Young People This section looks at school and community approaches to working with disaffected young people, or those at risk of social exclusion, who need to improve their literacy skills. Tell us about new approaches that work by clicking on the activity form above.

Policy

• From the Overview
• Every Child Matters
• DfES Five Year Strategy for Children and Learners
• 14-19 Education and Skills - The White Paper (2005)
• 14-19: Opportunity and Excellence - the 14-19 curriculum (2003)
• Youth Matters - the Green Paper (2005)
  
  
• Education Improvement Partnerships
• Healthy Schools
  
  
• Connexions and Neighbourhood Support Fund
• Entry to Employment
• Modern Apprenticeships
• On Track - crime prevention, ages 4-12
• The PLUS programme (Youth Justice)
• Positive Activities for Young People
  
  
• Reading Challenge
  
  
• The policy context (covers all ages)
  

Research

• From the Overview
• Basic skills and social exclusion (2002)
• Breaking Barriers? Reaching the hardest to reach - young people's aims and the obstacles facing them (2003)
• Links to more research by the Prince's Trust
• The education of asylum-seeker pupils (Ofsted 2003)
• The impact of social exclusion on young people moving into adulthood (2000)
• Implementing the Increased Flexibility for 14-16 Year olds Programme: The experience of partnerships and students (2004)
• Increased Flexibility Programme at Key Stage 4 (Ofsted 2005)
• Link to research on the education maintenance allowance (2003)
• Evaluation of On Track (2004)
• The media literacy of children and young people: A review of the research literature (2005) - from the main NLT site
• Mobile technologies and learning (2005) - from the main NLT site
• Playing for Success (various)
• Provision and support for Traveller pupils (Ofsted 2003)
• Reading Matters for Life (2004)
• The role of street-based youth work in linking socially excluded young people into education, training and work (2004)
• Secondary Transfer and Retention in KS3: A Longitudinal study of Gypsy Traveller Pupils (2004)
• Starting over: Young refugees talk about life in Britain (2003)
• Success factors in informal learning: Young adults' experiences of literacy, language and numeracy (2004)
• Support from the Start: Working with young children and their families to reduce the risks of crime and anti-social behaviour (2004) - also covers young people
• Transitions: a Social Exclusion Unit interim report on Young Adults (2005)
• Truancy and school exclusions (various)
• Working with 14-16 year-olds with basic skills needs in FE Colleges (2005)
• Young Adults Learning Partnership (YALP) (2004)
  
• Research on children and young people in care
• Research on Travellers
• Research on truancy and school exclusions
  
• Secondary schools and literacy from the main NLT site
• Buddying, mentoring and volunteering from the main NLT site
• Research index - Literacy and Social Inclusion

Practice

Resources

• Priority Steps to Inclusion: Addressing underachievement, truancy & exclusion at Key Stage 3& 4
  
  
• That Reading Thing - a literacy method for disaffected young people
  
  
• The Young Adult Learners' Partnership (YALP) exists to research and develop effective approaches to learning and personal development among young adults on the margins of education, training and employment. More on YALP
• YALP has conducted an in-depth search of resources available through the internet and the results are pulled together into an on-line document which can be found through the above link.
  
  
• More resources, from the main NLT site
  

Further information, from the main NLT site

• Youth and literacy
• Post-16 literacy (ages 16-19)
• Social inclusion, regeneration and youth organisations
• The literacy strand of the Key Stage 3 Strategy
• Ideas for school librarians for creating a reading culture in schools - from Reading Connects
  

Background

Having poor literacy skills means young people cannot fully access the challenges of the school curriculum and are therefore more likely to underachieve. They may have the potential to achieve but have fallen behind for a variety of reasons - poor health, disruptive education, problems at home, poor teaching or perhaps difficulties because English is not their first language. If they are not able to catch up through additional school interventions or have parents who don't know how to help, young people can become passive and disinterested in learning, they can play up at school, or they simply stay away. There is some evidence that those who truant or stay out of school are more at risk of getting into trouble and committing crimes.

Official statistics show that there are 649,000 16 to 24-year-olds in the UK who are economically inactive and not in full-time education, and a further 405,000 who are unemployed. There are also an estimated 10,000 15 year-olds who are 'missing' from school in England and are not accounted for anywhere in the system. Each year more than five per cent of 15 year-olds leave school without any qualifications. (1)

Of course, having poor literacy is not the only reason why young people stay away from school, misbehave and underachieve, but it can be a contributory factor. In any case, if they miss a large part of their schooling, they will not get the qualifications they need to succeed. Finding ways to motivate young people and improve their literacy skills is vital.

References
(1) The statistics in this paragraph are taken from publications by the Prince's Trust, Reaching the Hardest to Reach (2004), and its earlier version Breaking barriers? Reaching the hardest to reach (2003), which itself quotes Labour Market Trends, Ofsted and the Department for Education and Skills as its sources. More on these publications

Links
You may wish to look at the Children and Parents sections as well.