Work-based learning Programme for dropouts

This practice is divided into 4 phases:

• Phase 1: Recruitment process 
• Phase 2: Engagement with families and/or social workers 
• Phase 3: Class group composition 
• Phase 4: Good practices 

Phase 1: Recruitment process
This first phase aims to assess and select beneficiaries. Recruitment takes place through data collection, interviews, and analysis of the learner's social/emotional psychological situation. 

Activity 1A: Selection interview with Head Teacher  
After an initial brief meeting with the family, aimed essentially at collecting anamnestic data, we focus on the student, going on to investigate why motivation has been blocked or negatively interfered with in the growth pathway and what the young person’s demand or motivation is for embarking on a new pathway. At this stage it is essential to understand whether the young person’s presence is closely linked to a family decision/pressure or whether there is a personal motivation.

Activity 1B: Convocation of the beneficiaries and training agreement 
In a second interview, the Head of Education reports that the necessary requirements for the student’s inclusion in the pathway exist. Encouraging the young person involved to be protagonists in their own growth pathway, they are asked to actively adhere to the proposals, regulations, and didactic and training activities envisaged by the school: agreement, contract.  

Phase 2: Engagement with families and/or social workers
The second phase is a general analysis of the student’s family situation to identify possible correlations between the causes of school dropout and parental responsibility. 

Activity 2A: Interviews between social services, educators and families 
The inclusion of young dropouts into the experimental pathways is often facilitated by family involvement when family is a resource and not an obstacle. It has to be quickly understood whether to invest in the family as well or to give the young people more responsibility so that they are not constantly justified and protected by family members with little parental responsibility. Often, they are looked after by social services or community educators; in this case, network work is necessary to enable the sharing of project goals and the school progress.

Phase 3: Class composition
One of the most delicate aspects of working with early school leavers is the composition of the class group: this accounts for the creation of dynamics, sometimes very complex, that could negatively interfere with the classroom climate. Belonging to the group turns out to be a valuable source of support for individuals, who are strengthened in dealing with their own problems in a process of circular influence that stimulates mirroring and the development of empathy. Over the years, it has been observed that the young people benefit positively from the group itself, because the individual members share the same  failure experiences and frustrations; the point they have in common is their 'limits' and this allows to lower performance anxiety levels. 

Activity 3A: Observation of the class group 
From the first interview, it is necessary to identify those who could take on negative and positive leadership roles, in order to create a balanced group that allows each individual to emerge with their potential and fragility. The class group designed for experimental projects often presents the same dynamics as mutual aid groups, proving to be an advantageous tool for countering the marginality and insecurity shared by all members. Below is a list of the main factors to be observed during the class group composition process: 

• positive and negative leadership; 
• resources and potential of individuals; 
• fragility of individuals; 
• ways in which growth is interrupted; 
• acts carried out;  
• reports received by Court;
• sense of autonomy and responsibility; 
• level of motivation;  
• level of previous schooling; 
• any certifications and diagnoses; 
• ways of managing free time.

Phase 4: Good practices
The fourth phase brings together “good practices”, a series of activities aimed at encouraging the young people to return to school life. 

Activity 4A: Welcoming  
Welcoming young people to build with them a relationship based on the daily sharing of their needs and to introduce them to adult life. At Cometa, the experience of welcoming is closely linked to the experience of beauty. Each person is unique and must be welcomed through constant gestures of attention, in the perspective that even those who have difficulties can be involved in a continuous, ongoing growth made up of small acts of attention that encourage the flourishing of all their talents.
The word 'welcome' thus becomes a daily practice through constant gestures and attention such as:  

• The presence of an adult figure waiting for the students at the gate when they arrive in the morning. 
• The presence of the headmaster, who waits and greets the students, calling them by name at the entrance. 
• The teachers' attention to each student's talents, abilities, and interests in their teaching programme.
• The presence of the tutors, who constantly gather everyone's needs and criticalities, taking them seriously.  

Activity 4B: Clear and shared regulations 
The presence of each student in the school represents a conscious choice of a personal path: the students are not passive recipients of the education given to them, but active protagonists of their own training and education. The provision of tasks and rules, aimed at developing behavioural skills, helps and supports co-responsibility in the construction of the school's educational culture.  
Students and families enter a co-responsibility agreement with the school, which includes a set of rules:

• attention to attendance and punctuality; 
• withdrawal of mobile phones at the start of classes; 
• prohibition of smoking in school premises;  
• care and respect for school furniture; 
• care of the uniform in all its components. 

Sharing the rules with each student and with all the adults in the school makes it easier to comply with them: in the internal coherence of an inhabited place, attention to and respect for the rules becomes possible and transgression appears more and more out of context and inconvenient. 
Disciplinary measures, envisaged in the event of a breach of the rules or inappropriate behaviour, always and exclusively have an educational purpose: this purpose is expressed in encouraging students to become aware of the environment in which they live and of the co-responsibility they are invested with within the educational structure. Therefore, the school provides for the application of educational measures in the form of so-called 'socially useful activities' for the school community. Types of measures described (by way of example): restoring the premises, tidying up and maintaining the common areas, assisting with secretarial tasks. All these activities are carried out under the direction and monitoring of teachers and school staff. 

Activity 4C: Educational practices  
The format "Educational Practices" is a document that makes it possible to keep track of the relevant actions of each student, the educational interventions that have taken place, the disciplinary measures taken by the management and the verification of their effectiveness. Thanks to the Educational Practices, teachers and tutors are able to: 

• share effective strategies on the individual or group;
• monitor the effects of their educational interventions and seek alternatives in case of ineffectiveness; 
• share the attention and care of the young people not dropping the acts, looking together at the dynamics at work and dialoguing for the construction of projects and new proposals; 
• having a history of the young people’s progress (qualitative data collection).  

Activity 4D: Personalisation
Attention to the person and their history constitutes the guiding criterion for the creation of training pathways: the starting point is therefore openness and attention to each young person, their specific characteristics, needs, abilities and learning styles. The customisation of the pathways makes it possible to flexibly structure the course in order to support each young person and accompany them to educational success.