Learners Archives - Estyn

Tag: Learners

Tag: Learners

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Starting a conversation

We know that it can be difficult for some learners to talk openly and honestly about their experiences at school. We want to help, so in secondary and all age inspections we’ve developed a new approach for listening to learners to encourage more meaningful conversations about their experiences in school. 

We adapted our methods as part of our work to gather feedback from learners about “their experiences of peer-on-peer sexual harassment among secondary school learners in Wales”.

What is our new approach?

Learners are at the heart of everything we do, so we:

  • Create a comfortable environment. We invite learners to bring a friend to the session, which encourages them to be open and share with us their experiences in school.
  • Reassure learners that what they talk about will be collected together and key themes will be shared anonymously. We won’t usually share learners’ comments with school staff or anyone else outside Estyn, unless we’re worried about their safety.

Activities

We use a series of activities to open our conversations, including: 

  • Learner voice jars – learners write their views anonymously on post-its, without needing to speak in front of their peers. This is particularly successful when we’re asking difficult questions like ‘Do learners behave well in your school?’ and ‘Do learners get bullied in your school?’. 
  • Stop, start, continue – learners write down what they think their school should stop doing, start doing and continue to do. This could include any aspect of the school, for example teaching, behaviour, and well-being.
  • I want my school to know – learners share information that they think is important for their school to know. It could be an open comment that may be positive or negative, or it could be about a specific inspection area (for example, aspects of the curriculum, safeguarding or pupil well-being).
  • Whiteboards – these can provide an open forum for learners. In “Emoji Madness” learners draw an emoji to explain how they feel about specific aspects of the school’s work. The learners’ responses often lead to more discussion around a topic.
     

    How is it making a difference?

    When learners feel comfortable, they’re more open about their experiences, which gives us a better insight into their views and concerns. Since piloting these approaches, we’ve noticed that a larger proportion of learners are more willing to share their feedback with us. Giving learners an independent voice helps us to drive real change in education in Wales and improvements in our work. 
     

     

Tag: Learners

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During our recent youth work services stakeholder forum, we were delighted to welcome a broad range of organisations from the statutory and voluntary sectors to discuss our future inspection plans. 

We currently inspect youth support services as part of our local government education services (LGES) inspections. These inspections cover the local authority youth service and the partnership arrangements led by the local authority for youth support services (YSS).

National policy and the drive to improve services and be more cost-effective means that local authorities are increasingly working in partnership and integrating services. There are also specific references to youth support services in the LGES inspection framework, which cover standards and progress overall, support for vulnerable learners; other education support services and safeguarding. The inspection guidance therefore allows inspectors to scrutinise a broad range of activities, including those undertaken by voluntary bodies, where appropriate.

The aim of the stakeholder forum was part of our extensive ongoing engagement work with the sector. We want to establish potential options for inspecting youth work in a way that reflects the recent and probable future developments within the sector. The valuable feedback included the following points:

  • Our approach to inspection needs to reflect the different ways that youth work is organised and delivered across local authorities
  • Partnership working needs to be evaluated and the important role of the voluntary sector should be highlighted clearly
  • Inspection should reflect the nature of the provision and include virtual and physical session observations, where possible, as well as the usual range of inspection activity
  • Inspection activity should include open-access youth work as well as the targeted youth work activities
  • Inspections should be outcome focussed but not overly driven by data given that outcomes in youth work are often less easily measurable than in school/college settings
  • Inspection should be young person focused
  • As in other sectors, inspection teams focusing on youth work should include peer inspectors 

In the forum we also discussed how important the links between the new curriculum and youth work principles are (as highlighted in the previous blog) and how to capture the longitudinal impact of youth work on young people. 

Stakeholders expressed different views regarding whether inspection within the LGES framework or standalone youth work inspections were the way forward. However, most welcomed the plan for greater emphasis on inspecting youth work in the future.  

We will continue to engage with the sector by attending key meetings and forums, and meeting with other bodies like the Council for Wales of Voluntary Youth Services (CWVYS) to evaluate the full range of views and opinions within the sector. 

These activities will influence our inspection approach and activity within the current LGES inspection framework during the upcoming academic year. We will also continue to discuss and consider whether there’s a rationale and need for a sector-specific youth work inspection framework and will ensure that the sector is involved fully in any such developments. 
 

Tag: Learners

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School leaders rarely talk of building pupils’ resilience as a main aim or objective. Resilience is often strengthened as a result of other work carried out to support pupils. Schools are becoming more and more aware of issues that affect their pupils and are becoming better at identifying those who need help with their wellbeing and mental health. 

A number of cases of good practice in this area are highlighted in some of our recent thematic reports such as  Knowing your children – supporting children with adverse childhood experiences Healthy and Happy and Effective school support for disadvantaged and vulnerable pupils 

In July we published Learner Resilience – building resilience in primary schools, secondary schools and pupil referral units. 

This report highlighted that factors that support resilience are generally relate to: 

  • self-esteem and self-confidence 
  • belief in our own ability to cope 
  • a range of approaches to help us cope 
  • good relationships with others who we can rely upon to help 

Emotional wellbeing and mental health

The best schools understand that pupils’ emotional wellbeing is the responsibility of all staff and that every interaction and engagement with pupils has an impact on their sense of worth.  In these schools, staff know that all their words, actions and attitudes influence a pupil’s self-esteem, self-confidence and ultimately, their wellbeing.  
It’s important that pupils have regular opportunities to express their emotions and share their feelings at school. Successful schools have clear approaches for listening to and addressing pupils’ concerns quickly. They are alert to how pupils are feeling during the day, and work with pupils to identify particular staff members to whom they can turn if needed. 

Nurturing approaches can be very successful in helping to build resilience in pupils who are struggling to cope with their current circumstances.  Trained staff can help pupils develop their personal and social ski