School Leaver Transitions is a bespoke and tailored personal and social development intervention for young people in their Senior Phase. The offer is for those pupils identified at risk of entering a negative destination upon leaving school. The early intervention approach increases the young person’s chance of moving into a positive and sustained destination.

How to use this exemplar

Young people in the Senior Phase and their last six months of education are eligible for support. Practitioners must work closely with Schools and Skills Development Scotland (SDS) to successfully identify potential young people at 16+ meetings using their own Risk matrix and local factors.

Practitioners should consider which trusted professionals are best suited to support the young person and to agree an action plan of bespoke activities and learning which will include barrier removal and engagement. They should work closely with all partners and local providers to agree and match suitable activities. Activities are not prescriptive but can include employability skills, volunteering, health and wellbeing interventions, group work, wider achievements, employability tasters and visits.

Using a partnership approach to assess the young person’s employability needs, using assessment paperwork to develop an action plan with agreed outcomes. This should align with any other plans in place for the young person.

Improvement questions

• How can similar targeted approaches support delivery of a bespoke and flexible model earlier than Senior Phase?
• How can employer engagement help young people make a successful transition from education to work?

Explore this resource

In West Dunbartonshire Council (WDC), Senior Phase Officers maintain regular contact with pastoral care, DHT and SDS School Careers advisors. The officers share information on the progress in order to plan for progression to a sustained positive destination.

Senior Phase Officers also have the responsibility to provide aftercare support to the young person for an agreed period under the terms of the funding of the programme delivery.

This offer is not for every young person and is targeted to those who have disengaged and require a supported transition to engage with partners and post school opportunities and are assessed as a suitable referral for a Learning Agreement. It is a service to support transition, and is not an alternative to education.

What was done?

A designated Senior Phase Officer supports & mentors the young person to agree an action plan of individual activities and learning which will include barrier removal and engagement. The various activities are not prescriptive and can be as broad as the needs of the young person. Activities can include employability skills, volunteering, health & wellbeing interventions, group work, wider achievements and employability experiences. The approach used is flexible and fits around school subjects and SQA awards the young person is working towards. For those young people who have completely disengaged, a partnership approach is used to re-engage them with school where possible or to participate in activities outside of the school setting.

The Senior Phase Team are based in Schools and work closely with Skills Development Scotland and School Leads to identify those young people in greatest need of 1-2-1 support, up to 6 month prior to eligible school leaving date, using the 16+ Risk Matrix data. As part of the targeted approach, young people can chose a variety of options including being involved in a group. This group activity option is delivered in partnership with Skills Development Scotland and Working 4 U (CLD).

Why was it done?

In 2014/15 West Dunbartonshire recorded the lowest School Leaver Destination result across all 32 local authorities 89.9%, 3% below the national average. There was also evidence that 20% of young people taking up the post school offer of Activity Agreement were not ready for engagement. Both results prompted a review of the post school offer for our most dis-advantage young people and the need to provide earlier intervention and transition support. This was in timing with the Scottish Government's commitment to support the delivery of early transitions in schools.

What was the impact?

In practice by developing the Activity Agreement model in schools West Dunbartonshire provide a greater opportunity to successfully engage with young people furthest from the labour market and offer a model of intensive support and personalised learning, supporting young people to progress and sustain further learning, training and employment.

The key success is our strong Partnership approach and early and on-going interventions, with individuals placed firmly at the centre of planning and delivery in line with the principles of Getting it Right for Every Child (GIRFEC). School Leaver Destination 2017/18 in West Dunbartonshire recorded the highest result in 10 years of 94.2% of young people moving into a positive destination.

Videos

See 4 videos on YouTube playlist (see small menu at top right of video).

Downloads

PDF file: Targeted Senior Phase Offer (16 KB)