revision of approaches and targets.

What made it work?

A key element is the relationship between the pathfinder and BAS. BAS has high credibility with the schools as it has implemented projects successfully over a period of 10 years. BAS has worked with headteachers and school staff at all levels which has built confidence and trust. The pathfinder, working with BAS, has been able to accelerate the pace and change and deepen the commitment of the schools to targeting interventions with students from the neighbourhood.

Another factor which has helped cement relationships has been the work of neighbourhood wardens. They have been proactive in working with children and young people both in and out of school. They have also become informal conduits for information between families and schools (for example with the attendance officer in a secondary school).

Outcomes

Relationships and understandings have been built between schools and the resident led community organisation. Most of these are informal and consensual and are not regulated by formal governance structures. It's an informal, collaborative network with the community at the centre, which includes school-to-school relationships. There is, however, a formal agreement between each school and the pathfinder.

There is some early evidence of impact on hard outcomes, although area-based evidence does present some challenge for the pathfinder.

Lessons

To bring schools into this sort of relationship with a community based organisation requires:

• A high credibility partner or broker to work alongside both partners (in this case BAS)
  
  
• Clear evidence of benefit for schools (in this case past experience with BAS and the pathfinder's own baseline)
  
  
• The time and willingness to achieve consensus at all levels of the involved organisations

Other Comments

The approach and lessons learnt provide a vehicle for planning holistic services for children and young people as well as specific targeted interventions around achievement and attendance.

The hard evidence base for all young people living in the area is difficult for the pathfinder to develop. The LEA provides some statistics, but these are not very detailed. They will take further work to develop. The LEA holds the appropriate data, but does not routinely cut the data by area (as opposed to by school).

The involvement of residents, including children and young people, in designing and shaping interventions is challenging. Their influence is through the pathfinder and the residents network rather than direct (eg. the residents were asking for Saturday Club provision in the area having seen it work elsewhere).

Click to read more good practice case studies related to the targeted youth support change process.