Alternative provision used to be a touchy subject for students and parents at Sydney Russell School. When the Dagenham secondary school first started offering some Year 11 pupils the chance to swap the traditional academic subjects for vocational courses taught outside the school grounds, there was suspicion.
"Initially, the parents and students were very worried by it," says Brenda Cowen, director of alternative provision at the outstanding-rated school. "You had a cohort who thought 'That's brilliant. We're out of school'. But their parents were thinking, 'hold on, what happens about all their other subjects?'."
Now things couldn't be more different. Some students actively ask for the chance to go down the alternative provision route and Ofsted says that those who follow this path "make outstanding progress".
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