Beneficiaries

Local SCP coordinators

Countries

Country/ies or organisation that developed the tool

Tusla - Child and Family Agency (Ireland)

Date of creation of toolkit and periodicity of updates

2007

Purpose of the toolkit

Guidance on good practices (to improve the design of policies and practices).

Guidance on how to identify and monitor early school leavers or those at risk of early school leaving.

The tool aims to “identify good practices for targeting students at risk of early school leaving and to offer practical targeting advice to projects”.

Description of each of the tools

The tool is a handbook divided into 4 sections:

  • Section 1. Rationale for targeting - this section focuses on the areas on which resources should be concentrated (the individual child, the school and the geographic area).
  • Section 2. Identifying the causes of early school leaving - this section provides an overview of variables linked to early school leaving and a brief overview of existing research on this topic.
  • Section 3. Identifying models to target students at risk of early school leaving - this section provides an overview of models developed to identify students at risk of early school leaving.
  • Section 4. Results from the targeting questionnaire: guidelines on identifying students at risk of early school leaving - an illustration of the results of a questionnaire sent to local coordinators and a discussion of the issues raised from these results.

Type of indicators used in the identification of learners at risk of early leaving

  • Status variables:
    • age
    • gender
    • socioeconomic background
    • ethnicity
    • native language
    • region
    • mobility
    • ability
    • disability
    • parental employment
    • school size and type
    • family structure
  • Alterable variables:
    • grades
    • disruptive behaviour
    • absenteeism
    • school policies
    • school climate
    • parenting
    • sense of belonging
    • attitude toward school
    • educational support at home
    • retention
    • stressful life events

Type of guidance given to users

Section 4 provides guidelines regarding the identification and targeting of potential early school leavers (e.g. Should a certain number be targeted? According to which criteria should they be targeted? Should a certain gender/age group be targeted? Etc.).

Source of information of the different tools

A questionnaire sent to all SCP projects in January 2007.

Link/s to the toolkit and further information

Downloads

School Completion Programme (SCP)

EN