Using data to identify which young people would benefit from our support the most

Every year, we work with schools and use data to identify new children and young people to join our two-year programme. This data and insight not only enables us to identify children who could benefit most from our support, but it also provides a starting point from which we measure children’s progress in our social, emotional and academic (SEA) areas. Understanding the profile of the young people on our programme helps us to begin to build a trusted relationship with them and personalise their support programme.

We started working with our newest group of young people in September 2020, and at the start of the programme our data showed that:

• 70-80% of children were performing below age-related expectations in English/reading and maths.
• Many were also falling below the Department for Education standards for school attendance, which is likely to be impacted by the COVID-19 lockdowns.
• 41% of children were at risk in at least one of our social and emotional measures*
• 66% showed low levels of confidence.

This knowledge helps us to design and tailor each child’s individual support plan with them, their family and their teachers, and then to match specialist support to each child’s needs throughout their two-year programme.

We prioritise working with children who need some extra help in at least three of the SEA areas or are eligible for pupil premium, an indicator of family circumstances. In our newest group of young people, we found that:

• 76% of children fall into this group, presenting at risk in an average of four areas.
• Conversely, children not enrolled on the programme from the same schools, were at risk in an average of only two areas.**

This suggests that we are successfully identifying the children who need support across multiple, inter-related areas, relative to peers in their schools.

As an evidence-led organisation, we look at each group of children's starting point data to help us learn and ensure we work with the children who can benefit most from our support. As this group of young people continue their programme, we use their baseline data to track their progress and adapt each child’s support so that their programme remains tailored to their growing strengths and changing needs.

May Shakespeare, Impact Officer

*We measure two of our social and emotional areas, Emotional Wellbeing and Peer Relationships, using a Strengths and Difficulties questionnaire (SDQ) score which categorises results into three groups: high risk, low risk and not at risk. We measure Confidence using the validated KINDL questionnaire.
**We analyse data from all of the children in each school.