Adela Kay, Assistant Headteacher at Aspire Virtual School, has conducted in-depth research on a variety of pressing issues affecting children and young people within our community.

For October’s research, Adela explores a range of issues affecting children and young people, including oracy, children’s digital lives, the disadvantage gap, independent learning, kinship care and mental health.

Below you’ll find summaries and links to the latest research and reports relevant to our work with children and families.

Oracy

I have been continuing to research oracy, particularly how structured talk can help older children develop their understanding and organise their ideas before putting pen to paper.

Maliki Konteh at the University of Cambridge has researched the impact of structured talk on students’ reasoning. The study found that students were better able to justify opinions, build on others’ ideas and engage critically with the subject. Disadvantaged students showed notable improvements, but the benefits were seen across all participating students.

📌 Read here: Using Oracy to Improve Disadvantaged Student Attitudes, Engagement, and Reasoning

 

Online Harm: Managing Children’s Digital Lives

In October, I attended a Violence Reduction Unit conference on Seeing the Child Beyond the Harm. There were interesting discussions about caring for children and developing a sense of belonging across social care and schools.

I wanted to highlight a guide for parents and carers produced by the Children’s Commissioner on managing children’s digital lives. It was published last December, so apologies if you have already come across it, but I think it is worth sharing again with parents. Children’s knowledge of technology can often be well ahead of their parents’ and carers’.

📌 Read here: ‘What I Wish My Parents or Carers Knew…’: A Guide to Managing Children’s Digital Lives

The Disadvantage Gap

This week I attended training on Closing the Disadvantage Gap: From Evidence to Leadership Action. The presentation drew on the Education Policy Institute’s Growing Apart research. There was interesting analysis of what contributes to the gap, but also of factors that may not be captured in the data. It prompted me to think about how attendance and attainment can be affected by circumstances such as parents working multiple jobs or shift patterns.

📌 Read here: Growing Apart: The Evolution of the Disadvantage Gap – EEF

 

Funding Futures Data Dashboard

Following that research, I found the Funding Futures Data Dashboard, which lets you compare local authorities across a range of education, health and social measures. You can explore the data and create comparison tables. Mime

What I found interesting was that, while we are in the bottom quartile on some measures, which is concerning, there are also measures where we are in the green. To me, that suggests that despite the levels of disadvantage locally, schools and nurseries are doing well with the children they have.

The disadvantage gap shown in the data was 3.8 months in the early years, 4.5 months at KS2 and 11.2 months by KS4. I think the dashboard is useful from a policy point of view in showing where particular attention may be needed.

📌 Read here: Funding Futures Data Dashboard – Mime

 

Pupil Premium

The EEF has produced a guide to Pupil Premium, outlining why it matters and why evaluating a strategy is important to sustaining its impact. EEF

Earlier this term, I shared a model policy and an education planning document for previously looked-after children with headteachers. These suggested ways to monitor and track how Pupil Premium Plus is used to support those young people. The number of previously looked-after children may be relatively small as a proportion of a school cohort, while pupils eligible for Pupil Premium may make up a much larger group. I think the EEF guide offers useful approaches and questions to consider when using this funding to best effect.

📌 Read here: The EEF Guide to the Pupil Premium

 

Preparing Learners for Post-16 Education

The EEF has produced a new resource to help colleges support young people to become more independent learners. It highlights three approaches:

• Metacognition and self-regulation: encouraging learners to think about how they approach tasks, which strategies they use and whether those strategies are working.
• Feedback: helping learners understand what success looks like and the specific next steps they need to take.
• Collaborative learning: supporting learners to work together in carefully designed groups that are small enough for everyone to participate.

The resource bank includes examples of how these approaches can be taught. I think it would be worthwhile for the Virtual School to look at the suggestions and consider how we can support our own learners to develop these skills, even if we are working at a step removed.

📌 Read here: Developing Independent Learners – EEF

 

Kinship Care

The government has updated its statutory guidance for local authorities on kinship care. Kinship care is central to the vision of the Families First Partnership Programme, which aims to strengthen family support and use family networks to help prevent children entering local authority care. The guidance also highlights the Virtual School’s strategic responsibilities for children in kinship care, regardless of their legal status. GOV.UK

As a result, I will be getting in touch with schools about identifying children in kinship care from school records. This will help us begin to monitor and track their education in the way the Virtual School currently supports other groups of children. That support will form part of our local kinship offer. The autumn school census also includes a kinship care indicator.

📌 Read here: Kinship Care: Statutory Guidance for Local Authorities – GOV.UK

Mental Health

The Fonagy Review highlights significant gaps in identifying and providing mental health support for children known to social care, despite the high levels of need in this group. Evidence about the mental health of looked-after children remains limited and outdated: the last national study was published in 2002, and comparable national data for the wider children-in-need population is lacking. GOV.UK

The review identifies barriers to accessing children and young people’s mental health services, including referrals being declined or support ending prematurely. This can happen when a child’s difficulties are attributed to trauma, adversity or placement instability rather than a recognised mental health condition. It also highlights the lack of coordination between health, social care and education, and the effect of increasing mental health needs on young people’s engagement in education and employment.

The review recommends earlier intervention, better access for care-experienced children and a shared approach across health, education and social care to understanding and responding to children’s needs. It also questions reliance on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire, a commonly used wellbeing measure. The review reports that carer-completed questionnaires failed to identify between 44% and 48% of children with clinically elevated symptoms of post-traumatic stress, anxiety or depression.

📌 Read here:

• Independent Review into Mental Health Conditions, ADHD and Autism: Executive Summary – GOV.UK
• Independent Review into Mental Health Conditions, ADHD and Autism: Final Report – GOV.UK

Best wishes,

Adela