How a ‘passport' eases the anxiety of moving schools

Project
My Passport

Purpose
To reduce the stress of changing schools and help children settle into a new environment more quickly and easily

Funding
Buckinghamshire County Council provided £2,000 to help set up the scheme

Background
Moving schools can be a worrying and stressful experience for a child. Some children – like those from military families – experience it frequently. While some adapt very well, others need more support, so professionals in Buckinghamshire developed a resource to help ease that transition. “Through conversations with head teachers and people working in the voluntary sector, we were aware we had a high number of service children moving in and out of our schools and that they could be better supported,” says Rob Beadel, a senior educational psychologist who helped develop the My Passport scheme at the county council.

Action
The Passport resource is designed for teachers and teaching assistants to use with children. It was developed by Buckinghamshire’s educational psychology service and transfer support team, together with the Service Children Support Network and local schools. After trialling the resource at a couple of primary schools, funding was secured to expand the project.

My Passport consists of six units, which each address a different aspect of joining a new school. “The concept is based on how people adapt to change,” says Beadel. “Military children have to adapt a lot and this is about how teachers can support them. There is a social dimension, academic dimension and an organisational dimension. It is about giving children knowledge, skills and understanding.”

The scheme gives children information on how their new school operates such as a map of the school, an introduction to who’s who, school rules, timetables and class routines. Teachers can pick and choose which units they do depending on the needs of a child. “It’s not something children have to work through and finish, but uses the judgment of the member of staff,” says Beadel. Children share information about themselves including their interests, as well as any concerns they have.

The project was developed in partnership between the council, voluntary sector and schools. “This is not about these children having a problem. Instead, it is a positive tool to help them with the normal process of adapting to change,” Beadel explains. While the resource was inspired by military children, it can be used for other groups moving schools such as Traveller and asylum-seeking children.

The passport is free but schools pay for training on how to use it. Within 12 months the scheme had recovered 80 per cent of its start-up costs. It is now being used in 60 schools nationally, including 25 in Buckinghamshire.

Outcome
Children taking part in My Passport are asked to rate their level of “worry” out of 10, about 20 different aspects of joining a new school before and after taking part. In the first evaluation of 15 pupils aged five to 11, their average “worry” score before using the resource was 84 (out of a possible total of 200), which dropped to 38 afterwards. The three highest mean scores by variable concerned: “worry about what to do if I am feeling ill”, which fell from 6.13 out of 10 before the intervention, to 2.13 after; “worry about losing my old friends”, which fell from 5.6 to 3.5; and “worry about being bullied”, which went from 5.2 to 2.3.

In a second trial group of 24 students aged five to 10, the average worry score went from 90 out of a total of 200 beforehand to 47 afterwards.

Staff who completed the training were overwhelmingly positive. A survey of 40 teachers found 80 per cent strongly agreed that “the content of the course would be of practical value in my job”, while 20 per cent agreed with that statement. Sixty-five per cent strongly agreed that their skills and knowledge had improved, while 35 per cent agreed this was the case.