Alternative Provision Specialist Taskforce

What does this project involve?

The Alternative Provision Specialist Taskforce (APST) aims to improve the skills and capabilities of alternative provision (AP) schools in order to reduce 11-16 year old children’s involvement in violence and support them to re-engage in education.  

Funded by the Department for Education (DfE) in England, APST places at least four of the following eight professionals in AP schools who then work together for at least three days a week:  

• a speech and language therapist 
• a mental health professional 
• a post-16 transition coach 
• a youth worker 
• an educational psychologist 
• a family support worker 
• a youth justice worker 
• and a social worker.  

AP schools decide whether the support provided by specialists is offered to all children or targeted at particular children. The programme also aims to improve relationships between AP schools and local agencies and upskill other members of AP school staff in order to benefit all children in the setting.  

The 22 APST schools in this programme were in serious violence hotspots. 

Why did YEF fund this project?

There are approximately 74,000 children in AP in England, and 2,600 in Education Other Than at School (EOTAS) in Wales. These children are at significantly greater risk of involvement in violence compared to children in mainstream education settings. Approximately 14% of KS4 children in AP in England have been (or will go on to be) cautioned or sentenced for a serious violence offence (compared to only 1% of all children). Many of these children have also been suspended or excluded from mainstream school, and we know that these children are at heightened risk. Even after controlling for a range of contextual factors (including children’s previous behaviour), YEF funded analysis shows that children who are suspended or excluded from school are nearly 2.5 times more likely to go on to perpetrate violence and 4.5 times more likely to offend. In addition, rates of attendance in AP are considerably worse compared to mainstream school. The same YEF-funded analysis demonstrated that children who are not in school more than 20% of the time are more than twice as likely to perpetrate violence. This further increases the risks faced by children in AP.  

Therefore, it is critical that children in AP are provided with high quality, evidence-based support to reduce their risk of later involvement in violence. APST provides a model of co-location that aims to deliver this support.  

YEF funded an impact evaluation of APST. It aimed to identify whether APST had an impact on two primary outcomes: whether year 11 children subsequently enrolled in post-16 study and whether years 7-10 children reintegrated into mainstream school in the following academic year. It also aimed to identify the impact on a range of secondary outcomes, including years 7-10 attendance, year 11 attainment in English and Maths, and years 7-11 social and emotional difficulties (as measured by the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ)). For all but the SDQ outcomes, the evaluation used a difference-in-differences (DiD) methodology. This compared the difference in outcomes for all KS3 and KS4 pupils both before and after the introduction of APST among two groups of schools: those in which APST was introduced (the treatment group) and all other AP schools (the comparison group). The change in the difference in outcomes between the two groups before and after the introduction of APST provides an estimate of its impact. The treatment group consisted of 3,370 children in 2021/22 and 3,780 children in 2022/23. For the SDQ, baseline and endline data were collected from AP schools (22 APST schools and 21 matched comparison schools) and compared.  

An implementation and process evaluation was also conducted to explore the perceptions of those involved, facilitators and barriers to delivery, unintended consequences and cost. This featured three rounds of data collection, each including surveys with APST professionals, project coordinators, and AP senior leadership teams (SLT) (with around 120 responses in each round); interviews with SLTs, DfE and strategic partners (59 conducted in total); nine visits to seven case study schools; and reviews of programme documentation and data. The evaluation covered the delivery of APST from November 2021 until August 2023. A report of findings and outcomes including a third year of delivery will be published in summer 2026.  

Key conclusions

APST had no impact on year 7-10 children being reintegrated into mainstream school and had a low impact on year 11 children progressing to post-16 study. These results have a high security rating.

APST had a moderate impact on year 7-10 children’s attendance. Children in APST schools were in school for seven additional days the following academic year compared to their expected attendance if APST had not been available. This is a secondary outcome which should be interpreted with more caution.

APST had a low (but highly uncertain) impact on KS4 English and KS4 maths, had no impact on sustained post-16 study or year 7-9 reintegration into mainstream school, and led to a small reduction in year 10 reintegration. These are secondary outcomes which should be interpreted with more caution. There were high levels of missing SDQ data, so we cannot ascertain the impact on children’s social and emotional difficulties.

APST was successfully implemented in all 22 AP schools. The delivery model was highly tailored, with the nature, focus, format, timing and location of specialist support varying.

APST leaders and professionals reported very positive perceptions of APST, reporting that children were able to receive rapid, integrated and comprehensive support and improved safeguarding. Stakeholders perceived that APST was improving children’s social and emotional well-being, parental and pupil engagement, and attendance.

How secure is the evidence?

These findings have a high security rating. The evaluation was a QED study that was large enough to detect meaningful impacts. The primary outcomes were unaffected by attrition and missing data. The study met key quality indicators of a difference-in-difference design, including comparing pre-intervention trends between both groups and applying a series of robustness checks.  

Should more AP settings deliver APST?

Following the publication of these findings, and as the YEF’s Education Systems Guidance explains, the DfE should fund the extension of the Alternative Provision Specialist Taskforce (APST) for five years in England. Welsh Government should begin piloting it in Wales.  

Although this evaluation only shows a low impact on one of the two primary outcomes, there are challenges with the reintegration outcome selected as one of the primary outcomes.  For some children, continued support in AP may be in their best interests, while the wider system may not always facilitate return to mainstream. Consequently, reintegration is not always a desired aim, and this makes it a challenging outcome to interpret. 

The evaluation has also shown a moderate positive impact on attendance.  Children in APST schools were in school for seven additional days the following academic year compared to their expected attendance if APST had not been available. Given the high rates of pupil absence in AP, the association between absence and later involvement in violence, and the lack of evidence on what works to improve attendance, this is a promising finding. Attendance is a key current priority in education, and so this finding could be very useful to policy makers.  

The evaluation also finds that APST leaders, specialists, school staff and local agencies reported very positive perceptions of APST, reporting that children and families were able to receive more rapid, integrated and comprehensive support. They also reported that APST helped to safeguard children at moments of vulnerability, provided specialist interventions and referrals to external services, increased access to specialist needs assessment, and provided much needed additional capacity.  Staff working in AP schools reported that APST helped to improve their knowledge and confidence in supporting pupils. Both school and local agency leaders also reported that APST was starting to lead to improvements in information sharing and co-operation.  

Any further expansion of the programme should be accompanied by further, rigorous evaluation that aims to estimate the programme’s impact on violence and offending outcomes.  

What will YEF do next?

A report of further findings and outcomes including a third year of delivery will be published in summer 2026. 

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