We have chosen the title of this publication, We’re still here, to get the message over that we all need to think differently about secondary school to post-school transitions. The term ‘leaver’, as in ‘early leaver’ or ‘S4 leaver’ detracts from what is a very important point of transition in the lives of all young people. Although we still have a statutory leaving age, the fact of the matter is that the majority of young people continue with their education, training and skills development in post-compulsory education or training.
Supporting transition for all who move on from school, regardless of destination, is of critical importance in providing a stepping stone to a sustainable and successful future. For a majority of young people, the passage to further or higher education or stable employment with good quality training experiences, for example, as an apprentice, is exciting even if it is sometimes not devoid of difficulty. For those involved, moving across from school to a more adult world is a clear sign of success. For a significant minority, this is not the case.
Some one in eight young people do not move on to employment, education or training. A further substantial group find low-paid employment with little opportunity for advancement and even less learning and personal development to help them to progress subsequently to higher-skilled areas of work. And we know that for a significant minority of young people, particularly from poorer family backgrounds, Scottish secondary education does not enable them to achieve at school and equip them for the future, as well as they might, even in an education system such as ours in which schools are generally good. We need to do better for them.
For this significant minority of young people, we need robust transition processes that enable them to take advantage of the choices and services available, which in turn will improve their longer term chances in life. Some, for example, those with profound needs or those who have been in care, will need intensive and ongoing support. Others will need less intensive or more periodic but, nevertheless, sustained support. Many will need some form of support plan to ensure they are able to take best advantage of the support services, choices and chances available. We also need to do better for them when they are at school in a preventative way that ensures that all young people maximise their potential.
So this document addresses part of the agenda of going from good to great, of achieving excellence for all. We have known for some time that in secondary schools, particularly in S3 and S4, we start to lose some pupils. Attendance goes down, exclusions go up, motivation and enthusiasm wanes. This document is part of the wider support comprising The Journey to Excellence series. It fits in well with HMIE’s focus on aspects of inclusion as a follow-up to Count us in. It is part of the follow-through to the strategy for young people who are at risk of not entering education, employment or training at or beyond the transition point from secondary school to post-school, as described in More Choices, More Chances. The document has been produced specifically to support secondary schools in improving the experiences and successes of all their pupils in making that transition but it will also be useful for those working in partner agencies. By implication, the challenge for secondary schools is to take more responsibility for being proactive in developing effective partnerships with other agencies and to put in place robust processes which will smooth that transition.
Graham Donaldson
HM Senior Chief Inspector