Promoting the Achievement of Looked After

Children

(PALAC)

Dr Catherine Carroll

Centre for Inclusive Education

UCL Institute of Education

Background and rationale

The Need: age and reason at first entry into

care and KS4 scores (Sebba et al. 2015) Career type Per cent of 4,847 KS4 score

UAS 3.4 232.7

Disabled 6.4 47.7

Entry aged 0-4 14.8 217.7

Entry aged 5 to 9 30.2 229.0

Adolescent abused/neglected 21.3 185.5

Children in Need but Not in

Care

N=13,599 185.1

Children not in Care or in Need N=622,970 340.6

Research context • Dearth of peer reviewed studies nationally and

internationally about practice in schools

• Possible to identify some emerging themes

• Few specific resources available to practitioners

• What is different about this group compared to

peers/other groups with disadvantaged backgrounds?

• Aware of effective practice happening in schools

Knowledge Exchange (KE) Model (Adapted from NewSouth Innovation and the University of South Wales)

Research

Research

Outputs

KE

Channels Users Impact

New

knowledge

Implementation

science

Collaborative

research

Professional

development

Schools

Policy

NGOs

Pupils

Knowledge Flow

Summary messages of KE for schools and

universities

• Bidirectionality fundamental to the approach

• Needs to be consensus between decision

makers/practitioners and researchers – what sort of

evidence is needed for the classroom - not for the

researcher

• Interaction between tacit and explicit knowledge is vital for

the creation of new knowledge

• More intense and long term relationships between users

and researchers are more likely to lead to research being

used

• Accumulated knowledge of a field rather than outputs of a

single study can have more influence

PALAC Programme

PALAC programme aims to: • Support the development of evidence informed practice in

schools to ultimately improve outcomes for looked after

children

• Provide a forum for knowledge exchange between

practitioners and researchers concerned with outcomes

for looked after children

• Establish a vibrant research community that informs the

wider debate on practice in schools for looked after

children

Structure of programme

• Takes place over one academic year

• One full day - audit, handbook, presentations and begin action plan

• Two facilitator visits

• One review day at the end of the programme

PALAC Domains

• Supporting emotional development and wellbeing

• Raising and monitoring attainment

• Supporting Learning

• School Environment

• Effectiveness and deployment of staff

• Supporting equality and diversity

• Working together with carers and other professionals

PALAC Activities

Autumn 2014 Autumn 2015 Autumn 2016

Year 1

PALAC Pilot 3 PALAC Cohorts 4 PALAC

Cohorts

Post-16 Seminar

North East

Region PALAC

PALAC Activities 2014 - 2017

• Academy of Central

Bedfordshire & Central

Bedfordshire VS

• Ashcroft Technology

College & Wandsworth VS

• Lampton School &

Hounslow VS

• Percy Hedley School &

South Tyneside VS

• Surrey VS

• The Willink School & West

Berkshire LACES

• South Tyneside VS

• Nottingham City VS

• Hounslow VS

• South

Tyneside VS

• Lincolnshire

• Wales - South

Central

Consortium (2)

• London

Year 2 Year 3

Who has participated in PALAC?

0

5

10

15

20

25

Specific PALAC projects in schools

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

Activity Learning

Development and use

of ‘safe places’ in a

secondary school

• Safe people and places need to be seen as integral to this

provision

• Survey data gathered on the what a safe base should look

like from multi disciplinary professionals and pupils

• Senior management teams and staff need to demonstrate

flexibility to ensure the use of safe places actually meet

pupil needs

• Genuine acceptance of corporate parenting role will require

some pupils in care to be treated differently in school

Role of dedicated

mentor for pupils in

care and other

vulnerable pupils

Dedicated role facilitates theory into practice e.g. stability,

attachment and elements of social pedagogy

Formative assessment Different standardised assessments (e.g. PASS, BPVS,

Growth Mindsets)

Activity Learning

Attachment training

and reflective team

working

• Attachment training needs to be delivered across one term (i.e.

more than once)

• Teams supporting children in care benefit from further reflective

team meetings to discuss and apply attachment training

• Pupil/s need to provide a focus for the training

• Training delivered by VSH allows for personalisation

• Attachment Aware school audit can be used to identify the

needs of the school and as a pre and post measure of staff

development

Letter Box Club

with teenagers

Even pupils who don’t ‘like reading’ want to receive the book

‘Any post I get is always from XXX Council’

‘Tell the Story’ • Development of the ThinkSpace approach

• Tell the Story’ meetings in whole school CPD session had

powerful outcomes for staff and pupils

• Staff had the opportunity to contribute what they knew about

the pupil and to find out what they didn’t know

• School now had a more holistic and detailed ‘pupil profile’ for

every pupils in care and how to move forward

Activity Learning

GCSE Tutoring • Bespoke/triage approach on Saturday mornings (6 weeks)

• Led by peer tutors (one year ahead)

• Credibility of peer tutors

• Tutor training delivered to staff

Strategic whole

school approaches

• Personal Profile

• Did you know sheet

• Love me – Love my PEP (standing item department meetings)

The Pledge • Activities strategically pledged across the five years of

secondary school

• Linked with key transition points

• What parents try to do for their children

PALAC contributions to research and

knowledge • Book

• Case studies

• Academic papers

Further developments

• 16-25 KE programme for young adults in

or who have experienced care

• PALAC across a region e.g. North East

• Research partnerships