Evaluation of a project giving boarding school places to young people living in difficult situations: A summary of findings for young people

In November 2006 the government began a project in 10 local areas in England to see if boarding school might be a possible option for children and young people who could no longer stay all the time with their parents or carers or who were facing difficulties such as not attending school and not getting on with their families. The evaluation took place to find out more about: - The things that worked well about the project; - In what ways some young people could benefit from going to boarding school; - The things that could make the project work better. The evaluation also aimed to help the government decide whether to extend the project to other parts of England

The reproduction of privilege: Young women, the family and private education

The paper examines processes of cultural production and reproduction among members of the elite and upper middle classes. Drawing on findings from a study of private education in England, it explores the utility of a conceptual framework to examine how practices in and across different sites may be reproductive of various forms of ‘privilege’. Three domains in particular – family, the school, and individual young women’s projects of the self – together shape key meanings and orientations informing young women’s lives. These meanings and orientations in turn connect to ‘privileging practices’, both within each domain and beyond. The paper analyses data from three young women in one of the schools studied to illustrate how the framework may be used to examine privately educated young women’s different orientations to the present and the future. Findings point to some of the processes through which class and gender privilege may be variably reproduced

Supporting mental health and emotional well-being among younger students in further education

Over the last 25 years there has been an increase in reported behavioural and emotional problems among young people. Moreover, students in higher education (HE) are reported to have increased symptoms of mental ill health compared with age-matched controls. Some students in further education (FE) are likely to experience similar difficulties, especially as an increasing number may come from backgrounds that may make them more vulnerable to mental health problems. National policies and guidance highlight the importance of promoting the mental health of young people in general and of students in particular. This exploratory study aimed to identify whether, and in what ways, FE colleges were contributing to younger students' (aged 16-19 years) mental health. Interviews with key informants, a survey of FE colleges in England and five case studies of individual FE colleges providing specialised mental-health support services to students revealed some evidence of promising and good practice, but this did not appear to be widespread. Given the current range of college settings, no single approach to improving mental health among students is likely to be the answer. Rather, respondents highlighted a number of factors that influence the provision of support services for students: awareness among professionals of the links between students' mental health and their achievement at college; having in place national and college policies and guidance that address mental health; building an inclusive college ethos; building leadership at senior and middle manager levels; having accessible in-college and/or external support services; and the provision of professional development opportunities for staff

Bodies and agentic practice in young women’s sexual and intimate relationships

This paper contributes to theorisations of agency through a focus on how understandings of power within young women’s sexual and intimate relationships connect with their descriptions of feeling, reacting and sensuous bodies, to suggest why and how agentic practice takes place. Drawing on the narratives of 54 young women aged 16-18 years in one secondary school in England, findings concur with other literature which suggests that sensations experienced on or within the body can instigate (agentic) practice. Significantly, however, both physical and verbal practices are drawn on during agentic moments. Young women who discursively position themselves as ‘powerful’ integrate their bodies within such an understanding, using this integration to shore up the possibilities for agentic practice. Moving away from an understanding of practice as ‘accommodating’ and/or ‘resisting’ norms and inequalities, this paper identifies four strategies described by the young women (assertive, refusing, proactive and interrogative) for facilitating more sustained agency

Digital anatomy at your fingertips: A bespoke touchscreen gateway for accessing digital anatomy resources at the dissection table

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