The National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth : evaluation of the summer school 2003

An evaluation was carried out of the second year of functioning of the National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth (NAGTY) with an emphasis on the summer schools as experienced by the students, their parents and the course leaders. The evaluation included pre and post questionnaires sent to students and their parents, as well as interviews with students and course leaders. Specifically, a pre-summer school experience questionnaire was sent to students and a post-summer school questionnaire was sent to both students and parents. Also, a sample (n=87) of students who had responded to the first questionnaire were interviewed at the end of the three-week period at all five sites to obtain their views on the summer school experience. Finally, 26 of the 28 course leaders involved were interviewed during the third week of the summer school

Parenting early intervention programme: 2nd interim report

Centre for Educational Development, University of Warwic

Work experience and vocational/technical provision for young people on SEN support: A rapid evidence assessment. Final report, December 2018

This rapid evidence assessment (REA) focuses on young people aged 16-19 with less complex special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) who are studying vocational or technical study programmes in the further education (FE) or training sectors. ‘Less complex SEND’ here refers to needs that, in England, would be supported at the SEN support level under the SEND Code of Practice1: that is, the needs of young people with identified SEND but without a statement of SEN or Education, Health and Care (EHC) plan. The aim of this REA is to identify evidence on the benefits (or otherwise) of work experience for these young people as they prepare to enter paid employment. Within this overall aim, the REA seeks to answer three overarching research questions (RQs): 1. What evidence is available about the benefits of work experience or substantial work placements for the population of interest in terms of preparing them for and helping them get paid employment? 2. What evidence is available on the effectiveness of education or training provision to help these young people secure a job/career? 3. For the questions above, is there any difference in evidence for young people studying at (i) level 3, (ii) level 2 and (iii) below level 2? Four evidence sources are used to address these questions: • A focused review of peer-reviewed articles published in English in scholarly journals from 01 January 2000 to 28 February 2018. • A focused review of grey literature published on websites of relevant national and international organisations • New analysis of the Next Steps Survey4 to help answer RQ1 • New analysis of the Labour Force Survey (LFS)/Annual Population Survey (APS) to help answer RQ

Evaluation of the Succeeding at College project for Ambitious about Autism, 2015-2016 : final report

Ambitious about Autism (www.ambitiousaboutautism.org.uk) is the national charity for children and young people with autism. It provides services, raises awareness and understanding, and campaigns for change. Its vision is, 'to make the ordinary possible for children and young people with autism' and its mission is, 'to help them to learn, thrive and achieve'. Ambitious about Autism, with its partners, nasen and the Association of Colleges, was commissioned by the Department for Education (DfE) to run the Succeeding at College project from April 2015 until March 2016. The Succeeding at College project aimed to support more young people with autism to move from school into further education and improve their prospects of positive life outcomes in adulthood. The Succeeding at College project built on the earlier Department for Education sponsored Finished at School Programme which ran from April 2013 until March 2015 and involved four college–led partnerships ('hubs') supporting around 110 young people with autism to make a successful transition to post-school education. The Succeeding at College project involved the development and delivery of new face-to-face training hosted by colleges in all regions across England. The training was based on the learning from the Finished at School Programme. Additional online training on person-centred thinking tools was offered to all the professionals who took part in the face-to-face Finished at School training. The Succeeding at College project also involved monitoring the learner progress of the young people involved in the previous Finished at School Programme Cohort 1 (transitioned to post-school education in September 2014) and Cohort 2 (transitioned to post-school education in September 2015). This executive summary relates to the final report of the project

Supporting fathers to engage with their children's learning and education : an under-developed aspect of the Parent Support Adviser pilot

The Parent Support Adviser (PSA) role, piloted in 2006-2008 in 20 Local Authorities (LAs) in England, offered preventative and early intervention support to families where there were concerns about children‟s school attendance or behaviour. Overall, this was a highly successful initiative in terms of supporting parental engagement with their children‟s schools. However, this article presents evidence drawn from 162 interviews (with PSAs, their line managers and coordinators in 12 case study LAs) showing that there was one key area in the PSA pilot that was less successful – the engagement of fathers. The article examines views about how to engage fathers and of the barriers explaining the overall absence of fathers from the PSA project. It highlights the dissonance between policy and practitioner guidance on the one hand and practice on the other with regard to the relative failure to engage fathers with this important initiative