A new approach to tackling emotionally based school avoidance

Inside one of the grand heritage houses of East London, a group of secondary students are taking part in what has been described as a “highly experimental” approach to tackling persistent absence.

The Our House programme, run by Barking and Dagenham council’s cultural education partnership Inspiring Futures, is an alternative provision centred on the arts, which aims to improve the confidence of key stage 3 students struggling with emotionally based school avoidance (EBSA).

EBSA is an umbrella term used to describe children and young people who have severe difficulty in attending school due to emotional or mental health needs - and it’s an issue that many schools have been struggling with.

The issue has been recognised as a major factor in the attendance crisis, with the Department for Education’s own research finding that anxiety and mental health problems are the second most common reason given for absence after illness.

The majority of teachers polled by Teacher Tapp for Tes recently said they did not feel equipped to support pupils with EBSA. Our House aims to fill that gap.

Helping students get back to school

So how does the model work?

Local schools recommend pupils who might benefit from the programme. These students then attend at Eastbury Manor House in Barking (or Valence House Museum in Dagenham for the second cohort) three days a week alongside their normal schooling, for seven weeks.

At the provision, the young people work with artists to develop their creative skills, while having sessions with youth workers and a counsellor to help improve their wellbeing.

“Hopefully by the time the young people finish with us, they have had a number of successes and feel supported,” says Martin Russell, culture and wellbeing lead for education at the council.

Early signs suggest that the approach is having an impact. For the first cohort, who completed the programme last year and returned to school full-time after Christmas, their average attendance increased to 82 per cent from 65 per cent before going to Our House. One student’s attendance increased from 52 per cent to 95 per cent.

Valence House Museum hosts students in the Our House programme (picture by Garfield Fletcher)

A parent of one child who attended the programme said that “while she was at Our House, and even at home, she appeared much happier. She was less angry and frustrated. And not having to think about school on a daily basis significantly reduced her anxiety”.

The team working on the programme, which is funded by Arts Council England, are excited about its potential, and hope that, beyond its initial three-year pilot, it can be expanded to as many as 45 teenagers a year.

So far the pilot has welcomed a small group of Year 8 students, but the programme is set to open up to the whole of KS3 next year. The Our House team hope that it might be particularly helpful for young people struggling with the transition to secondary school.

Secondary schools in Barking and Dagenham are invited to make referrals for students they think might benefit. Programme coordinator and former teacher Vikki Lowther and youth worker Liz Marsden will then go and speak to teachers, meet the students, visit their homes and meet their parents to make sure everyone is on board.

Once a student is at the provision, there are two key components of the work that takes place: arts-based learning and therapeutic support.

Engagement in learning

In terms of the teaching and learning component, students learn about a different art form each week, explains Kate Hopewell, former teacher and one of the artists-in-residence for the programme, who helped to design the curriculum.

For example, when focusing on drama in one lesson, students took a “3D learning approach” to Romeo and Juliet, mapping out the city of Verona using masking tape on the floor, before layering the movements of the characters in the play on top of this.

“That day was a real turning point,” Hopewell says. “The students had only been in for three days, and they were very quiet. But they got really into the story, and it was beautiful to give them that as a vehicle to express their voices and their emotions.”

The students’ exhibition sits alongside historic artworks at Valence House (picture by Garfield Fletcher)

“It’s about getting them excited about some form of education,” adds Lizzie Kitto, development officer at Inspiring Futures.

Working in partnership with the local schools, the programme has designed its curriculum to include elements of the core offering. For example, students may look at measurements and calculate distances when out on trips.

While an element of excitement is key to the approach, this doesn’t mean that lessons are not carefully structured.

When learning about collage, for instance, students may start by researching an artist who uses this method before planning their own artwork, learning about the fabrics they will use, measuring them out and considering how they could incorporate “elements of themselves and their everyday life into collaging”, says Edwards.

“They are encouraged to speak to the group about what the fabrics they’ve selected mean for them. Then they will make their own collaging piece, and write in their books reflections at the end about how they felt about the process and what they learned, and they may present their work to the group or record a podcast about it.”

The curriculum is refined for each new cohort that comes in, Edwards adds. And young people who complete the programme get a level 1 qualification in a Bronze Arts Award.

The most recent cohort culminated in an exhibition of the students’ work at Valence House, which was attended by hundreds of people over the duration of its time there.

Therapeutic and pastoral support

The other important ingredient of the approach is the therapeutic and pastoral support offered to the young people, who may often be stuck on long waiting lists for child and adolescent mental health services.

Youth worker Marsden delivers a session every day, giving students the opportunity as a group to talk about how they are feeling. A counsellor also spends one-on-one time with each student.

Using a tool called Outcomes Star, the students set their own goals and rank themselves at the start of the programme on traits like confidence and communication, so they can see their progress when they reach the end of the seven weeks.

Marsden also visits the students after they have returned to school to check how they’re getting on.

“One of the young people I visited at school once she had gone back said, ‘I cannot actually believe I’m here sitting with you,’” Marsden says.

Of course, not every child is able to go straight back to school. Sometimes it can take a few months for their attendance to improve, explains Edwards.

“We had one girl recently on the programme who hasn’t gone back yet, but the way she speaks about herself, what her parents tell us about the friendship she’s gaining, the confidence in herself, that she is going out and leaving the house when she wouldn’t have before [shows there has been a positive change],” she says.

“It’s about them knowing they have a place and they are valued.”

The benefits of the provision are summed up in a poem written by one of the students, which was included in the exhibition: “Our House is my happy place. Our House is where loads of young people can be creative.”

That element of belonging is important for Our House, and it aligns with the ambition to increase students’ feelings of belonging in the government’s schools White Paper.

Despite the experimental nature of the programme, local schools are embracing it and are getting in touch to recommend young people they feel would benefit.

“I think we’ve proved that arts and culture can create a robust curriculum for vulnerable young people. I believe we’re really ahead of the curve in terms of understanding EBSA and treating it as something that needs to be taken more seriously,” Russell says.

“It’s not just an education issue, it’s a public health issue. We hope this new model can be replicated elsewhere.”