Disc, County Durham - Independent learning provider - March 2014
Disc's education centre for vulnerable 16- to 18-year-olds leaves no stone unturned in getting a complete picture of the young people's lives. When learners first arrive, they get an unusually probing initial assessment that digs into everything from their academic past to their mental health.
"Some of the things we look at are really in-depth," says Angela Dixon, project manager of education services at the charity.
"We ask quite tough questions of the young people. It could be what they didn't like about school, but also their drug and alcohol use, their home life. Anything from if they've been in trouble with the police to their emotional wellbeing, we actually ask questions around whether they have ever harmed themselves."
The in-depth questioning does have a purpose though. Disc uses the information to construct an individualised programme of study for each learner that is backed up with pastoral support that ranges from help with housing to multi-systemic therapy to help with money and substance misuse.
The outcomes that follow are laid bare in the centre's latest Ofsted report. When Ofsted last visited Disc in October 2011, it found a "satisfactory" service, but following its latest inspection in March, the charity has landed an "outstanding" grade.
Inspectors noted that there are "no significant gaps" in achievement between learners, regardless of their backgrounds, ethnicity or whether they have learning disabilities as 45 per cent of the centre's young people do.
"I think those results come down to the fact that we do have individualised programmes," says Dixon. "When we have young people with very specific learning difficulties, we ensure that our staff are trained to manage those difficulties, so enabling them to progress to where they need to be."
Disc also strives to ensure that the work placements for its learners chime with the young people's programme of study and go well beyond making the tea and doing photocopying stereotypes.
"One of my bugbears is where young people's work experience is not challenging and doesn't give them a good overview of what the workplace is like," says Dixon. "So we invested in a part-time employer engagement worker. Even though we're a tiny team, we just thought it was so valuable to have this post."
As well as getting employers on board to offer placements, she works with them to ensure that the experiences young people get are meaningful and varied.
Dixon shares how the approach helped one 17-year-old with special educational needs find his vocation.
"We take young people away for a residential and this young man was extremely good with his peers, supporting them when they were afraid when doing activities and generally keeping team morale up," she says.
"We talked to him after about how he really shone there and whether he had thought about it as his vocation. He said: 'People like me don't do outward bound training'.
"So he got a work placement with a local outdoor education centre and he is currently looking at doing part-time work there."
Fact File
- Name: Developing Initiatives for Support in the Community (Disc)
- Location: Newton Aycliffe, County Durham
- Description: Disc supports vulnerable children, young people and families. Its education centre provides training and support for vulnerable 16- to 18-year-olds, including those with learning disabilities and young carers. Twelve per cent of young people in Newton Aycliffe are classed as not in education, employment or training, compared with 8.6 per cent for County Durham as a whole.
- Number of young people: 26 full-time and 49 part-time learners
- Ofsted inspection number: 51535
Helpful Hints
- Flex the 16-19 Study Programme. "Don't be frightened to use the flexibility of the 16-19 Study Programme," says Angela Dixon, project manager of education services at Disc. "We have young people on the same programme, but it is very flexible in terms of when they go out onto placement, how many days they are out on placement and how much work they are doing internally. It's not us saying 'Monday to Friday you will do this'."
- Team up with other providers. "We work closely with a provider in Northumberland and with some providers in Teesside," says Dixon. "They are not direct competitors, but have a similar kind of programme and we do a lot of peer review. We do joint observations of teaching and learning, and we will share quite a lot of benchmarking data too." The providers also club together to fund training courses for staff.
- You're never too small to offer individualised support. "We have a team of five staff, all but one are part-time," says Dixon. "So really it's down to your leadership and management and how flexible and creative they want to make the timetable."
