Post-16 Transitions: a Longitudinal Study of Young People with ...

transition. This certainly seems to be the reality for many young
people taking part in the case studies. The real test of what
happens in these post-16 years is therefore left for the future and
will be explored in the next wave of the study.
Just over one-quarter of young people taking part in the survey
had made a significant change and were in employment when
interviewed. However, in contrast to those who had continued in
education, young people without statements and those who had
attended a mainstream school were almost as likely to have been
in employment as education at the time of the Wave 2 survey.
Young people with behavioural, emotional or social development
needs, or with cognition and learning difficulties were also much
more likely to have been in employment at the time of the survey.
Most young people were employed in lower level jobs as process,
plant or machine operators, or in elementary occupations, and less
than half had any sort of training or apprenticeship component
attached to these jobs. Essentially, the work in which most young
people were engaged was of poor quality, with seemingly few
prospects.
More worryingly though, is the fact that over one in ten young
people taking part in the survey were unemployed (or NEET).
Those most likely to find themselves in this situation were young
people without statements of SEN and those who had attended a
mainstream school. Young people with behavioural, emotional or
social development needs were also far more likely to have been
unemployed than young people with any other type of SEN.
For young people moving into employment, and indeed those
currently in unemployment, the issue is not about deferring
transition necessarily, but rather one of the quality and prospect of
the transition that has been made. Many young people in this
survey (over four in ten) are either not in education, employment
or training, or are in low level jobs with seemingly few
opportunities for improved skills acquisition or progression.
Whilst this may be the case for many young people starting out in
the labour market more generally, for those with additional
difficulties, as presented by SEN, such a trajectory could be
worrying. Young people with SEN but without a statement (and
thereby the formal transition process), who study in mainstream
schools, and/or who have behavioural, emotional or social
development needs were most likely to find themselves in such a
position. In other words young people with less-severe, ‘invisible’
or contested impairments are particularly at risk of falling out of
the system into unsatisfactory or unsuccessful outcomes
immediately on transition.
10.3.1 Social life and sense of independence
On a more positive note, young people overwhelmingly reported
that they felt a greater sense of independence compared to Year 11
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Post-16 Transitions of Young People with SEN: Wave 2