Empowering learners to contribute meaningfully to making decisions about how and what they learn, their well-being and how to keep themselves safe.
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Information about the school
National Star in Wales is a non-residential specialist further education college based in Mamhilad, near Pontypool, providing education, life skills, therapies and care over a 38-week academic year. The curriculum offers personalised learning pathways with goals for learning and independence. The college’s mission is to ‘enable people with disabilities to realise their potential through personalised learning, transition and destination services’.
All learners have a personalised programme, designed to ensure that they achieve their aspirations.
For many students, National Star is the final stepping stone in their education journey and the curriculum pathways ensure a focus on students developing the skills and knowledge that would have the greatest impact on achieving sustainable outcomes and transition from college.
Context and background to the effective or innovative practice
Leaders at National Star in Wales recognised that learners did not have appropriately embedded opportunities to input into day-to-day decisions and longer term aspects of the running of the college. In order to provide these opportunities, tutors implemented a number of strategies to encourage learners to have their say and to develop their independence.
The college’s work in this area has supported them further in fulfilling their vision of “a world in which people with disabilities are able to realise their potential as equal and active citizens in control of their lives”.
Description of nature of strategy or activity
National Star in Wales adopts a multi-faceted approach to self-advocacy, which begins during the initial assessment stage of learners’ referral to the college and continues through to their outgoing transition.
Pre-entry assessment
Through initial assessment meetings, a multi-disciplinary team made up of curriculum and service managers and the therapeutic team meet with the learner alongside their parents and carers in order to form a clear picture of learners’ needs, their preferences, current levels of attainment and their future aspirations. In instances where learners experience complex health needs, the college team works closely with external agencies to ensure that plans are designed to maximise opportunities for learners’ engagement and attendance at college.
Care plans and risk assessments
Following on from the initial meeting, draft care plans and individual risk assessments are developed. In order to enable learners to contribute meaningfully to their care plans, they are shared with learners on an individual basis, using their preferred method of communication. The care plans and risk assessments outline the high level of care and support that learners should expect in college and in the wider community to help keep them safe and to support independence. The staff working through the plans with learners request them to consent to each element. These plans are reviewed with the learner on a termly basis, with the learners signing them off each time with a signature, photograph or stamp.
Fostering choice
Leaders and tutors at the college provide regular opportunities for learners to make choices and to direct their own care as much as possible. Learners are asked to consent to and make choices over each element of their care, for example consenting to the care routine itself, the staff member supporting, products used and clothing options.
Person-centred reviews
National Star in Wales follows a person-centred approach to reviews. Learners are provided with opportunities to complete a pre-review questionnaire, using their preferred method of communication, to capture what is going well and what could be better, in college, at home and in relation to engagement with external professionals. Learners are also asked to provide an update on their future aspirations to ensure that the college and other agencies are working towards the learners’ preferences.
Student Parliament
The college has a newly formed Student Parliament with learners keen to carry out duties in the roles of representatives. With learners responsible for prominent areas across the college community ,the decisions made through Student Parliament will have a visible impact, further reinforcing that their voices and choices effect change.
Chill and chat
Arguably one of the most effective aspects of the college’s self-advocacy approaches is ‘Chill and Chat’. These are informal sessions run by the college’s safeguarding lead. Held over a lunchtime, the safeguarding lead spends time with each learner across the college to ‘check in’. These sessions provide an opportunity for the safeguarding lead to check learners’ understanding of safeguarding and who they can talk to, to raise any concerns. Feedback from the session is disseminated across the whole staff team, to share areas for development that can be reinforced as well as to inform plans for future learning.
Peer mediation
As in most settings, there are sometimes occasions of conflict between peers. At National Star in Wales, learners are encouraged as much as possible to self-advocate when these scenarios occur. In order to provide learners with opportunity to develop skills within conflict resolution, the college adopts a peer mediation approach. Learners are asked to consent to the meeting and are briefed about the structure and what to expect before attending. During the meeting, an impartial mediator asks all learners involved to share what happened and how it made them feel. Learners are then asked to suggest some solutions to avoid future conflict, before evaluating the solutions suggested and mutually agreeing them. Outcomes of the meeting are shared with the whole staff team to enable them to support learners to follow their agreed solutions through modelling.
What impact has this work had on provision and learners’ standards?
The college has effective learner-centred transition processes in place. Learners feel safe at college as a result of staff using an individualised approach, ensuring that learners’ needs are effectively met. As a result, learners arrive at college feeling welcomed and understood and settle quickly into college life.
College staff use information from the therapeutic assessments and transition arrangements to create beneficial and comprehensive care and support plans for all learners. These detailed and personalised plans provide helpful information to support learners’ needs whilst maintaining their independence and developing important skills. Plans contain scripted responses for staff to use when learners are feeling anxious. As a result, learners learn to manage their own behaviours and emotions well.
The college promotes a robust culture of safeguarding led by experienced staff. The college is particularly effective in enabling learners to have worthwhile opportunities to make their own contribution to arrangements to keep them safe, for example in the writing of risk assessments for visits outside the college, or to support their access to work experience placements. Weekly sessions with the college’s safeguarding co-ordinator enable learners to explore aspects of safeguarding in ways that relate to them directly, and to identify their own strategies to keep themselves safe. This beneficial emphasis strengthens learners’ understanding of these important matters and supports the development of their own self-advocacy skills.
Learner voice has had a successful impact on the college’s work. Learners contribute meaningfully to a range of meetings that involve them. Nearly all learners have beneficial opportunities in the weekly “Chill and Chat” sessions to make decisions that have a bearing on life at the college. Learners are proud of their different roles in the college parliament and discharge their roles and responsibilites passionately.