A European consideration of Early School Leaving as a process running through childhood: A model for inclusive action.

Dr Garry Squires,

Manchester Institute of Education, University of Manchester, UK.

ORCHID: 0000-0003-2105-3358

garry.squires@manchester.ac.uk

This work has developed from a project funded by the European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education

Word count (7604)

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A European consideration of Early School Leaving as a process running through childhood: A model for inclusive action.

AbstractEarly School Leaving (ESL) or dropout has often been portrayed as an outcome and therefore something that only secondary school teachers need to think about. However, much of the literature suggests that this view is unhelpful and that Early School Leaving is the result of processes that run throughout childhood. This means that everybody involved in education and childhood development needs to consider how these processes operate. This paper presents an overview of the literature and uses Bronfenbrenner’s ideas from the ecosystemic model and Lewin’s concept of Force Field Analysis to present a model that can be used as a way of thinking about how to remove barriers to learning or to enhance successful inclusive teaching. The model points to important steps that can be taken to prevent ESL, to intervene to reduce ESL, and steps that can be taken by countries to educationally compensate those for whom ESL has occurred. The model is not prescriptive but adaptive to local context and circumstances and as such provides a thinking tool to promote inclusive thinking. The adaptive nature of the model helps to overcome the challenge of Special Educational Needs and/or Disabilities (SEND) being defined differently in different countries and often interpreted differently within the same country.

BackgroundIn a socially inclusive society it is desirable that all young people have access to educational opportunity from an early age and continue until they acquire the qualifications and skills that they will need as adults. When young people leave school before completing their upper secondary school education they are placed at a considerable disadvantage in adult life that will have wide ranging consequences. Completing upper secondary school education is seen as being an indicator of having reached the minimum standard needed to access the labour market and in developed countries is seen as showing successful transition from adolescence to adulthood (Schoon, 2015; Staff, Ramirez, & Vuolo, 2015). Data from 24 countries participating in the OECD survey of adult skills shows that in 2013, 84% of adults had achieved this level of education and as a result had much lower levels of unemployment at 16.5% compared to 29.5% of those who did not complete secondary education (OECD, 2015, 2016). Other researchers also share the view that the likelihood of being unemployed decreases with educational level achieved (Bäckman, Jakobsen, Lorentzen, Österbacka, & Dahl, 2015; Przybylski, 2014; Schwabe & Charbonnier, 2015; Snieskaa, Valodkieneb, Daunorienec, & Draksaited, 2015). Low educational achievement has been linked to poor health outcomes (Christle, Jolivette, & Nelson, 2007; Gallagher, 2011) and to wider social exclusion (Bäckman & Nilsson, 2016; Christle & Yell, 2008; Jahnukainen & Järvinen, 2005; Wilkins & Huckabee, 2014). Some students are more vulnerable than others, such as those with Special Educational Needs and/or Disabilities (SEND) and may be at greater risk of experiencing poor psycho-social outcomes (Humphrey, Barlow, Wigelsworth, & Squires, 2013). Learners with SEND are over-represented among ESL with some authors reporting rates that are three times that of those without disabilities (Limbach-Reich & Powell, 2016). Those with emotional or behavioural difficulties are more likely than peers to experience poor transitions and poor life chances (Kern et al., 2015). Given

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the potential long-term costs to individuals and to society, it is not surprising that governments are concerned to reduce ESL which is seen as an undesirable outcome.

One way of defining ESL is to consider the legal age at which students are allowed to leave formal education in their respective countries. UNESCO defines ESL as referring to those pupils who do not complete the last stage of primary education (UNESCO, 2012). In the EU, formal education includes secondary education and the legal age is higher, but this can be anything between 14 years old in Croatia to 18 years in Netherlands and Portugal. Some countries like England do not have formal graduations from secondary education and a range of options exist at age 16. This variation has been accommodated in the definition used by the European1 Commission in which ESL is defined in terms of not completing upper secondary education (Brunello & De Paola, 2013; European Commission, 2013). The definition provides a common metric across different states and allows a target to be set across the EU. The European Commission set reducing ESL to 10% across all states by 2020 as a priority for action (European Commission, 2010). There is evidence of progress on this target with the mean rate falling from 14.3% in 2009 to 11.5% in 2015 (European Commission, 2013, 2015). However, there is wide variation between individual countries in the amount of students who do not successfully complete upper secondary education. This led to the author and colleague being commissioned by the European Agency to review the European literature and EU policy in the area and to produce recommendations for policy makers outlined in three reports (EASNIE, 2016, 2017, 2018).

While providing a pragmatic means to compare different countries, the definition implies that ESL is something that is only of concern to schools at the point where the student leaves education. If this was the case, then the focus for attention would fall on secondary schools in order to prevent the ESL as an outcome. This seems unhelpful and it could be argued that prevention and intervention should occur earlier in education so that ESL is reduced. This paper will start to unpick the social, personal and educational influences relevant to educators across the 3-13 age range by considering the development of a model to help policy makers and practitioners think about their own context and steps that they could take to reduce ESL.

MethodThe funders of the project were particularly interested in understanding the factors that lead to Early School Leaving for learners with SEND in member states of the EU. An exploratory literature search was undertaken using several search engines (Scopus, PsychInfo, Google Scholar, British Medical Journal online, BMC Public Health). There was a focus on peer reviewed papers published in English that looked at early school leaving for groups of at-risk students, in particular those with SEND and of studies conducted in Europe. Papers were excluded that related to learners where no viable system of response could be made to raise their achievements to the expected level by the end of upper secondary education (e.g. those with profound and multiple difficulties). Search terms such as ‘early school leaving’ and ‘special educational needs’ and ‘SEN’ were used initially and then as the first papers were read alternative terms that the authors had used in their writing were noted. No new terms found in the literature were excluded from the search at this point. These additional terms were then used to widen the search and included: ‘early school leavers’; ‘dropout’; ‘drop-out’; ‘ease-out’; ‘fadeout’; ‘fade-out’; ‘opt-out’; ‘pullout’; ‘pull-out’; ‘pushout’; ‘push-out’; ‘NEET’;

1 The term European generally refers to any country on the European continent unless it is being used to refer to policy or a particular agency that are part of the more restricted set of EU countries

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‘not in education, employment or training’, ‘SEND’; ‘disability’, ‘immigration’; ‘disadvantage’; ‘risk factors’; ‘second-chance education’.

Titles and abstracts were read from links produced in the search results to identify potential papers to inform our understanding. The number of papers found in the initial searches was limited; for example, combining early school leaving with SEN on PsychInfo yielded only nine papers with a focus on Europe. The suggests that the research literature in Europe is thin on the ground. At this point, the project funders were consulted, and the geographic reach of the search was widened, and the searches were repeated without limiting the papers to those in Europe. While needing to be cautious about transferring ideas from other cultures, this allowed for papers from around the world to be included, with most of the research on ESL coming from the USA and Australia. Key references within papers were followed up using the ‘cited by’ links. On the basis that many researchers continue researching the same field, the search also then followed authors of papers that had already been located. Further supplementation of the number of papers was achieved by appealing to research colleagues via social media networks (e.g. LinkedIn, Facebook, ResearchGate) and including relevant information from previous research projects that the author had been engaged in. This increased the pool of relevant papers to 168.

The papers were read in full and themes identified with examples noted. The themes were concerned with ideas around: the nature of ESL (e.g. as an outcome or as a process); perceived risks; possible preventative approaches or interventions; and, any evidence of systems that would help understand how to combat ESL (e.g. using early warning systems). These key ideas from the wider research field about ESL were then abstracted and compared with EU policy documents which had been analysed in the same way. This was to address the question about whether EU policy was in line with current research. While this may not be the total literature produced in the field, and it is limited to that written in English, it does provide a reasonable overview of the state of play and was sufficient to allow a conceptual model to be developed.

Defining ESL and introducing the model for reflection and actionDifferent methodologies are evident in developing an understanding from many small-scale descriptive case studies to a few large-scale surveys. One of the advantages of looking across a broad range of studies is that common findings are established that cross cultures, educational systems and the methodologies employed. General patterns available from large scale quantitative studies can be explained using rich data from small scale qualitative studies. Johnson (1999) comments that this can lead to us believing that such general patterns offer easy explanations and universal truths to the extent that we may overlook local variation. The disadvantage of this approach is that there is sometimes a finding that only seems to apply in one geographical area and is not found elsewhere but which is still important in its own right. One example of this was the finding that in a small town in Italy, boys who are obese are more likely to leave school early than boys who are not. One might suppose that this is simply because of correlations that we know exist in other cultures between low socio-economic status and diet; and between low socio-economic status and educational outcome and we assume then that the correlations are themselves linked. The authors of the study were careful to take this into account in their analysis and to show that the poor outcomes for obese boys was not a result of other factors such as low socio-economic status (Barone & O’Higgins, 2010). There is something unique about the region which makes boys vulnerable to ESL. In developing the model, it needs to be flexible enough to allow it to be used in different cultural contexts such that it can take account of the unique (locally relevant factors) as well as the general patterns that exist.

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Another challenge to reading across the literature is that there is range of terms used to describe the same thing and that the terms are not used consistently leading to nuances and changes of understanding. For ESL, the most commonly used term was ‘drop-out’ (e.g. see Doll, Eslami, & Walters, 2013; Frostad, Pijl, & Mjaavatn, 2015; Lundetræ, 2011) , however other terms included: fade-out, push-out, ease-out, pull-out, opt-out, falling out, early departure, non-completion, and leaving (e.g. see Cederberg & Hartsmar, 2013; Doll et al., 2013; Frostad et al., 2015; Jugović & Doolan, 2013). What is evident is that terms like ESL, drop-out, non-completion, early departure and leaving tend to focus on the outcome. Other terms such as fade-out, push-out, pull-out, and falling-out, are suggestive of ESL being a result of ongoing processes and an interactive system in operation in which different parts of the system contribute to ESL or drop out. Two outcomes are possible, the learner can complete secondary education, or they can leave school early. Three underlying processes seem to be at play: the learner is gradually marginalised by the education system and forced out of school; the learner’s attention and motivation is taken by factors outside of school that seem more important than staying in school; and, the learner gradually becomes disinterested in education over time. These processes are distinct from each other in the way that they operate and the degree of agency and who has the agency varies across each. This leads to the view that ESL is not simply a choice for the learner to make but that the learner is being influenced by a range of changing and interconnected forces that are unique to the individual and their circumstances. In some cases, the learner would prefer to stay in education, but they are unable to do so. While many different terms are used to describe these three processes by different authors, the most commonly used terms for these processes are: push-out, pull-out or fall-out. For consistency with the wider literature, these terms will be adopted in this paper.

The different processes can operate at different levels within the system moving from the more distal wider societal level, through the community level, to the school level and to a more proximal level of the individual affected. In some respects, this fits well with the ecosystemic model proposed by Bronfenbrenner in which factors are located at the macro, meso or micro levels (Bronfenbrenner, 1986, 1999, 2005). The ecosystemic model is a good descriptive model that can allow the different factors to be mapped onto the different levels and it can capture the complexity of the situation well. At the more distil macro level are the national policies around social inclusion and mechanisms to allow all citizens to participate as fully as possible in society. These policies are not simply about education but include aspects of welfare and social care; health; labour and employment; and, how services operate to support vulnerable individuals. At the meso level there will be community-based resources such as schools, local health provision, local social care, support for families, and availability of professional services such as educational psychologists or speech and language therapists. Coming down a level again we can place schools directly in terms of the systems that they have in place to promote the learning of all learners including those with SEND. Then at the proximal or micro level there is the individual and a range of biological and psychological factors that are unique to them. The ecosystemic model reminds us that an individual can only be understood in terms of the wider systems that they are part of such as the family and the school. The ecosystemic model is good at describing the complexity of the system. It requires some translation to encourage practitioners and policy makers to move from the description to thinking about how to change the situation.

Looking again at the terms used in the literature described earlier, the language chosen imply forces at work that are pushing or pulling the individual out of education or allowing them to fade out of education. A better model would be one that captures the dynamic nature how these forces work and suggests actions on the part of practitioners and decision makers that are framed in ways that interact with these forces. A well-established approach for this purpose is the Force-Field Analysis

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model (Lewin, 1943). Lewin was primarily interested in the dynamics of small groups and wanted to use methods that had been successful in the natural sciences to understand how groups maintain stability and effect change. Within this context, he argued that to understand the group you do not need to understand every aspect of the individuals that compose the group. An individual’s behaviour and outcomes can best be considered as a series of forces that act toward certain actions or against them; for example willingness to change or resistance to change (Lewin, 1947). To understand an individual within the group, you need to understand the social psychological forces acting upon them. The individual is considered as standing within a field of forces acting in different directions and their resultant movement depends on the balance of forces in any given direction. In considering a learner with special educational needs we can imagine them standing between two options – remaining at school and successfully completing their education or leaving school early. We can then start to analyse the forces acting in each direction. Let me use a simplistic example, if there is additional teaching support available to help the learner become more academically successful then this would be a force acting towards staying in education. If on the other hand, schools are under-resourced then then this might act in the opposite direction and make leaving school early more likely. Lewin’s model is good at showing how forces can operate in different directions and lead to different outcomes and it suggests that the size of the forces can vary for a given individual. It should be possible to map different forces at work for an individual pupil and see the general direction of movement either towards ESL or towards successful completion of education. The disadvantage of Lewin’s model is that it does not easily present the forces at work as operating at different levels of the system, so it is hard to see where to focus attention.

The model that is proposed here takes the understanding of forces acting on an individual from the Force-Field Analysis model from Lewin and builds in the idea of system level from Bronfenbrenner. The thematic analysis of the literature looks at ESL through a set of risk and protective factors. These can be thought of as the forces in the model. Risk factors are forces that move children towards ESL. Protective factors are those that move children towards successful completion of school. These can represent two opposing forces in the model. Some of these risk factors may be at the level of society (e.g. social inequality) or they may be at the level of the school (e.g. the way the curriculum is organised) or they may be at the level of the individual (e.g. having learning difficulties). Protective factors might also be at each of these levels for example at the societal level governments may increase services to families in poorer areas where the incidence of special educational needs are higher (Kauffman & Anastasiou, 2019); schools may have different educational pathways; an individual pupil may be highly motivated. Whether an individual successfully completes school or leaves school early is then a result of the balance of these forces. The challenge for educators and policy makers is how to influence this result by changing the balance of forces operating on the individual learner. The policy documents of the European Union refer to three ways of dealing with ESL through prevention, intervention and compensation (for example see European Parliament, 2011a, 2011b). The EU policy documents are representative of the wider research literature in relation to the three approaches. However, although the same terms appear in the research literature they are not used with consistency between authors e.g. Lyche (2010) uses the term prevention to mean the kinds of things that are differentiated into prevention and intervention in policy documents; Dale (2010) uses terms such as pre-emption, prevention and rescue. For the purposes of this paper, prevention means that an action is taken the stops something that could lead to ESL from arising; intervention means that when something that could lead to ESL is noticed that steps are taken to reduce the effects; compensation means that ESL has already happened and steps are then taken to allow access to education or a return to education.

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Putting this all together, we have two possible outcomes. The desirable outcome of completing secondary education and the undesirable outcome of ESL. We have a range of forces at play, these are protective factors that help to ensure the desirable outcome; risk factors that move towards the undesirable outcome; steps taken to prevent ESL by either addressing risk factors or boosting protective factors; steps taken to intervene and reverse movement in the direction of ESL; compensation occurring after ESL to try to restore moves towards completion of secondary education. These forces can operate at different levels; societal or community, school, and individual. This gives us the basis for the model shown in Figure 1.

<PUT FIGURE 1 NEAR HERE>

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Figure 1: Forces acting to lead towards and away from ESL (Adapted from EASNIE, 2017, 2018)

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Individual level

School level

Community level

Desired Outcome:

Successful completion

of secondary education

Undesired Outcome:

Early School Leaving.

Protective Factors

Protective Factors

Risks

Risks

Prevention

Prevention

Intervention

Intervention

Compensation

Protective Factors

Risks

Intervention

Prevention

Examples of how the model works from the literature and implications for practitionersThe literature breaks ESL down into three processes which act on the individual learner. These processes run though the life of the learner and each one acts on a different level in the model. These processes are referred to as pull-out which acts at the community level; push-out which acts at the school level; and, fall-out which acts at the individual level. Each has associated risk factors and protective factors and there are possibilities for practitioners and policy makers to consider actions to prevent the risks from arising, or to intervene in a way that either reduces the risk or enhances the protective factors. The kinds of actions will be focussed around the level of the process in the model, e.g. pull out requires a school focussed approach where as fade out requires an individual focus.

Pull out conjures up an image of forces outside of the school actively pulling the learner out of school. The situation in which the learner is embedded is leading to ESL. The risk factors can include personal or family financial worries leading the learner to look outside school for employment of more than 20 hours; caring for family members; teenage pregnancy; illnesses that require time away from school for treatment; illnesses that are terminal and the family seeks quality time and experiences outside of school; availability of employment that does not require further qualifications or joining the family business; social pulls such as friends leaving school or becoming involved in a gang. Generally, anything outside of school that the learner gives a greater value than completing school (De Witte, Cabus, Thyssen, Groot, & Maassen van den Bri, 2013; Doll et al., 2013). When jobs for teenagers are scarce there is less chance of ESL (De Witte et al., 2013). Other writers focus on the wider social context which leads to some of the previous examples by highlighting the link between a disadvantaged social background and subsequent low educational success and increased risk of ESL (Borg et al., 2015; Cardona, 2015; Dale, 2010; Fernández-Macías, Antón, Braña, & De Bustillo, 2013; Lyche, 2010; Markussen, Frøseth, & Sandberg, 2011; Schoon, 2015; Staff et al., 2015; Vallejo & Dooly, 2013). Preventative measures can take the form of reducing social inequality or providing financial support to families that are struggling. The focus for intervention is one of trying to improve learners’ lives outside of school. There are inevitable tensions to consider for learners with special educational needs. As an example, let me consider how this might work in thinking about vocational pathways and supervised work placements that can have a positive impact on developing independence skills and preparing the young person for transition to adulthood. Yet at the same time, they can present opportunities that draw the learner away from school and reduce a sense of school belonging. The challenge in this example is how to manage the risk being presented through being away from school with the opportunity of developing independence and work focussed skills such that the balance of forces favours completing education. Engaging in problem solving with the learner might lead to ways to strengthen school belonging while also allowing a successful work placement such as making use of video links, key worker link visits, school focussed links from employers stating the value of education etc.

Push out implies that the learner is being forced out of education by forces acting within the school system and the way that the school is organised that lead to marginalisation or alienation (Doll et al., 2013; EASNIE, 2016; Lee & Burkam, 2003). Risk factors include: being grade retained; challenging behaviour; school discipline problems; being expelled from school; unaddressed poor attendance; having a disability especially if there are low teacher expectations; teachers feeling unable to cope with teaching students; the school environment being perceived of as dangerous; poor quality of teaching; a curriculum that is too difficult or not matched to student ability; poor relationships between staff and students; a lack of policies to address drug and alcohol related problems;

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transport to school being too difficult (Christle et al., 2007; De Witte et al., 2013; Lee & Burkam, 2003; Smith & Douglas, 2014; Wehby & Kern, 2014). Preventative factors include good standards of teaching; good relationships between learners and staff; discipline policies that focus on positive behaviour; teachers who are flexible and supportive (De Witte et al., 2013; Ingholt et al., 2015; Squires, Kalambouka, & Bragg, 2016). The focus for intervention is one of school improvement e.g. changing school discipline policies to address poor attendance early on and to encourage positive behaviours rather than being punitive and using suspension or expelling learners; having a teacher focus to improve teaching skills and relationships with learners; having a curriculum focus that aims to be accessible to all learners and avoids an over-focus on testing regimes, teaching to the test, or grade retention; and, seeing the school as having a part within the local community and supporting attempts to deal with substance abuse, improving transport to and from school, developing good relationships with parents.

The term falling out came from a Canadian study and reflected a reduction in motivation and sense of belonging to the school. Learners lacked personal support, over time they became apathetic, they did not like school; and chose not to complete school work and had poor study habits. This led to a gradual disengagement with education (Watt & Roessingh, 1994a, 1994b, 2001). It is not sudden but a gradual falling out or loss of interest in education and some writers prefer the descriptive term fade out. Other risk factors include: changing school; a lack of feeling belonging to a school; low learner expectations of success in learning; a lack of parental involvement in education; poor relationships with peers; low levels of self-determination and autonomy (Alivernini & Lucidi, 2011; Doll et al., 2013; Lamote, Speybroeck, Van Den Noortgate, & Van Damme, 2013; Lindsay, 2007; Pijl, Frostad, & Mjaavatn, 2013; Prince & Hadwin, 2013; Winding & Andersen, 2015). Fall out requires actions that are aimed at increasing learner academic success, perceptions of being successful learners, increasing motivation and having a sense of belonging to the school. Actions can include improving educational support for learners who are struggling or need to develop basic skills; helping learners to have a positive view of themselves as learners; developing good study habits; having high expectations of all learners; engaging parents in supporting their child’s education; improving autonomy and choice in learning; helping students to develop a sense of belonging and shared identity in the school; and, developing ways to improve peer relationships and to reduce bullying.

What is important to realise is that the three processes that have been described operate over the lifetime of the pupil and in the case of social disadvantage or genetic disorders or congenital defects it could be argued even before the child was born. This means that addressing the problem of ESL is something that needs to be done at all stages of education, starting with pre-school and working through primary and secondary schooling. Information and attempts to mitigate risk factors and to enhance protective factors needs to be effectively communicated at each point of transition (between classes within the same school and between phases of education). There are clearly societal changes that can be made e.g. having laws that limit the amount of time that children can be employed. However, there are many things that educational professionals can do to improve learners’ wider lives, improve schools, and help learners engage and remain engaged in education.

The way that the model has been described has separated the processes out. However, it is possible that all three processes can act on a learner at the same time and in an interactive way and actions may be required to address more than one set of circumstances for a particular learner. Also, the way that the model is presented makes it difficult to see how the different levels act on each other (which Bronfenbrenner’s model makes more apparent), however, this can be taken into consideration by recognising influences from a higher level as a risk factor on a lower level. For

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example, international comparators such as PISA and PIRLS lead to governments reviewing educational policy. In England, this has led to schools being judged by how well learners do in tests set by the government and this has an unintentional consequence of acting against inclusion for learners with behavioural difficulties. The social policy puts pressure on the school and becomes a risk factor at the school level increasing the possibility that learners with challenging behaviour (such as those with ADHD) will be pushed out of the system and leave school early. Some schools recognise this risk and intervene by setting up areas within the school to accommodate these learners and to continue to provide access to a basic education. In these areas within the school, the rules might be relaxed, staffing ratios increased, and a more informal approach taken to reduce confrontation and increase the likelihood of the pupil staying in school.

The last part of the model is compensation. Compensation is a set of strategies used when the system fails and the undesirable outcome of early school leaving occurs. It provides opportunities for the learner to continue with their education and to achieve the standards expected at the point of graduation from secondary education. This might include lifelong learning initiatives in which adults are able to take courses or short programmes. One example is a referred to as second chance education in which the education is provided in different settings and with greater teacher:learner ratios and a focus on how education is preparing the learner for adulthood. In the Republic of Ireland this scheme is called the YouthReach programme. Learners with special educational needs who had left school and then returned to education have commented on how the second chance education scheme was more supportive and more relevant than previous schooling (Squires et al., 2016). In Australia, second chance education takes the form of allowing those who left school to take up early employment to return to an alternative education programme (Polidano, Tabasso, & Tseng, 2013). Dale (2010) cautions that second chance education is likely to be of limited value if it is simply more of what was on offer the first time around. Coffield (1998) was more scathing of second chance education suggesting that it was simply an expensive extension to a failed education system and what was needed was to redirect the resources back into improving ‘first chance education’. With Coffield in mind, it seems all the more necessary to use the model in Figure 1 to problem solve how to remove barriers to inclusion and focus on prevention and intervention to mitigate against risks in the system at the societal and community level, at the school level, and, at the individual level. At the widest level, there needs to be an acknowledgement that ESL is not simply an educational issue and within education, an acknowledgement that ESL is not simply a personal choice.

Concluding thoughts and next stepsThe development of the model makes a unique contribution to understanding ESL in a way that has potential impact for policy makers, decision makers and educational practitioners. It acknowledges that ESL is not simply an outcome but is a set of three processes running through education and influenced by factors that operate at different organisational levels. The model is intended to be flexible and adaptable to local circumstances. This acknowledges that no two schools are in exactly the same circumstances and no two learners within the school are exposed to the same risk factors or have the same protective factors in place. This allows schools to consider a range of approaches to prevent ESL from occurring from an early stage in the process, to intervene once it looks like there is a shift in the direction of ESL and to consider approaches to compensation should a learner leave school early. The model is a framework that allows a means for developing an audit of the school and its practices; of the local community and its influence on the learner; and, of individual factors and ways of responding to these. This audit is likely to vary across the age range with some items being more appropriate for younger learners and some more appropriate for older learners. It is intended to be more than an early warning system and to engage practitioners in reflecting on what

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actions can be taken to reduce ESL and the lifelong effects that ESL is known to have. The model is designed to encourage a problem-solving approach to removing barriers to participation and consequently to promote inclusion and social cohesion. Part of the problem solving starts with using the model to map out the potential forces (protective factors and risk factors) acting at each level and steps that could be taken to alter the balance of these forces (preventative approaches and interventions). The success (or otherwise) of any changes in the system need to be monitored to inform future changes and this can be at the level of the individual, the group (class, school) or community (local or national). The measure of success can be at the gross level (ESL or completing school) or more in terms of movement between the extremes to indicate if an individual is more likely to remain in school.

The model is intended to be a thinking tool devised from the literature and has not yet been tested empirically. There is a need for it to be used by practitioners to contribute to practice-based evidence and for researchers to use it in contributing to evidence-based practice. Its main advantage is also a distinct limitation in that the list of factors is not tightly defined but open to particular circumstances making it harder to make comparisons between studies undertaken. However, different studies can start to illuminate the interplay between factors in more detail.

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