A collaborative approach to trackin acheivement with a focus on skills in Alva Academy: Methodology

The National Youth Work Outcomes and Skills Framework provided the scaffolding for this approach and, from the outset of the pilot, a learning partnership was established that reflected important hallmarks of youth work practice, underpinned by CLD values and principles.  

The collaborative approach engaged young people, teachers and youth workers as partners in the learning process at every stage, with young people at the centre. It was constructed with an asset-based model ensuring skill levels are not seen from a deficit perspective, while being ‘done with’ not ‘done to’ young people. All of the young people and practitioners involved chose to participate in this process and had opportunities to shape it as it developed.

• Empower young people to notice, make sense of and articulate their skills and strengths, and how these are developing and evolving over time
• Map the skills that young people have developed through achievement opportunities in a tangible and evidence-based way
• Inform conversations about young people’s individual progress surrounding skills and their next steps as learners
• Allow schools and communities to build a common language and collective picture of young people’s progress and achievements
• Shape the design and delivery of future learning opportunities for young people in school and community settings
• Inform service self-evaluation, strategy, planning and development
• Support workforce and partnership development

Education Scotland and YouthLink Scotland supported the school to identify a group of practitioners within the learning community who would lead the pilot. Staff involved delivered different activities within the school learning community including projects focusing on youth participation, awards and volunteering.  The majority of the young people involved were from S3 (14-15 years old) with a cohort selected to keep the pilot numbers manageable.

Practitioners involved were:

• Ochil Youths Community Improvement (OYCI) Chief Officer, School Based Worker and Community Based Workers
• Local Authority CLD Lead Officer
• Music, Religious Education, Physical Education, Maths, Modern Studies and Additional Support Needs Teachers

The projects the practitioners led included:

• Rights Respecting School group
• Duke of Edinburgh Award
• Volunteering project group
• Pupil Parliament
• Learning for Life group
• OYCI Youth and Leadership programmes
• Sports Leadership programme

At the beginning of the pilot, practitioners participated in a professional learning session on the Youth Work Outcomes and Skills Framework, the specific skills and associated behavioural indicators. OYCI shared how they currently use the framework within their practice in a youth work setting and explained why it was useful across a range of groups and settings.  This session also highlighted and developed the approaches that would be used for evidence gathering and data capture.

Each practitioner identified specific skills from the framework that young people would be most likely to develop through participation in their programme.  Practitioners then selected a number of associated “I can” behavioural indicator statements that describe different dimensions of the skills they shortlisted. The ‘I can statements’ are key in demonstrating how progress is being made by young people towards a particular skill.

'The indicators are useful – they help everyone to understand what we mean when we talk about ‘confidence’ for example.' - Teacher

Each practitioner identified a maximum of 12 behavioural indicators which they planned to explore and track with participating young people. This allowed them to create a manageable focus within their groups.  Throughout the academic year practitioners worked alongside young people to capture and triangulate evidence associated with behavioural indicators that demonstrated progress towards these skills.

'We need to take care that reviewing progress does not become repetitive and boring for young people.  It’s important not to try to measure everything and to balance direct feedback from young people with our own observations.'  - Youth Worker

Below is an example of how this might have looked for an individual young person:

Evidence gathered included recorded discussions, peer to peer activities, reflective statements, and staff observations, as well as start and end point scales captured at different points throughout the year. Evidence was stored locally by practitioners in various formats including documents, pictures, videos, audio recordings, feedback sheets and online forms. At the end of the year evidence was summarised to show progress made by young people involved in their programme of activity.

If there was no evidence linked to a particular skill for any individual, no progress was reported for that specific skill. Throughout the process it was generally accepted that this could mean impact was underreported.

Do’s and dont's for evidence gathering

There was no set amount of evidence required however practitioners were encouraged to follow some key guidance to ensure it was robust and relevant:

Do's

• Introduce young people and practitioners to the National Youth Work Outcomes and Skills framework before project delivery begins.
• Work with partners and young people to agree a shortlist of skills and indicators to track and evidence progress.
• Use a variety of quantitative and qualitative methods to gather evidence.
• Invest in relationships that support natural, encouraging, interested discussions that allow a young person to reflect on what skills they are developing and what practitioners/adults have noticed (these don't have to be long and they can be small group conversations as well as one-to-one check-ins)
• Notice what works for young people in supporting reflective conversations and build from that. Little and often is best.
• Triangulate evidence of impact from different sources to build as compelling a picture of impact as possible and to help young people notice what's changing - your own observations, parental observations and other partner observations are useful alongside feedback from young people gather evidence directly from young people as well as practitioner/adult observation.
• Encourage peer to peer conversations as an evidence source
• Record evidence regularly and methodically e.g.  online form, annotated photo, log etc.  Voice note apps can be a useful timesaver week to week.

Don't...

• Try to report on everything - stick to the shortlist of skills and indicators that feel relevant to your project and the young people involved.
• Ask the same questions from week to week to track progress - vary your approach, especially with young people.
• Ask leading questions as this doesn’t add value to a young person’s skills development.
• Solely focus on start, middle and end metrics of skills development - gather short reflections and observations session by session.
• Make evidence gathering a tick box exercise and gather it in a hurried and reactionary way - it should be a sense-making exercise that supports young people's learning.
• Assume that you have to record everything in writing - use voice notes / short videos and pictures to help make this manageable. Do it little and regularly.
• At the end of the year practitioners summarised the evidence collected and provided a quantitative and qualitative picture of progress made by young people involved in their programme of activity.

'We need to take care that reviewing progress does not become repetitive and boring for young people.  It’s important not to try to measure everything and to balance direct feedback from young people with our own observations.' - Youth worker