Case study: Re-engagement

Company Sector	Several
Number of Employees (0-250)	Mostly small companies
Location	Reading & Wokingham
Title of Initiative	Accessing Potential
Targeted Age Group	15-16
Number of Students Participating (For PDPs – Number of Teachers)	200

Aims and Objectives

Company

• To support an initiative that helps young people who need extra motivation i.e. “doing their bit”.

• To have the opportunity of ‘talent-spotting’ potential future employees.

School(s)

• To provide a suitable alternative to conventional education for pupils who are generally disaffected and do not do well at school. To give those young people an opportunity to achieve something that will give them a chance of a good future.

• To reduce the disruption disaffected pupils can cause by:
  a) motivating them so that they moderate their behaviour
  b) removing them from school for part of the week on work experience and other extra-curricula activities.

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Time Invested by the Employer

Employers primarily help by providing extended work experience. The commitment is usually hosting one or more young people for one or two days a week for 9 months.

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Outline of Activity Undertaken

Accessing Potential has six elements:

• Extended work experience in occupations of interest to the pupils where the young people can learn trade skills and about conduct normally expected in the workplace.

• Surgeries with keyworkers where the pupils explore their motivations, education, immediate plans and longer-term ambitions.

• ASDAN – an extra-curricula qualification, not dissimilar to the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, but with a more vocational emphasis.

• College courses, providing training in work-based subjects, one day a week.

• Social activities; some of these are purely social, whereas other include informal education in social and life skills. Some Accessing Potential pupils are selected on merit to attend a residential outward bound course.

• Conventional schooling, but with a reduced curriculum in order to allow time for the activities above.

The programme is tailored to the pupil.

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Results of Evaluation to meet Aims and Objectives

The vast majority of young people on the Accessing Potential programme finish school with significantly greater attainments - both in terms of education and personal development – than were predicted for them.

Most participating companies report that they were satisfied to be involved in the programme and the supporting evidence is that they usually agree to be involved in the following year!

Schools recognise the value of the programme and continue to be willing to pay for it out of their already stretched budgets.

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Conclusions

Accessing Potential is primarily about young people who are at risk of damaging their own life prospects through poor attitude and low levels of motivation. The programme is something of a last chance saloon – but it works!

Employers taking part gain from the experience in a practical way. However, many employers also gain by feeling good about what they do; this is a real gain and should not be dismissed as peripheral or intangible.

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Future Plans

The programme will continue, but will be modified to involve parents and communities bodies more. Young people will be encouraged to take part in voluntary activities outside school.

Generally, we expect schools to put forward fewer pupils per school for Accessing Potential because it costs more as a result of reduced public subsidy. On the other hand we are expecting more schools to take part, so the net effect on pupil numbers will be small.

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Visual evidence available:
Written records
Photographs
A DVD