Research Report: From Education to Employment - Indicators to identify the disengaged

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Authors: Clare Southcott, Eleanor Stevens, Gill Featherstone, Tami McCrone
Published by: National Foundation for Educational Research, May 2013

Summary
This report from NfER aimed to develop a comprehensive checklist of factors that indicate which young people may become disengaged from education and employment, and why. It also aimed to find out what interventions were most appropriate for different types of young people, and the extent to which schools and local authorities are already using indicators to identify them.

Information was gathered through an online consultation panel involving 10 local authorities, a survey of 216 schools and 78 local authorities, and 20 telephone interviews with schools and local authorities.

All local authorities responding to the survey sought to identify young people at risk of being not in education, employment or training (Neet). Eighty-two per cent had developed or were developing a tool to analyse and collate data.

Most schools (90 per cent) try to identify those most at risk of disengaging. Schools use a mixture of hard data (86 per cent) and “soft” data such as staff knowledge of the young person (92 per cent), while local authorities tended to concentrate on measurable data.

Around two thirds of local authorities who had developed a Neet indicator tool asked schools to use their own knowledge of pupils to moderate the list of at-risk young people produced. In some areas, other agencies were also able to moderate the list.

Many local authorities (93 per cent of those responding) felt the indicator tool they were using was limited. Local authorities tend to be less likely to pick up on contributory factors such as those related to family or personal circumstances. Suggested improvements included linking up with other information sources such as troubled families data.

Schools said they used a variety of approaches with young people tailored to different “types” at risk of disengagement, including learning mentors, careers information and alternative curriculum provision. However, researchers felt more evidence was needed on what makes particular strategies work for young people who are at risk of becoming Neet for varying reasons.

The report’s authors, in consultation with schools and local authorities, came up with a checklist of identifying factors, grouped into six themes: one, factors associated with structure and environment (for example, eligibility for free school meals); two, level of attainment and educational needs (attendance and exclusion rates, for example); three, local education services (such as no access to transport); four, personal or family circumstances (parents in prison, for example); five, attitude and aspirations (such as lack of involvement with school activities, and clubs); and, six, understanding of progression routes.

Schools found themes two, four and five most helpful. They did not consider factors such as gender, ethnicity and geographical location to be useful.

Some interviewees thought some factors were too subjective, such as “has a negative family culture”. However, 89 per cent of schools and 75 per cent of local authorities thought “soft” indicators should be collected alongside hard data to help identify reasons for young people disengaging.

Practice implications
The approaches to identifying young people at risk of disengagement are currently based mainly on the type of data that is available rather than deciding what data would be useful and then collecting it, according to the researchers. Schools and local authorities can use the more holistic checklist developed by NfER in this report, alongside their own tools, to understand the reasons why a young person is disengaging and then tailor their intervention to the type of disengagement – for example, providing mentoring to young people to help raise their aspirations.

NfER is developing a range of other tools such as a discussion aid for use with young people, and a continuous professional development tool to increase awareness of the diverse reasons why young people disengage.

It is also working on a project to establish the types of intervention that have the greatest effect on preventing students from disengaging from education.

Further reading