Education

SACCS organises support for the children and young people in our care to maximise opportunities with education and/or training with particular regard to those children who may be excluded, refused or unable to attend mainstream school by using the recovery programme as a model and working method.

It is not unusual for children and young people to find the environment of mainstream school difficult especially in the earliest days, weeks and months of their healing process due to their specialist needs.

Each recovery plan, as set out in line with contributions from the pre-admission needs assessment, supports each child as they develop, in their own time, with the assistance of a fully professional recovery team toward regular mainstream school attendance.

To support this policy, SACCS utilises its own Ofsted registered and inspected school for up to 10 children with a child/teacher ratio of 3:1 to help children, through their recovery plan, to engage in mainstream school activities. In addition, for those who are able to attend but find the process particularly difficult due to their early life experiences, SACCS will provide additional help in the form of an internal provision of staff and funding to maintain the child in mainstream education above and beyond any child’s statement needs at no additional cost to the Local Authority.

 

Future Development

The future development of the organisation is to support children and young people in our care by developing ever closer regional links and partnerships with teachers and local authorities to support the recovery plan for each child.  To do this we intend to improve the quality and training of our own staff by providing essential 'parental guidance' which all children need within the home through home work support.

 

How SACCS meets contractual requirements in terms of quality of provision

  • The linking of a working methodology through the SACCS Recovery Programme to ensure, as much is practically possible, that each child placed accesses mainstream education within 6 months of residency
  • The delivery of an integrated IRP that links the 24 outcomes to the 5 Every Child Matters outcomes and the 7 Core Aims, focusing on the ability of a child to access and maintain full time education.
  • The provision of a supportive structure that ensures the continuation of learning for each child specific to their needs as and when the attendance of mainstream education becomes too traumatic as part of their recovery pathway.
  • The internal provision of trained and developed staff capable of meeting the needs of each child as part of their individual recovery plan to ensure that they have a successful re-integration into mainstream education with the internal provision of staff as is necessary.


Examples of our everyday best practice

Examples of everyday best practice within the context of education, training and employment are as follows:

  • A commitment through the SACCS Recovery programme as a working model and methodology, to ensure that each individual recovery plan provides a route or pathway back to mainstream education
  • Additional educational support either to initially enter or to be sustained by our own Ofsted inspected school for up to 10 children and a child/teacher ratio of no more than 3:1
  • A 97% success rate for SACCS children attending mainstream education within 6 months of accessing the recovery programme and;
  • The achievement of 98% attendance by those children accessing education

SACCS has excellent relationships with all local schools and each child’s key carer will attend parent evenings, sports days and other events. Communication between the school and the home is excellent and ongoing, and is facilitated by attendance at reviews, telephone conversation, and personal contact when delivering and collecting the child to and from school.

 

From our own longitudinal study* in 2007 the following educational outcomes were attained:

  • 62% achieved at least 1 GCSE
  • 90% achieved A – C grades
  • 30% achieved 5 or more A – C grades (11% across the sector**)
  • 63% went onto Further Education (19% across the sector of care leavers age 19**)
  • 44% have Jobs
  • 56% are in employment, education or training (59% across the looked after sector**)
  • 75% are in some form of contact with their families
  • 87% believe that they have good health

* Longitudinal study carried out on 14 children or 10% of the 137 children who had left SACCS since 1987. The average age at the time of leaving was 12.8 years. The average age at the time of the interview was 18.8 years.

**2005 Care Matters: Transforming the lives of children and young people in Care.