National Youth Agency shelves plans to run pupil referral units
Adam Offord
Tuesday, March 15, 2016
The National Youth Agency (NYA) has shelved plans to seek to run pupil referral units, it has emerged.
The NYA confirmed to CYP Now that it had received a grant of nearly £80,000 from the Department for Education (DfE) in 2013/14 to set up an academy trust to take over struggling schools. ??
Deputy chief executive Jon Boagey said the organisation had been interested in bringing a different way of working to pupil referral units but the process proved to be "complex".??
After establishing a teaching framework based on youth work values, it entered discussions with three local authorities – Sheffield, Nottingham and Lincoln, but did not secure a contract.
??“We engaged an expert who had done this work before, we went off and had meetings and a lot of discussions but it just didn’t work out,” Boagey said.
Boagey said the plans have now been shelved, but could be revived in the future.
??“If an opportunity arose to contribute to a pupil referral unit and there was an invitation to tender for work we would, I think from the experience of what we have done, consider that probably we would be in a position of strength and a stronger position than we were before,” he added.?
A commission into youth work in schools, conducted by the NYA in 2013, found that good youth work is having a positive impact on pupils’ attainment, attendance and behaviour.
