Schools that use support programmes ‘keep pupils for longer’

SCHOOLS which use extra supports effectively are reaping benefits for their students by keeping them in school relatively longer, research has found.

University College Cork’s Education Department examined the use and effects of various support programmes available to six vocational schools, community schools and comprehensive colleges in Cork city and county.

Each had a mix of supports, such as direct access to home school community liaison (HSCL) staff and educational welfare officers.

Likewise, some offered curricular programmes that can be adapted to student needs, such as the Junior Certificate Schools Programme, the School Completion Programme, the Leaving Certificate Vocational Programme and Leaving Certificate Applied.

A suburban boys’ community college, where half of the pupils were from backgrounds of serious disadvantages, reported that only 5% of pupils had a poor attendance record and fewer again were frequently in trouble for behaviour.

Likewise, at another suburban all-male community college in which 90% of students were seriously disadvantaged, just 60% had poor attendance and around one-third were in trouble regularly.

These compare relatively highly against a community college in a provincial town where only 5% of students suffer serious disadvantage but one-in-five have poor attendance, 15% are significantly disengaged from learning and almost 10% have regular behavioural problems.

On closer comparison, the schools in the less affluent areas access all the available supports.

But the rural school does not have an educational welfare officer or HSCL staff and does not offer students the School Completion Programme or the Junior Certificate Schools Programme. Dr Pat Naughton, who conducted the research for the Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI), wrote that some schools struggle to manage situations for which the support provisions are inadequate, involving students who are disengaged from their learning and whose behaviour poses a daily challenge.

“The scale and severity of such problems merits specialised supports to meet the immediate needs of the student and the school,” he said.

TUI education and research officer John MacGabhann said the figures showed the benefits of schools seeking additional supports.

“Schools which avail of these various programmes should wear it as a badge of honour rather than the tendency in some places to consider it a stigma that suggests they have problems,” he said.