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

Gareth is a young man with learning difficulties, though his
appear to be more severe and he had been placed in special
school. His school, as in many cases, appears to have engaged in
all the proper planning and review processes and had involved
both other agencies and Gareth and his family in the planning
process. Both Gareth’s Connexions worker and, particularly, the
school pushed strongly for him to transfer to the sixth form unit.
Gareth and his parents, however, were not convinced. Not only
was the sixth form site run down, but it offered provision to
‘disaffected’ older pupils from mainstream schools and Gareth
was concerned about the prospect of being bullied. The school
provided little information about other options and it was left to
Gareth’s parents to explore alternatives. They identified an
attractive course offered by a college some distance away, but the
Connexions worker told them that places were difficult to access.
It was only through word of mouth from other young people that
they found out there was a similar course in a local college. From
that point on, the Connexions worker was helpful in arranging
and supporting the move. As Gareth’s mother somewhat wryly
commented, however,
‘There was choice – but you had to go looking for it yourself.’
In the event, professionals, family and Gareth himself are now
happy that an appropriate choice has been made. Clearly, that
choice was rational and based on good information, even if it flew
in the face of professional judgement. What is equally clear,
however, is that it depended very much on the parents acting on
their son’s wishes and taking the initiative to explore alternatives
for themselves. Whether the school sixth form unit would or
would not have been appropriate for Gareth, there was, of course,
no incentive for the school to be proactive in offering alternatives
to families and risk losing its own students and funding. Not
surprisingly perhaps, the college course leader told us that links
with the school were minimal and virtually all students came via
Connexions rather than directly from the school.
School experiences
Andrea had a turbulent story to tell. Her difficulties were
variously described as autistic spectrum disorder, BESD and
language disorder. Her current key worker simply described her
as so bright and eccentric that she found it difficult to get on with
teachers and peers. By the time she reached year eight, she already
had a statement, had been excluded from her first secondary
school, had spent time in a Pupil Referral Unit and was beginning
a split placement with another secondary school. Gradually, she
was moving out of this school’s SEN base into mainstream
lessons, until in Year 10, she was attacked at a bus stop near the
school. This incident, in the view of the school’s SENCO,
compounded her existing social difficulties:
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