Whilst research has consistently highlighted pupils’ positive experiences of pupil referral units (PRUs) (Berridge et al., 2021; Malcolm, 2019), little is known about the experiences of these young people once they leave a PRU at 16 (Smith, 2019). This article begins that exploration by discussing the initial findings of a three-year study that will track the educational transitions of PRU leavers who are care experienced.

Young people who are excluded from mainstream school and placed in PRUs are more likely to drop out of education, employment or training at 16 (Wilcock, 2020). And for these young people there is an increased risk of loneliness, homelessness, engagement in criminal activity, and suicide (Gill et al., 2017; Maxwell et al., 2019; Samaritans Cymru, 2019). At the same time, young people with experience of the care system have historically been over-represented in PRUs (Munn & Lloyd, 2005). These young people can therefore be doubly disadvantaged when it comes to realising their future ambitions, due to the increased challenges that are faced educationally by those who are excluded from school or come from a care background (Mannay et al., 2015; Pirrie et al., 2011). It is for these reasons that research focusing on the lived experiences and trajectories of those who are excluded, and care experienced, is both timely and important (Berridge et al., 2021; Samaritans Cymru, 2019). Equally important is the need to recognise the strengths and positive characteristics of these learners, as part of any research or policy initiatives that takes place. A failure to do so risks further stigmatisation (Moensted et al., 2020) and the reinforcement of a ‘failing subject position’, which can be detrimental to the aspirations and achievements of those in care (McLeod, 2010). No matter what challenges are faced or experienced, these must not define who the young people are. It is with these factors in mind that the research discussed in this article takes place.

The term ‘care experienced’ is used throughout this article to represent all the young people who took part. Historically, research has used the term ‘looked after children’ or ‘LAC’. This term is one such instance where negative connotations can inadvertently be attributed to those in the care system, as ‘lacking’ something in their lives. The ‘LAC’ acronym, which has now been replaced with ‘children looked after’ (CLA) in Wales, is also only attributable to those young people who have been removed from their homes and placed in the care of the state. It therefore fails to capture those who might have a social worker in their lives, but who still live at home (known as a child in receipt of care and support (CRCS) in Wales). For this study it was important to involve young people with different experiences of the care system, as they can all face significant challenges with their education (Berridge et al., 2021). The term ‘care experienced’ therefore looks to address this aim.

This article provides further insights into the lived experiences of learners who are care experienced and excluded from mainstream schools across Wales. In doing so, the article highlights some of the key challenges and possible support mechanisms that are available to the young participants, to facilitate sustainable transitions into post-16 destinations.

Previous research has highlighted the detrimental effects of school exclusion on young people’s lives (Pirrie et al., 2011; Samaritans Cymru, 2019; Sanders et al., 2020). The experience of being excluded can also lead some young people to develop a disconnect with education and an association with a negative ‘learning identity’ (Evans, 2021). Despite the encouraging commitment from Welsh Government for a more inclusive schooling system (Welsh Government, 2016), the rates of school exclusion have increased in recent years across Wales (Welsh Government, 2021). We must also be mindful of exclusion experiences that are not officially reported within mainstream schools, known as internal or ‘hidden’ exclusions (Power & Taylor, 2020). These episodes occur when young people are removed from mainstream classrooms but remain within the school, in isolation units or other settings. Whilst not official exclusions, these experiences are still likely to create a sense of otherness or stigma for a young person, and a limited learning experience compared to the one found in the mainstream classroom. As a result of the increased official exclusions in Wales, more young people than ever before are being taught in alternative provision, or education other than at school (EOTAS) as it is known in Wales. For the majority of these young people, their education takes place within PRUs (Welsh Government, 2022).

There have been negative perceptions of PRUs historically, with terms such as ‘dumping grounds’ and ‘last resort’ schools used to describe them (Solomon, 2011). Despite this view, research often highlights the positive experiences of young people in these settings, where supportive and caring relationships are formed between young people and staff (Berridge et al., 2021; Malcolm, 2019; Smith, 2019). These supportive relationships can help learners to grow in confidence as part of a positive turning point (Malcolm, 2019), improving both their social and academic skills (Smith, 2019). Tracking where these young people go after compulsory schooling ends can help develop understanding about the effectiveness of PRU provision (Mills & Thomson, 2018; Tate & Greatbatch, 2017). Also, learning more about the best ways to support this transition period can help to improve the longer-term outcomes of PRU learners (Malcolm, 2022; Michael & Frederickson, 2013).

The educational transitions and outcomes of care experienced young people are said to vary due to a range of individual and contextual factors (Berridge et al., 2008). A useful conceptual framework that has been used to help make sense of these factors is the life course perspective (Elder, 1994). This perspective has been used effectively in research with those in care (Brady & Gilligan, 2018) as it offers a longitudinal approach to understanding how experiences are influenced over time through multiple contexts. The multiple contexts include chronological age, life transitions, relationships, and social change (Hutchison, 2011) and several themes underpin the life course perspective (see Elder, 1998 for a detailed account). For the purposes of this article, the themes of linked lives and human agency are considered (Elder, 1994).

Linked lives refer to the ways in which human lives are interdependent, where relationships between people can be supportive or act as a constraint (Hutchison, 2005). Whilst the family acts as a central source of support and influence in these interdependent relationships, for young people in care, relationships with those outside the immediate family must be considered. Interactions with friends, peers, key adults and professionals are all crucial to the formation of relationships that can help to stimulate ‘turning points’ in peoples’ lives. Such turning points can lead to changes in behaviour and actions (Elder et al., 2003) which might ultimately lead to new or different opportunities and experiences. It is through these interactions with other people across the lifespan that individuals are able to enact their human agency, through various choices and actions that are shaped by the people they connect with (Hardgrove et al., 2014). These choices and actions within a range of contexts including the social or relational context, can then lead to different educational transitions and outcomes for individuals.

Brady and Gilligan (2018) provide a useful overview of the central concepts within the life course perspective, which will inform understanding throughout this study. They include: 1) trajectories – the long-term patterns of stability and change across the lifespan; 2) pathways – interrelated trajectories (such as through work, education and family life); 3) transitions – changes in/or a departure from, a role or status; and 4) turning points – a life event that results in a permanent shift in the overall life course trajectory. It is these concepts that help us to organise and make sense of the key life experiences over the long-term, including the impact that they can have on future choices and outcomes (Brady & Gilligan, 2018).

In terms of supporting and sustaining post-16 transitions for EOTAS learners, previous research has highlighted the importance of developing clear transition pathways and support (Tate & Greatbatch, 2017). This requires good working relations between EOTAS and colleges or employers, and targeted careers advice to help young people adjust to their new environments (Tate & Greatbatch, 2017; Thomson & Pennacchia, 2014). Good cross-professional working can involve EOTAS staff staying in touch with learners when they first move into new destinations, or the establishment and provision of a support network throughout the first year of post-16 provision (Thomson & Pennacchia, 2014). Having a support network or identified mentor during the transition is also viewed as important for learners with additional learning needs or challenges in their lives (Packer et al., 2022). In this way, the potential for a disrupted transition is minimised. Support during this period of time should therefore include the maintenance of positive relationships with others.

Supportive relationships as well as interdependence are acknowledged as important for supporting those in care during their life transitions (Driscoll, 2013; Furey & Harris-Evans, 2021; Harrison et al., 2023). Transitions are filled with uncertainty and risk for care experienced young people (Roberts et al., 2021). Multiple transitions can take place simultaneously alongside their education transitions, such as placement moves, which makes coping with change more difficult. There is also often an accelerated transition to adulthood (Stein, 2006) and the ‘typical’ pathway through education becomes disrupted. Young people can drop out of education altogether to become a parent or carer, whilst others can experience homelessness. It is therefore important to have a long-term and flexible view of educational progress for care experienced young people (Brady & Gilligan, 2019a). Research has also shown the benefits of positive relationships (or linked lives) with others for care experienced young people’s educational and life transitions. This includes factors such as having a secure and stable home environment (Miller et al., 2021) and a strong social network of support with key adults (Brady & Gilligan, 2019b). This support can be emotional, practical or financial (Driscoll, 2013; Ellis & Johnston, 2022) whilst creating a sense of belonging in a foster placement is also beneficial (Skilbred et al., 2017). If a strong network of relationships or linked lives is not available to a young person in care, this can create barriers to continuing in education beyond the age of 16 (Harrison et al., 2023; Jackson & Cameron, 2012). Jackson and Cameron (2012) highlighted how young people struggle when they have few supportive adults in their lives who offer encouragement and guidance. This included social workers who showed a lack of interest in the young people’s education. Harrison and others (2023) also describe how moving into semi-independent living for care-leavers can make it more difficult to sustain a placement in education, employment or training, without the right levels of support.

To understand the lived experiences of transition through education over time, the study includes interviews with young people at three different time points: 1) during their final year of schooling in a PRU; 2) during the first six months in a new destination; 3) 12 months later. The findings discussed in this article are from time point (1). The overall study has been informed by the life course perspective (Elder, 1994) and previous research that has used this approach with care experienced young people (see Brady & Gilligan, 2018, 2019a, 2019b). Due to the nature of the research and the involvement of young people over three years, the perspective was viewed as a useful framework for making sense of lived experiences over time.

For the first round of interviews creative methods were used to facilitate in-depth conversations with 14 young people aged 15–16, who all attended one of three PRUs in Wales. The young people were identified and invited to participate via PRU head teachers, and parents or guardians were given two weeks’ notice in which to ask further questions or, where relevant, to opt out a young person from the study. None of the young people who wanted to take part in the research were opted out by an adult.

The participants included six females and eight males who had varied experiences of the care system. Some were children looked after (CLA), living in residential care settings, or with foster carers or extended family members. Others were children in receipt of care and support (CRCS) and some had experience of the care system, but no longer received support. Two participants had no experience of care but wanted to take part in the research, whilst one participant had recently been adopted. In order to be inclusive, young people without any care experience who wanted to take part in the research were invited to do so. Taking this inclusive approach was important in communicating to young people the value of their own lived experience of school exclusion. However, for the purposes of this article, only findings related to those with experience of care are included.

The researcher provided information sheets to the participants and following discussion and agreement, consent forms were signed. It was only at this point that participants shared their contact details, along with the contact details of a key adult in their lives. Several different contact details were requested to help with the arrangement of follow-up interviews. Ethical approval was gained from the ethics committee within the School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University, and participants were invited to offer feedback on the creative methods and the research findings. It was highlighted to participants that they could stop the interview at any point, and that they could withdraw from the research up to two weeks after taking part.

The participants took part in a variation of the emotion sticker activity (Mannay et al., 2019). This involved sorting cards with different key people written on them into piles, related to their experiences of educational engagement and support. In total there were four options for the participants, in terms of where to place the sorting cards: 1) under a happy emotion sticker (for positive experiences); 2) under an indifferent emotion sticker (for neither good or bad experiences); 3) under a sad emotion sticker (for negative experiences that made them feel sad); and finally 4) under an angry emotion sticker (for negative experiences that made them feel angry). Blank cards were also provided to the participants so that they could include other key people in their lives within the activity. Once completed, the researcher asked the participants about the reasons why they had ordered the cards in such a way, enabling specific schooling experiences to be shared. The task also facilitated further conversations around future plans and aspirations. All of the interviews lasted between 30 minutes and one hour.

Visual research tasks such as these have been successfully used with young people previously (Lomax, 2015; Smith, 2019), as they reduce the need for eye contact and help to put participants at ease (Bagnoli, 2009). In this way the experience can lead to an in-depth conversation, where a more nuanced understanding of participants’ lives can be achieved (Lomax, 2015). By focusing the task on the key people in the young people’s lives and their relational experiences, the participants were able to reflect back over time, providing detailed examples of life events and their perceptions of these. This offered further insights through analysis, into how such interactions might frame or impact their decision-making and educational trajectories and transitions.

The conversations were audio recorded and transcribed, before being uploaded to a computer software package for analysis. Analysis was data driven with data organised into categories for further examination, following the six phases of the thematic analysis approach (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The research in time point (1) looked to understand more about the participants’ experiences of school exclusion; their time spent in a PRU; and their plans and preparedness for post-16 destinations. Based on this focus, three main themes are discussed here: 1. School exclusions and referrals, 2. Relationships, 3. Preparing for post-16 destinations.

Despite experiencing considerable disruptions to their education, the findings highlight the ambitious plans that young people had for their futures. This is in part a credit to the PRU staff and the post-16 support staff who had worked with the young people in recent years, but also to the dedication and determination of the learners themselves. The sense of belonging and safety that was created for the young people inside the PRUs helped them to re-engage with their education and prepare for post-16 destinations. Past research has shown the positive impact that feelings of belonging can have on the educational success of those in care (Skilbred et al., 2017). Within the PRUs this was achieved by staff who actively showed an interest in the participants’ lives. The young people felt accepted and included once more, which enabled them to focus on their school work (Driscoll, 2013). In addition to the emotional support that was provided through the pastoral approach, the practical arrangements such as setting up college visits, or meetings with careers advisors, all helped the young people to think about, and prepare for, their futures. It is important to note that the quality of PRU provision can be highly varied (Smith, 2019). Whilst these positive experiences from PRUs are consistent with findings elsewhere (Berridge et al., 2021; Malcolm, 2019; Smith, 2019) there were still negative aspects of the provision. This included the limited amount of resources available for PRU staff, and the reduced curriculum offer, which limited the academic options available to the pupils.

Of course, the PRU settings as places of belonging were only temporary for the young people, who recognised this in their interviews. They articulated mixed emotions about moving on, describing concerns about losing the supportive relationships they had developed with staff. Within the follow up research it will become clearer whether a level of phased PRU support or targeted mentoring during the transition period occurred or not, as recommended elsewhere (Packer et al., 2022; Tate & Greatbatch, 2017; Thomson & Pennacchia, 2014). The next phase of the research will also explore if the young people have established or feel a new sense of belonging in their post-16 destinations. Without support and a new sense of belonging, losing the highly valued PRU relationships could be difficult to overcome. Indeed, if an over-reliance or dependency on PRUs exists, this can inadvertently lead to PRUs becoming institutionalising settings (Smith, 2019), making the sustainability of post-16 transitions more challenging.

The life course perspective also provides a useful lens through which to understand the young people’s educational journeys and transitions so far. The theme of linked lives, where relationships can constrain or support behaviours related to transition (Hutchison, 2005) is particularly useful here. If we consider the young people’s relationships with school staff, most perceived and described their relationships in mainstream schools negatively, whilst their relationships with PRU staff were viewed much more positively. This was because their interactions in PRUs involved encouragement, practical support and empathy from staff. It was these positive experiences with adults that had improved the young people’s outlook on their educational trajectories and lives more generally. They variously described how they had become more confident and had chosen to re-engage with education and academic learning, acknowledging that they wouldn’t be where they were, without the support of others.

We should not under-estimate the important role of social networks in young people’s lives. These networks can be instrumental in shaping attitudes, motivation and future pathways and as suggested elsewhere, can improve confidence and agency (Harrison et al., 2023). The narratives in this article also highlight how social networks constrained or created barriers for the participant’s engagement in future education, employment or training (Harrison et al., 2023; Hutchison, 2005). Choosing not to seek the support or professional knowledge of social workers due to the inconsistency of contact and therefore, a lack of any meaningful or trusting relationship, meant that for some young people, there was a risk of being disadvantaged further. For others it was not the lack of interaction with others which could hold them back, but the type of interaction. Experiencing little encouragement in the family home from parents had motivated one young person to seek alternative living arrangements at 16 and this was also the case for two other young people in the study. As we know, this decision and act of human agency could have negative consequences for sustaining future education, employment, or training, without adequate levels of support (Harrison et al., 2023) and social networks (Brady & Gilligan, 2019b; Furey & Harris-Evans, 2021).

Using the life course perspective as a guiding framework for this research project as it moves forward will also enable further insights to be made with regards to how interrelated trajectories occur simultaneously and shape each other (Brady & Gilligan, 2019b). The findings described so far provide a glimpse of the intersection between post-16 transitions and leaving care transitions. How these two trajectories shape one another over time, informed by and through the relational networks which the participants encounter, will become more evident in years two and three of the project.

The young people in this research had faced considerable disruption in their personal lives, including their education. As a result, they were further behind with their academic learning upon arrival in a PRU. Experiencing numerous instances of internal exclusion in mainstream school meant that the young people had not received the same level of education as their non-excluded peers. Although they described personal struggles during these times, they never suggested that they didn’t want to be in school learning. What they were eager for were acts of empathy from mainstream school staff and other adults in their lives, to help them manage the challenges they were facing. The long periods of time that some young people spent out of education before being placed in a PRU were also hugely detrimental to their learner identities as well as their social needs.

The findings discussed in this article only include those from the first phase of a three-year research study. Despite this, they have already begun to provide valuable insights into the lived experiences of young people who have been excluded from school and are care experienced. Specifically, certain barriers were highlighted which could make preparing for post-16 transitions more challenging. These included:

As the research moves forward these key points will be explored further with the young people and the professionals who support them, so that greater understanding can be developed about the impact these factors are having in the lives of the participants. Spending time in PRUs had enabled the young people to develop socially and academically, in an environment where a sense of belonging had grown. On the whole, these experiences had helped them to view the transition and departure from their current learner role in a positive way. They felt ready to move on and away from the ‘cared-for learner’, whilst also recognising the value of continued supportive relationships. What will be crucial as they move forward, is to ensure that this same level of belonging and support remains available to them through different key adults in their lives.

This study provides a detailed and nuanced account of the educational experiences and perceptions of an under-researched group – those who are care experienced and excluded from school. The work will therefore help to broaden our understandings of the educational and post-16 trajectories and transitions of a marginalised and often unheard group of young people. The study design has enabled the collection of 14 detailed accounts of educational experiences, whilst follow-up interviews will provide further insights into the experience of educational transition. Alongside these strengths there are also limitations. As an ethical and practical requirement, it was necessary that gatekeepers from the PRUs initially identified suitable participants for the study. Through a sensitive and ethically informed way, guidance was given about who to approach (those with care experience who were in their final year of compulsory schooling at a PRU). Whilst it was encouraging that the participants came from a wide range of care backgrounds, this sensitive approach to participant recruitment also meant that certain young people were not involved. This included those who were currently struggling the most with their education or specific life events. The sample recruited was therefore not as diverse as it could have been.

The data are not publicly available as that could compromise the privacy of research participants and due to the sensitive nature of the issues being discussed.