Thriving at Alternative Provision: Learning from Community Models of Research-Informed Practice

Disengagement from education and school refusal, remain contentious issues, heightened since Covid, with school attendance figures indicating that students not-in-schools, or persistently absent are a stubbornly intractable concern. Moreover, this significant minority, disproportionately includes students from lower-socio-economic backgrounds, with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), and those from particular ethnic background. Their education and their future as active citizens, remains under-researched.

This project is grounded in working together, as researcher and practitioners, with a local community organization already working with adolescents from the local community who are de-registered from school, and subject to elective-home-education (EHE).

The aim is to co-design impact materials, based on existing research. This impact project will be crafted together on-site, with the young people playing a central role. Relationships and trust are vital. The researcher cannot remain an outsider for this to succeed. Coming to know the field is integral. This needs to be done sensitively, respectfully and slowly, with care. The co-design planning, and mutual exposure building to this, also needs time.

Students disengaged from school often have accompanying SEND, are anxious in classroom settings, and may have been labelled, ostracized and stigmatized. Co-designing with these young people is essential, yet potential pitfalls abound. Hence, time to slow-down, to build trust and respect, underpins collaborative success.

This placement puts the researcher, the community organization staff and the young people side-by-side for extended periods.