Pupils attending a shared placement between a school and alternative provision: Is a sense of school belonging the key to success?

Abstract

AimThe use of alternative provision for pupils identified as having challenging behaviour and social, emotional and mental health difficulties is widespread across the UK and the majority of these young people do not access a school whilst attending alternative provision. However, many pupils receive provision through a shared placement between a mainstream school and an alternative provider, which means they actively attend both settings on a regular basis. Although shared placements occur frequently across the UK, there has been very little research focusing on this area. This study explored the perceptions and experiences of staff and pupils in relation to shared placements, with a particular aim of analysing the nature and importance of sense of belonging.MethodologyAdopting a realistic evaluation methodology (Pawson & Tilley, 1997), semi-structured interviews were used to identify the outcomes of the shared placement arrangement as well as the important contextual conditions linked to sense of belonging. In addition, each pupil completed the Psychological Sense of School Membership Scale (Goodenow, 1993) to examine their sense of belonging to educational provision.FindingsThe findings suggest that for some pupils, shared placements led to greater engagement with mainstream education and improvements in behaviour, whilst for others, a shared placement led to further disengagement from the mainstream education system. Sense of school belonging was highlighted as a strong predictor of positive outcomes and this was linked to various school attitudes and practices.LimitationsThis study has limitations in that it is relatively small-scale and additional research would be useful to confirm and extend these findings.ConclusionA strong sense of school belonging is a good predictor of positive outcomes for children receiving education through a shared placement. As sense of belonging appears to be closely linked to school attitudes and practices, supporting schools to promote a sense of belonging is likely to be useful for this population.