Successful reintegration.
What can help a young person succeed in moving back to mainstream from alternative provision?
It’s that time of year when mainstream schools think about next steps for their students in Alternative Provision. Sometimes it’s because they are moving key stage, sometimes because they’ve done well in AP, sometimes because the AP budget is being cut next year. Often the next step is ‘reintegration’ hoping that AP has helped them change sufficiently to survive in mainstream. Reintegrating is great when it works but doesn’t always have a high success rate – so what can we do to improve the chances?
I’ve put together a few thoughts, gathered from research (article links at the end), experience from what I’ve seen in schools I’ve had the privilege to visit and what I’ve learnt from my own (mostly mistakes!). As usual, they are suggestions you can weigh up in the context of your leadership and setting.
1) Understand the pupil
It isn’t rocket science - your approach to re-integration needs to be tailored to the specific needs of each child. There is a big difference between the approaches needed for a confident child who was excluded for a one-off behaviour incident and an anxious, neuro-divergent pupil who is overwhelmed by mainstream school. Both may have been in AP, but each would need a different reintegration approach and support around their needs.
There is also value about understanding the triggers for the young person, what worked well at the AP and why it did. Each pupil will need an individual plan around the support they need and the approach to reintegration that is most likely to succeed for them. The understanding comes from speaking to the AP, pupils and parents/carers as well as your staff.
2) Make sure the timing is right
Sometimes reintegration can be needed because a 12 week placement finishes, budgets are restricted, or it fits conveniently around a school holiday. Successful reintegration has to be driven by whether the pupil is in a position to succeed, or we are just pushing the problem further down river and increasing the negative experiences that young person will have with school. We found that a 12 week placement rarely produced long-term change and successful reintegration, a pupil can seem to be doing well in an AP, but it could be more about the removal of the stresses and triggers of mainstream than behavioural change. As soon as they get placed back those triggers return and the struggles begin again.
We found an optimum length of placement was 18 weeks to build towards successful reintegration and that included teaching explicitly around SEMH and things like coping mechanisms, dealing with conflict, anxiety, regulation and self-awareness.
3) Be realistic
School, the young person and families need to be aware that any reintegration will most likely be a rocky road. There will be days that don’t go right and setbacks. It will take a patient and flexible approach from school and reflection and resilience from the young person. I think it helps to address the fact that it won’t be easy at the start with all stakeholders.
We also need to be realistic, if a student wasn’t engaging in July, then it is unlikely the September ‘fresh start’ will magically help them return to mainstream. I see this hope used fairly often, normally, I think, to defer decision making till after September. ‘We’ll see how they go in September’ normally leads to a crisis point and problems later on.
4) Bring change in mainstream
‘Insanity is doing the same things again and again and expecting different results’. If a young person struggled in mainstream, moved to AP and did well and you then expect them to plug back into mainstream where nothing changed from the first round then things are very likely to fail. What can be done to train teaching staff, reduce barriers to learning and develop supportive relationships within the school? Were certain things triggers before? Was it Maths lessons, certain teachers or overwhelm on busy corridors? Was it certain peers, an inflexible behaviour policy or anxiety? To have the best chance of success we need to understand some of the reasons for moving to AP in the first place and then work to reduce those triggers as the student returns.
Do you have internal provisions that make a suitable halfway house? Take a look at some of our other blogs around IAP – it may be that an alternative pathway offer is something a number of your pupils would benefit from.
5) Give support
The first element of support to make use of is from the AP they were at. If the placement was successful and strong relationships have been built with staff, then involving them in the transition can be really helpful. In some APs this includes their staff visiting and supporting in school but at the very least they can be involved in meetings with school, pupils and family and can support the transition positively through the end of the AP placement.
All pupils will need a degree of support as they return. The level of this depends on the individual needs of the pupil but I’ve seen really effective use of nurture spaces for key times and staff mentors supporting across the day. It is also worth making sure that the logistics of the return are as supportive as possible. Look at the pupils timetable make sure there aren’t lessons with teachers that struggle with challenging pupils or classes that are already red flags in terms of behaviour. Smooth the pathway as much as possible by pre-empting flash points and possible barriers. If a student always gets into conflict around uniform or equipment get a member of staff they have a good relationship with to meet them first thing in the morning to help get them learning ready. Keep equipment or uniform items in school for them. Be proactive not reactive to problems.
6) Fill the gaps
If a young person is returning to lessons, it is really important that they go in with the best chance of success. Don’t send them in mid-topic without some pre-work or without the teacher knowing they are going to arrive. If a student struggles with learning gaps for the subject or a low reading age, we have to support them around this before sending them into a subject. If they immediately struggle, get left behind or ‘feel thick’ they’ll probably play up, walk out and go back to square one. Make sure everything is done to help them succeed, pre-teach the topic, broker a conversation between them and the subject teacher before the lesson, make sure they are expected, sit them with supportive peers and so on. I’ve seen examples where a pupil returns, no one is warned, they get little help from a busy subject teacher and, unsurprisingly, the return fails.
One school I visited recently had also realised that the ‘gaps’ for returning learners included learning tools and routines they had introduced across all classrooms. They spent time teaching and practicing these as well as addressing academic gaps before a child returned.
7) Turn exclusion to inclusion
Research talks about inclusion, particularly social inclusion being a key element of successful transition. The young person will have felt excluded from school when they moved to AP and within that, excluded from social relationships with their peers. It’s important to help them feel a part of school and to help engineer social inclusion too – do they need to be able to come into and leave school at times with their peers, have break times and lunchtimes with peers or have a buddy they can pair up with to offer peer support? Often reintegration comes with reduced times or restrictions that are meant to be helpful but actually socially isolate the pupils involved.
Research also talks about there being an important motivational factor for lots of young people to ‘feel normal’ in school. The majority of pupils want to be like their peers and fit in with normal mainstream school. We need to use this desire to help them develop their own motivations to successfully reintegrate.
8) Communicate with staff
It is important that mainstream staff understand the plans for reintegration. They need to know enough about the young person to teach them well and show the patience and adaptability needed to help them through the early parts of their return. They also need to know enough about the pupils support package to be able to reduce conflict and barriers as much as possible. They need to know when and how a pupil will be returning to their lessons and be really clear about expectations both of the child and of any work or support they need to provide as a subject teacher. A regular comment from subject staff is that they either aren’t clear on how to handle returning students in terms of the school behaviour policies or that they don’t feel confident enough about handling challenging behaviour. Having really clear expectations and routines around this and communicating well before problems can help.
9) Develop relationships with staff
One of the strong pieces of feedback from young people who do well in AP in comparison to mainstream is that they feel understood and staff take time to listen. In an AP that isn’t too hard, there are often more relational approaches and high staffing levels. It is important to recreate some of this support for the pupil in mainstream. Find a key worker or member of staff who has the potential to build a good relationship and the time to invest in supporting the young person (not always easy I know). They can support with lesson drop-ins. Can know the young person’s plan well and adapt it to suit the pressures across different days. They can develop positive relationships with family as well as the young person and regularly keep parents informed of progress. Communicating well with staff to resolve problems can be an issue for young people, their key worker can be a go-between, helping to resolve issues and creating chances for reflection on behaviour where problems have occurred.
10) Create confidence and positivity
A young person who has been in AP often has an educational journey that has been marked by negative experiences, exclusion and ‘failure’. They often believe that learning and school is not something they do well. Any reintegration needs to be set up to change those expectations and self-beliefs it needs to be set up to introduce success and to help young people develop confidence and positivity. Plan for success and celebrate even small steps forward.
11) Develop aspirations for the future
Where is the young person’s motivation for making education a success? Again, research tells that aspirations for the future are important in building successful reintegration. Do you know what ambitions the pupil has? Do they understand the importance of education in these? If they don’t have ambition, how can you support them to develop some? What opportunities can you create to enable them to develop a reason to complete school and get qualifications? Often what seems like a lack of aspiration is a lack of belief fuelled by a narrative from school. How can we change this?
12) Develop self-awareness
Create opportunities for young people to understand themselves and their reactions to different situations. Spend time (when they are regulated and feeling safe) debriefing incidents and lessons. How did you feel? Why did this happen? How could you keep calm in future? Teach them skills to self-regulate, to understand why they may react in certain ways. Coach them to be self-aware enough to recognise the things they need to change and give them some tools to use to do that.
13) Get family/home involved
Work to build a positive relationship with home, parental engagement is a great driver of progress, but we really need to work to build relationships with parents who often have a negative experience of schooling themselves. Be in regular contact and communication, build capital by showing you care and sharing the positives as well as negatives and investing in the relationship. Not only does it help you when you can use parental influence, but it also means you are more likely to find out earlier when things at home are unsettled or there are safeguarding risks that can completely derail a successful return to school.
14) Develop holistic support
Very few pupils in AP have calm and ordered lives outside of education. There are often high levels of needs in both the family and the pupil. We can’t expect anyone to learn unless we are helping them feel fed, safe, they’ve slept etc. Make sure you understand the needs of your young people and where they have wider needs you are working with outside agencies, counsellors, early help, family support and so on to help. If a child is hungry every time they arrive at school they’ll need some food before they can access lessons successfully. If they have trauma in their background they may need access to counselling.
Further reading:
Owen, Woods & Stewart. A systematic literature review exploring the facilitators and barriers of reintegration to secondary mainstream schools through ‘alternative provision’
2021
Parsons, Carl, and Keith Howlett. Investigating the reintegration of permanently
excluded young people in England. INCLUDE. Organisation, 2000.
Lawrence, N. (2011). What makes for a successful re-integration from a pupil referral unit to mainstream education? An applied research project. Educational Psychology in Practice,
Thomas, D. V. (2014). Factors affecting successful reintegration. Educational Studies
