In2School

Purpose

The purpose of the IN2SCHOOL programme is to go on a journey with young people and families. At Odyssey Education, we will change and surprise young people with what learning can be, where it can take place and what they can do. Our goal is to help children overcome the trauma of poor learning experiences, to help them rebuild new and positive memories around education being fun yet holding high expectations to help them achieve their personal best.

Our aim is to provide nurturing support and enrichment to a young person’s education experience. To achieve this, we work around the needs of the young person and create a bespoke programme of support. The IN2SCHOOL journey is person centered, it will grow the of values and aspirations shared by students, parents, stakeholders.

Programme Overview

IN2SCHOOL is a comprehensive intervention to engage pupils who

a) are showing early warning signs of disengagement from school and learning; or

b) are at risk of dropping out or being excluded due to being reluctant or refusing to attend school, in conjunction with emotional distress that over a period of time has resulted in becoming a barrier to school engagement, or emotional distress that is chronic and hindering attendance; or

c) Are school refusers due to emotional distress and/ or school phobia that is chronic and hindering education engagement;

d) the young person does not display severe antisocial behavior, beyond resistance to parental / carer attempts to get them to school; and

e) the parents / carers have made reasonable efforts, currently or at an earlier stage of the problems, to secure attendance at school, and/or the parents express their intention for their child to attend school full-time

The IN2SCHOOL has been is based on research and findings of similar programmes that have had high success rates in countries such as the US & Australia. The body of evidence suggests that it is important to engage students academically, behaviorally, cognitively and affectively (the experience of feeling or emotion). Hence the interventions that seek to fully engage pupils must attend to a pupil’s beliefs of:

• ‘I can’ (perceptions of competence and control)
• ‘I want to’ (personal values and goals) and
• ‘I belong’ (social connectedness to teachers, tutors and peers)

This expanded framework suggests that understanding pupils’ emotional and intellectual feelings about school is essential for understanding their schooling experiences and academic outcomes.

As a result, our IN2SCHOOL programme has two key interventions namely, Attach & Assess.

Attach: Build relationships with pupils and their families & problem solve with pupils

Assess: Systematically monitor attendance, engagement, academic performance, behavior and barriers to learning / engagement.

IN2SCHOOL has one very clear overriding aim – to do whatever’s needed to support the pupil gradually return to more formal education, whether that be full-time learning at Odyssey House School, or another education provision that the pupil aspires to attend or even a blended approach of home – school education.