Sarah Murphy MS, the Welsh Government Minister for Mental Health and Wellbeing recently visited sbarc|spark to gather the latest research insights. WISERD researchers presented findings on how parents of neurodivergent children experience the school exclusion process and how we can use administrative data to improve education outcomes for children with additional learning needs.
Excluded Lives
Research Associate, Jemma Bridgeman shared key findings from the Excluded Lives project, which sought to understand school exclusion processes and the impact of exclusion on pupils, parents, and education professionals across the UK.
Jemma conducted interviews with parents to explore their experiences of school exclusion in Wales. The majority of participants had children with autistic spectrum disorder and/or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Results showed that despite parents’ optimism about the new Additional Learning Needs (ALN) system, their children had negative school experiences, which resulted in their exclusion from school.
Jemma said: “One parent explained that her son, who had ADHD, received support in primary school but not in secondary school. He had increasingly disengaged from school as he did not have the support he needed to be successful in education. He had recently been permanently excluded from school. She could understand why the exclusion had happened but did not understand why the support had not been put into place that would have prevented the exclusion.”
The Minister emphasised the importance of continuing this conversation with education practitioners, and also highlighted the important role of school nurses and counsellors in supporting neurodivergent children and preventing their exclusion from school.
Jemma said: “The meeting underscored the need for ongoing conversations between researchers and government ministers to discuss innovative research and, in the case of my research, to amplify the voice of parents of neurodivergent children.”
Education outcomes for children with ALN
Research Associate, Jennifer Keating is based in the WISERD Education Data Lab and part of Administrative Data Research Wales. Jennifer’s research uses administrative data from the Secure Anonymized Information Linkage (SAIL) databank to better understand and improve education outcomes for children with additional learning needs (ALN).
Jennifer shared findings from her research, which links education data with Census data to explore whether there are patterns in the identification of special education needs (SEN) or ALN across children’s individual characteristics, their household characteristics, or the characteristics of their school.
Jennifer said: “The results show that household characteristics captured by the Census, including parent qualifications, family structure, economic activity, and social grade, do influence SEN identification, in addition to individual characteristics (such as gender and attendance). These patterns also varied across different types of SEN/ALN need, which emphasises the importance of understanding the needs of, and tailoring interventions for, individual pupils.”
Jennifer discussed the team’s future plans to link children’s education and health data to investigate how children with health conditions are supported at school. The Minister acknowledged that efficient assessment, diagnosis and support processes for children with health conditions could also improve other outcomes for children, including their mental health.
Dr Katy Huxley, Research Fellow and event facilitator said:
It was a pleasure to host the Minister and enable knowledge exchange and learning from the researchers based in the Social Science Park (SPARK). The minister was really engaged and excited to hear about the research that is being undertaken here, and it is important for our researchers to engage with government, and others. We hope to continue to engage and positively influence services and policy for societal benefit.