Introduction
As outlined in Chapter Six, the study focused primarily upon the educational attainment of a sample of fourteen young people as measured at the end of Key Stage 3 via Standard Attainment Tests and Tasks (SATS) in May 2002 and at the end of Key Stage 4 via GCSEs in summer 2004. After the Key Stage 3 results and for analytical purposes it was useful to locate data within sub-groups and categories in order to develop a comparative approach. Obvious and simple categories arising from the findings generated three groupings comprising young people who were: achievers, statemented and no results. These categories will continue to be used in this chapter to locate a wider range of data and to develop new areas for discussion.
In seeking second and third interviews with the sample the intention was to collect information about what the young people saw as the presence or absence of ‘factors’ such as placement stability and education continuity (Jackson and Thomas 2000; Harker et al. 2004) influencing their school experience and academic achievements. The second interview with the young people (8 of the 14 available for second interview) was conducted in school Year 10, the results of the Year 9 SATS tests were discussed as well as aspirations for the future including GCSE choices and ambitions. The third interview (7 of the 14 available for a third interview) took place after the GCSE results some two years later. These second and third interviews were less structured and more free flowing. Following the guidance of Dominelli et al. (2005:1126) on research with young people the study concentrated on:
The lived experiences of participants and start where they are, rather than imposing an external frame.
These interviews therefore elicited retrospective accounts that focused in large part on the young people’s perception of the process and outcome of SATS and GCSEs throughout a three year period.
The ‘achievers’ group: accounting for achievement
This group was made up of six young people: one girl (Christy) and five boys, (Ben, Declan, Anthony, Leonard and Douglas). It is of note that whilst attendance and achievement data were collected for the one girl, Christy, she was, by her own choice, not included in the interviews. The view was taken by social work staff during the study that she was securely located in a kinship placement and would not consider herself ‘looked after’ and for them to actively seek her involvement would undermine her wishes. Her omission from interviews therefore allowed no insights into her care and education stability, nor into her placement with relatives which were two significant factors likely to contribute to school achievement (Jackson and Sachdev 2001; Ritchie 2005). Approaches were made to re-engage Christy in the research at various later stages but her social worker was unwilling to approach the young person in this matter. Such a response might well be seen as ‘over-protective’ and not conducive to finding out ‘what worked’ and how we might learn from this - a position that Mullender et al. (2004: 9) view with some concern:
Adults end up intervening in their lives in ways which adults have established to be best, without understanding how children and young people themselves perceive or experience these well-intentioned but perhaps misguided efforts.
Kinship placement: a positive experience
On a more positive note, Christy’s attendance, results and changes in placement and school circumstances were charted in the early stages of the study on the data collection form and the LACE team continued to make this information available to me. Unusually, Christy had experienced only one placement since coming into care at the age of seven and that was with a family member. As has been highlighted in other studies (Bebbington and Miles 1989) a child’s pre-care experiences cannot be overlooked when discussing outcomes. It was officially recorded as ‘mother’s mental health’ that precipitated Christy becoming looked after. It was unclear from the social work file or from her social worker how the mother’s mental health issues impacted upon her parenting. One can only surmise that the impact on the child of a parent who is ‘well meaning but unable to function effectively due to mental illness’ may be very different from the ‘young woman who had spent six months in hospital as a four-year-old after being dropped into a hot bath by her mother as punishment’ (Jackson et al. 2005: 9). Furthermore, there is some evidence that children and young people who are able to attribute their maltreatment to environmental or adult factors, rather than taking the
responsibility on themselves, have better outcomes (Iwaniec et al. 2006). Christy’s legal status has stayed as a child voluntarily accommodated (section 20, Children Act 1989), suggesting that the family arrangement is akin to that of long-term fostering in nature. Family arrangements with ‘permanency’ have long been an ambition for children who cannot live at home and by 2000 the ‘government had already started to press for specific improvements in the rate at which adoption was recommended for looked after children’ (Monck et al. 2004: 322). The intended impact o f this recommendation was not noted in this study and even for those young people with seemingly secure family placements, such as Christy, their care status had not changed. What is apparent is that in the Year 9 SATS tests, Christy achieved the expected level o f a grade 5 in English and Maths and a grade 4 in Science indicating that she was ‘working towards the expected level’. It is difficult to draw any firm conclusions from this, but in the light of other research it would seem that a single family placement with relative carers can be positive. The stability and continuity in schooling as well as the opportunity to develop hobbies and interests and sustain friendships will mean that for some young people who are looked after ‘their educational attainment can be positive’ (Harker et al. 2003:90).
The experiences o f Ben go some way in supporting the view of Harker et al. (2003). Ben became looked after because of difficult family relationships which social work records indicated impacted on his behaviour in school. Ben became looked after during school Year 8 after a ‘number o f fixed term exclusions’. It was not possible to explore the circumstances surrounding these exclusions due to a lack of school records. In interview the head of school year nine explained the extent o f the difficulty:
We are unable to locate school records from primary and records from previous comprehensive school. Issues around the exclusions are a bit
hazy, probably usual bad behaviour.... it’s not easy to exclude.
(Mrs Cox, designated teacher, the Beeches School)
Ben became looked after in February of school Year 8 and was placed in residential care. His experience of school at that time was similar to the views expressed by some of the other young people in residential care:
I did go to the PR U (his use of term) fo r an hour a day fo r about 3 months but I didn’t do much, I didn’t really go to school at all, I didn’t want to go and they didn’t make me go. I am in a different school now, it’s
better than the old one and I ’m going home ....things are sorted thanks to (names residential unit).
(Ben, residential care, aged 13)
Although Ben left care during Year 9 (after nine months in residential care), it was possible to interview Ben and his mother again after the SATS results to explore with them aspects of Ben’s experiences that might have impacted on his achievements. At the end of school Year 9, Ben (now categorised in the achievers group) offered the following account:
Well it ’s me, I ’ve got my head together, w e ’re sorted (looks a Mum) and
(names residential unit) were g o o d .. but I think social services are rubbish
to be honest with you I think social workers are lazy.
(Ben, living at home, aged 15).
Ben was not present for the interview with his Mum and although she endorsed some of his comments she was more temperate in her view, although critical of the time it took to find an alternative school placement for Ben between being excluded from one school in Year 8 and joining another in school Year 9:
I know that they are busy and under staffed but we would go to a meeting and nothing would progress from one meeting to another .. we were the one’s that did all o f the work....which is OK. I f things had been sorted sooner ... (names member of LACE team) tried her hardest but education were very slow. He had the opportunity o f going back to (names
school excluded from in Year 8) but the head teacher was extremely rude about him to me (her emphasis/ So we stuck it out to get another school ... things could have been sorted sooner but unfortunately it took as long as it did.
The fact that Ben had a single care episode in one placement, in a setting that was perceived to be helpful and staff that were ‘brilliant’, as well as a parent that took an active interest in promoting and advocating his interests would all appear, as is evidenced through other research, to have mitigated the lack of education continuity (Jackson and Martin 1998; Ajayi and Quigley 2006).
Resilient in the face of adversity
It was notable that Declan, a young man who achieved SATS (Key Stage 3) at the expected level in English, Maths and Science, had also been placed placement, although there were two planned moves over 21 months before
grades 5 and 6 in one durable that placement
was secured. His reception into care, at the age of 11, was not characterised by ‘traditional’ turmoil, upheaval and ongoing social work intervention but by a significant event. As recorded in his social work file ‘father killed mother and there were no other suitable relatives’. Such a catastrophe might also suggest that domestic violence was prevalent in the family home before the fatality (Gorin 2004; Mullender et al. 2004). Over three interviews Declan appeared able to compartmentalise the event that led him to become looked after and (as with Christy’s case) saw these to do with adult behaviour rather than as a consequence of something he did.
Declan put great store in the fact that he had not experienced a number of placement moves and also emphasised the absence of unplanned school moves as even more important to his educational success.
It happened, no one in my family could look after me then ‘cos they couldn ’t, so I had to carry on with what I do but with foster carers. As I said before I am not like a social services kids, so I wanted to carry On with my friends, with people who knew me in my junior school and on to secondary school. To be like them carry on I got good foster carers and didn ’t have to change schools, that was all part o f it.
(Declan aged 15, foster care)
This may equate with Parson’s et al. (2002: 105) who suggest that every time a young person in care moves placement this effect is ‘likely to lead to approximately six months loss of educational attainment’. Declan confirmed that he was settled in his placement, in school, had his friends around him and saw his SATS achievements as almost predictable:
They ’re pretty much what I expected, they ’re pretty much what I told you I would get. I don’t see why my GCSE’s will be much different if I put the work in....if I don’t I won’t get them... but I will.
(Declan aged 15, foster care)
Achieving-but how much?
Anthony, the fourth young person whose attainments put him into the ‘achievers’ group shared some key similarities with Christy and Declan. He too had one significant placement from the point when he came into care under section 20 of the Children Act 1989 at the age of 10. (He had one brief period of care lasting one month when aged 4). The reason for him being accommodated is recorded as ‘mother’s drinking and a break down in family relationships between Anthony and his step-father’. Unlike Declan and Christy, Anthony
was placed in a very busy foster home with other children where both his foster carers and Anthony had an ambivalent attitude towards school:
I remember the SATS in the last year o f primary school they were really hard tests. They were hard this time too., mind I don’t like English; my English had to go back to be re-marked, not sure what all that is about. I don’t like Welsh but I got a 5 in Maths and a 5 in Science. You would have to ask my teachers what they think o f how I am doin ’ in school but they would probably say poor.
(Anthony aged 15, foster care)
While Anthony was categorised as an achiever, unlike Declan, he didn’t hold positive prospects about his future academic achievements:
Well I know I have to be in school, but I am not sure about GCSEs. But it is all up to me really, I think the teachers have got it right.
(Anthony aged 15, foster care)
While in school Year 10, Anthony’s attendance was recorded as 90 per cent however there were indications that significant adults in his life were not monitoring, supporting and encouraging his achievements at school. Anthony stated that his birth parents did not have enough information about him to support his education and that Julie, his foster carer was rather out of her depth:
She is sort o f interested but she don’t know enough about it really, i t ’s all changed since her day. She has been up the school fo r me and the other kids but leaves us pretty much to get on with it.
(Anthony aged 15, foster care)
Indeed, Anthony’s view of his foster carer was to some extent corroborated by Julie herself when interviewed:
I say to him, ‘have you done your lessons? ’ well I say that to all the kids and you know what they are like- ‘A in ’t got any or yeh! Well what can you do? They clear off upstairs, come down say, ‘done my homework. ’ Off
out and then you don’t see them again ‘til 10 o ’clock - who knows what they are up to!