FAQ
Click on the questions below for the answers:
2. How would we know that the study support offer is varied and of good quality?
3. Is there ring-fenced funding for study support?
4. How are schools/LAs using personalised learning funding?
5. How do we ensure study support is sustainable?
6. How do we target the hard-to-reach?
7. How can study support help improve behaviour?
8. Should all young people register for study support?
9. How do we audit models of good practice?
11. How do we formalise the informal aspect of study support without losing its impact?
12. How do we facilitate parental involvement in study support?
13. How can study support assist in improving ethnic minority achievement?
14. Why are ContinYou’s conferences and training so expensive?
15. What is going to happen to the extended schools grant?
16. What sources of funding are available specifically for science projects?
1. What is the DfES definition of study support as part of the core offer of extended services. Is it ‘varied menu of activities’, or ‘varied menu of study support activities’?
There is a growing awareness of the breadth of activities that can be considered to be study support and that in many ways, the ‘varied menu of activities’ is simply another way of stating study support. The most recent core offer slide for ESRA’s refers to ‘a varied menu of study support activities’.
The three key characteristics of study support are:
- it is voluntary
- it takes place outside of normal lessons (not necessarily outside the school day)
- it focuses on learning while recognising the social and emotional underpinnings of effective learning.
Study Support includes a wide range of activities and is more than ‘catch-up’ clubs or stretch classes.
The definition is as follows:
'Study Support is learning activity outside normal lessons which young people take part in voluntarily. Study Support is, accordingly, an inclusive term, embracing many activities – with many names and guises. Its purpose is to improve young people’s motivation, build their self-esteem and help them become more effective learners. Above all it aims to raise achievement.'
Taken from: Study Support: a national framework for Extending Learning Opportunities, DfES, 2006. Same definition used in 1998 version.
2. How would we know that the study support offer is varied and of good quality?
We recommend that you use any of our resource packs (Sum-it!, our miniguides, Breakfast Clubs Plus - available to download from our resources pages) as guides together with the DfES ‘Study Support code of practice – Improving the quality of out of hours learning – a guide for schools’ (2004). To get you started, below is an initial list of things for you to consider or do when first setting up study support provision:
- What’s the purpose of the activity?
- How will you find out what is needed?
- How will you involve young people in the planning and getting the ethos right?
- How will you identify and recruit good staff who are appropriately qualified/experienced?
- How will you inform students, parents, school staff (including SMT) and other key professionals and members of the community of the study support programme?
- How will you monitor attendance and respond to young people’s experiences?
- Is there support from the senior management team and is study support included in the SEF/SIP?
- How will you gather evidence to evaluate the impact of your study support programme on raising achievement?
- When and how will you audit the programme to enable it to be adapted to meet changing need?
3. Is there ring-fenced funding for study support?
No. It is expected that schools will provide a good study support programme and money has been included in their budgets to ensure that it is available. This includes the core budget, the School Standards Grant (SSG), money for personalised learning and other funds made available through the local authority (which could be ring-fenced if the LA chose to do so). Specialist schools and academies are now required, as part of their strategic planning, to show how their activities contribute to the achievement of Every Child Matters and the core offer of extended services. This means that some of the additional funding available to those designated as ‘specialist schools’ can be used to support the delivery of study support – thus leading to increased opportunities for sustainability.
Use the links below to find other sources of funding:
4. How are schools/LAs using personalised learning funding?
Mostly to develop the beyond the classroom element, although many of the other ‘gateways’ can be tackled and addressed through study support, such as ICT. Much of what you are already doing as study support could support personalised learning, as long as it’s offered through a participant-centred approach.
5. How do we ensure study support is sustainable?
It is essential that local authorities and schools include study support within their strategies and development plans. Monitoring and evaluation are key to ensuring good quality provision and if you can demonstrate the impact of an activity whether it be on attendance, behaviour or results then finding support/resources of all kinds in the future becomes much easier to source. The activities being offered should always have a purpose, meet the needs of the young people and complement wider initiatives and agendas. Refer to the Code of Practice (2004) and our resources for information on how to achieve this and to identify the kinds of evidence you could gather to demonstrate the impact being made.
Charging, funding and access strategies could be implemented to ensure that study support is recognised at all levels by funders, staff, governors, and local councillors. This will lead to study support becoming part of the overall plan and embedded rather than an add on. However, it is important to note that problems tend to arise when a charging structure is suddenly implemented with no warning and no consultation. Where parents are consulted and part of the planning process, they have often given full support to clear charging policies and there are examples of more pupils attending activities after charges were introduced.
6. How do we target the hard-to-reach?
Each of the resource packs has a section dedicated to ‘targeting’. They provide practical ideas and advice (including the use of personalised invitations) as well as information on how to balance an ‘open access policy’ with ensuring those who will benefit most attend. For more information, download our resource packs, read our page on targeting and inclusion, or download our Strategy Guide for behaviour improvement managers (PDF file, 128 KB).
Create links with other service providers, such as the Youth Service and Youth Offending Service, to provide study support activities, as well as supplementary schools, community organisations, local community members and parents.
Most importantly, to ensure that the young people you are hoping to target actually attend, it is essential that the activities you offer are designed in consultation with them. The opportunities provided should encourage the young people to have ownership of the activity and lead their own participation, involvement and subsequent learning/engagement.
7. How can study support help improve behaviour?
Engagement in learning will facilitate achievement and develop a sense of worth and self respect. Many behaviour problems develop through frustration and low self esteem, which are often the result of perceived failure and inadequacy. Study Support is an ideal tool to re-engage a young person in learning, in a way which is positive, participative and interesting for them. The voluntary nature of the activity lends itself to creative and innovative practices, which are led by the needs of the young people. Many of the Gifted and Talented children attending summer schools at Warwick University say that they are enthused and motivated by the study support opportunities that are provided beyond the core curriculum.
The more informal relationships developed will result in mutual respect and young people will be able to develop positive relationships with others. Study Support, particularly sport and active programmes are a way of channelling energy into positive activities.
8. Should all young people register for study support?
Ideally a good practice club will register its members to not only determine who is attending, but to minimize health and safety issues. It’s also interesting to compare who attends which clubs and how often, rather than simply seeing who attends one particular activity. Compiling registers will also help to prove the impact your activities are having on things happening during the wider school day/other extended services. For instance, a football club on a Wednesday can often provide the motivation needed to encourage some people to demonstrate more regular attendance during normal lessons on that day. The benefits of study support are really felt when other teachers know which activities children are involved in, eg English classes are more motivational if children are writing about the activities that motivate them. Many of the clubs link to and support core curriculum activity, but teachers cannot capitalise on this unless they know which activities children are attending (see OfSTED 2001).
ContinYou and their partners talk about ensuring each child is enabled to choose to participate in a study support activity should they wish to. This is referred to as either an ‘entitlement for every child’ or as ‘placing study support within the reach of every child and young person’.
9. How do we audit models of good practice?
Also link with members of your Extended Services team who have a responsibility for what provision is being offered locally. Once you know what is happening within your community/school you can then look to identify which of this provision has a purpose, links with the school improvement plans and has had a positive impact on its immediate and wider communities.
10. Why doesn’t everything go through TDA RA (Training and Development Agency for Schools Regional Advisor)?
Study Support is part of the Core Offer and therefore should be recorded as such through TDA. The TDA database (ESP) only carries the status of each element of the core offer. It makes no claims about quality or reach. TDA RAs are not experts in the quality delivery of the core offer but are experts in remodelling and managing change. ContinYou and 4Children provide the content expertise that TDA staff don’t have generally.
In many cases the provision of study support/oshl activities preceded the advent of the core offer and the core offer recognises the significant role played by study support in the past and now brings it to the point where it is an essential element of all school provision. As a result of government backing for study support prior to the extended school/services agenda, the funding for the different support teams comes from different teams within the DfES. By having separate teams we are able to provide more detailed support, more accurate information and work more closely with other partners in the field to ensure information is shared effectively.
However, ContinYou has developed its approach to study support to meet the changing needs of local authorities, schools and other providers and we’ve moved our focus from one central study support team to a new team of regional development managers.
11. How do we formalise the informal aspect of study support without losing its impact?
If meeting the needs of young people is at the heart of provision, impact should not be lost. The relationships developed between staff and young people are crucial to a successful programme and a personalised approach should ensure that the impact remains strong.
12. How do we facilitate parental involvement in study support?
There will be a need for positive, proactive recruitment: many parents will feel they do not have the skills. But there is plenty of evidence for (a) the benefits of involvement, and (b) the contribution which parents can make, and the skills they have – often without realising. It will be easier to recruit parents in a school where parental involvement is the norm, and often study support is the easiest place for this to start – it seems more relaxed, less threatening. When pupils first join the school, an audit of parental interests and skills can assist in recruiting new parents to help or run study support activities. An ongoing and regularly updated audit can enable the school to continue to benefit from parental participation in study support. It is important that all staff are involved in the audit as information is often gathered by chance and in informal situations. Parents can then be approached individually on the basis of what the school already knows about them (“We’re starting a camera club, and we know you’re a keen photographer….”). The level of parental input can vary enormously, and many parents can be given roles which do not demand specialist skills or knowledge. Parents will need support, guidance, and clear information throughout their involvement.
See Curriculum Briefing vol 5 no 1, “Participating in learning involving parents”, published by Optimus Publishing, 2006, specifically the article on pages 52 – 55. (Visit the Optimus website for more information about Curriculum Briefing.)
See DfES publication – Family Literacy, Language and Numeracy – a guide for Extended Schools (2005).
A terrific short video with James Nesbitt is available from the ParentsCentre website which makes the case very powerfully for parental involvement and shows how it is relatively easy for parents to deliver!
13. How can study support assist in improving ethnic minority achievement?
In the same way as it assists every child’s improvement!
Schools should be monitoring take-up in all out-of-hours/extended provision. Through the gathering of this information, it will be possible to ascertain whether any groups of pupils – eg a specific ethnic group, girls, year 8 pupils - are missing out. If there is a significant difference between the levels of involvement, then there will need to be some research into why it is happening (eg is it the provision, or is there a cultural problem, such as all the girls having to be home before it’s dark or children not liking to go home later if they are in school uniform?).
Once this has been done, the root problem can be addressed. Perhaps lunchtime provision rather than after-school? Increasingly, schools are looking to remodel the timings of their school day. For instance, having a shortened lunch-hour to enable a longer time after-school before it gets dark.
If the school also identifies specific groups in which any ethnic minority group is not achieving as well as they should, then they can make specific provision to meet those needs. If a school targets specific groups of young people, encouraging them to identify what they wish to do and then acting on this, successful implementation will result in raising achievement. This should then tie in with the school’s improvement/development plan. Study support may be directly curriculum-linked, or focused on social and life skills, confidence, self-esteem, engagement in learning, perhaps even attendance, behaviour and respect issues. Collaboration with any local supplementary schools might help too. This is the great advantage of a study support programme. It can/should be adapted to meet perceived/known needs.
14. Why are ContinYou’s conferences and training so expensive?
We aim to cover costs as we receive no/little core funding for them. Often, we lose money on them. We appreciate they seem ‘expensive’ but they actually cost us more than that per head to deliver. Actually if compared on a like-for-like basis, most of ContinYou’s products are much less expensive than others (look at many of the commercial conferences, for instance). However, this is not covered by the DfES grant to ContinYou whereas some is provided through the huge grant to TDA for their provision to assure ministers that the targets are met.
15. What is going to happen to the extended schools grant?
We are campaigning for continuation beyond 2008 but at the moment there’s no clear answer.
16. What sources of funding are available specifically for science projects?
The DfES is piloting 250 study support science clubs over the coming year. SETNET are working on this with the DfES and a range of other partners including ourselves. There is quite a lot of interest in the development of science-based initiatives at the moment, as leaders are keen to ensure more children and young people opt to continue their education in these subjects beyond GCSE.
When applying for funding remember to think about the broader elements – environment, gardening, ecology, recycling etc. All of these ‘hot topics’ generate interest and potential opportunities for funding. Similarly, space travel and engineering could also be considered to encourage the development and understanding of scientific concepts.
Suggested links for resources specifically linked to ‘traditional’ science:
- ASE - The Association for Science Education
- The science discovery clubs network
- Also have a look at our miniguides
- And our funding pages.
17. If outside providers run after-school activities, who is legally responsible for the children when the activities are offered as a varied menu of activities?
This depends on how they are run. There is no blueprint because it depends on the agreement that is developed between the school and the provider. If the child is receiving childcare through a private organisation, the organisation delivering the childcare/registered with Ofsted is responsible.
If external providers are ‘bought in’ by the school, responsibility would depend on the service level agreement/contractual terms drawn up between the two parties.
If the school is running the activities itself, then it is responsible for the well-being of the children whilst they are on-site/participating in the activities in the same way as they have in the past. The key to all these kinds of questions lies in the partnership agreement or service level agreement that has been drawn up to ensure that everyone is clear about their responsibilities. View some examples.
18. If a child from school A attends a class at school B – which school is responsible and if a child is being transported from one venue to another for study support, who is legally responsible for the child whilst they are in transit?
Once again, it depends on the terms of the partnership agreement. It might depend on who is providing the transport but it needs to be clear and everyone (including the parents and governors) should be sure of where responsibility lies and what it involves. Sixth formers often attend part of their course at another education establishment – similar protocols should exist for study support at a different establishment. Another comparison might be swimming classes where a school transports pupils to another setting and hires coaches from the swimming pool to provide the training.
For all health and safety related queries, please see:
The Standards Site: Safe Keeping: A Good Practice Guide for Health and Safety in Study Support
However, some aspects may require updating/adaption as it pre-dates the development of the core offer of extended services in and around schools.
