When Leah joined the AllChild programme in Year 9, she had been placed by her school on a final warning contract. If there was another incident the school deemed unacceptable, it was likely she would be permanently excluded. Data collected by AllChild flagged her as ‘high risk’ in school engagement and in conduct, as well as below age-related expectations in Maths.
Leah began meeting with her Link Worker Hannah regularly for one-to-one sessions. From the start, Leah was very honest about her ongoing challenges and behaviour at school. She expressed feeling misunderstood by her teachers: she wanted to do better but didn’t know how. Her only motivation was wanting to make her mum proud. Leah often spoke of her dream of becoming a professional athlete and enjoyed talking with Hannah about how she could achieve this.
As the term progressed it became clear to Hannah that the confidence that Leah projected, as well as her behaviour, were a mask to hide the fact that she didn’t feel like she was good at anything. She didn’t want to ask for help from teachers who she believed had given up on her. The prospect of getting through another three years of school was quite overwhelming for Leah because she expected to be permanently excluded before she could finish her education.
In Spring term, she started a support programme run by her Link Worker called ‘Thinking about Thinking’. The aim was to improve her academic confidence and classroom engagement so that she was better equipped to remain in class and communicate effectively with her teachers. A particular highlight was the session on ‘self-talk’ where she was asked to identify a situation that she wanted to change, and create a plan of how to better deal with that scenario. Leah chose to focus on improving her behaviour in Maths and put a plan in place to have a restorative conversation with her teacher. The seed was planted for her to take ownership of her own actions and begin to rebuild her relationships with teachers.
During the school holidays, Leah attended a trip with one of AllChild’s long-standing partners, QPR. Despite initial nerves, as the session progressed, she engaged more and grew in confidence, encouraging teammates. Leah went on to attend every AllChild football tournament and even won a Chelsea football shirt for her teamwork.Towards the end of the first year, Leah was no longer on a final warning contract and was feeling more positive about school.
However at the very end of the term she started to fall back into some of her negative habits and was excluded twice, meaning she missed the last few days of school. Despite this set-back, Leah returned in Year 10 having done some reflecting over the summer about what she wanted to achieve and what success would look like for her. It was clear that getting good grades in her GCSEs was part of that plan.
Hannah and Leah had numerous conversations about the future, and Leah attended a trip run by Goldman Sachs at the AllChild offices, where she developed an idea that involved mentoring ‘less fortunate’ people and sharing career advice.In the Spring term, Leah enrolled in an AllChild partner programme with ‘Trishan Patel Coaching’, which combined football and behaviour intervention. It was a perfect combination of her love of football and what she had already learnt about emotional regulation and managing her own behaviour. She took on a leadership role, encouraging her peers, and being honest about her own challenges with behaviour.
In May she took her RE GCSE for which she put in a lot of effort. This was noticed by her teacher (also the Vice Principal) who called her a ‘star pupil’. As Leah ended the AllChild Impact Programme, the progress that she had made was abundantly clear. Her behaviour was no longer an issue, she had managed to repair relationships with her teachers and was now able to acknowledge her successes and express pride in her achievements. While still hoping to make her mum proud, she also wanted to make herself proud, something which she will no doubt carry on as she completes her last year of secondary school and beyond.