Tackling Emotionally-Based School Avoidance programme – Wakefield
Published 10 April 2024
Applies to England
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Partnership for People and Place
The PfPP programme has piloted a new approach to cross-government working to improve local outcomes and efficiency of policy and programmes designed and delivered in place. PfPP funded 13 local government partners to deliver pilot projects focusing on hyper-local issues that could be tackled through better central or local government coordination. The overall objective of the PfPP programme was to test whether closer working between different central government departments and local places can bring measurable benefits to people who live there.
Local background – Wakefield
Pupil attendance declined in Wakefield from 95.1% in autumn 2018 to 94.7% in autumn 2019. While this corresponds with national declines, attendance in Wakefield schools has been consistently below national averages. Factors that lead to poor attendance are complex including those which are emotionally driven. However, interventions to overcome barriers and support good attendance are non-statutory and funding to work with families and schools is variable.
The Tackling Emotionally-Based School Avoidance (EBSA) programme aimed to gain in-depth insight from pupils, families and schools about the barriers and enablers to good attendance. The project embedded a social researcher in the Council to build a stronger evidence base for the design of interventions and improve the quality of their approach to EBSA.
Central government involvement
As described in Wakefield’s initial delivery plan, the pilot team intended to connect with central government to inform and influence relevant policy development across departments. The pilot team successfully engaged stakeholders from the Department for Education (DfE) and the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) in local strategy meetings. This collaboration has helped the pilot team gain a better understanding of how central government operates and how to effectively use local research to influence national policy. However, the Wakefield team did not influence national policy within the life of the PfPP programme as their research findings were not finalised until the end of delivery. Further dissemination activities are expected to materialise after the PfPP programme.
| Delivery plans | Meetings | Visits | Involvement in delivery |
|---|---|---|---|
| DHSC (OHID), DfE, DWP, NHSE, DfE contributed to the development of the Wakefield Theory of Change. | DfE, ADAS and DHSC were involved in ad hoc meetings with the project team. | Two separate site visits took place during the project. This provided opportunities for DLUHC and government colleagues to meet with the pilot team alongside visiting local schools to see changes on the ground. DfE regional leads also attended alongside colleagues from DHSC. | DLUHC and DfE civil servants participated in a regular local strategy meeting. DHSC colleagues were also involved on an ad-hoc basis. |
What was delivered?
The pilot team recruited an embedded researcher to better understand the drivers behind EBSA. The embedded researcher produced a literature review which was shared with DfE and Wakefield’s EBSA stakeholders. The research led to a greater understanding of EBSA amongst the pilot team, local delivery partners and schools. The research was informed by 3 focus groups with local stakeholders, as well as a review of methods, models and UK-based literature to gather further understanding of experiences of existing support.
The research findings helped to refine the EBSA toolkit, developed by the Educational Psychology Service for local schools and to inform commissioning of new lived experience support for families and children impacted by EBSA (delivered by St Giles Trust). It also informed a wider review of approaches to ESBA across Wakefield Council.
The team has created new working groups bringing together key local stakeholders, including schools, government departments and local charities to better co-ordinate strategic planning activity and support.
Delivery partners & local government
There is now a deeper understanding of what drives EBSA and possible ways of mitigating this amongst local schools. For example, the project convened local head teachers who had previously been unwilling to engage in the topic, thus building local understanding. Recommendations from the research are being implemented and tested further locally.
[The research] has been done in one of the local areas in Wakefield that we’re already aware of as having complex issues. To have had that done locally and not a project somewhere else in another part of the country that might be facing different issues is huge for us.
[Delivery partner]
Central government
Central government partners from DfE and DHSC described how they gained a better understanding of the local context in Wakefield and shared learnings from the pilot with regional and national central government teams. It is intended that the pilot team will share their findings with DfE at the end of the 2023/24 academic year with the aim of influencing national policy.
We’re looking to try and learn from what’s come up in this pilot that we can take away and see the success that we can use elsewhere.
[Central government partner]