This has been an important aim of the research, because many reintegration officers have noted that having re-engaged many of these young women with education pre-16, the majority had high aspirations post-16. The reality that they had often witnessed, however, was a high continuation rate in education, followed by a rapid drop out within six months, due to a lack of continued support. A main concern therefore was the longer-term ramifications that this
‘failure’ could have on the self-esteem levels of the young mothers and their perceived ability to achieve something in the future.
The interviews with this particular sample, therefore, included: exploring what support these women did or did not receive to help them during this transition period; what barriers if any that they faced in achieving their goals; and if and how they were able to overcome those barriers. The interviews finished by exploring what these young women believed other mothers would need to enable them to achieve success in their lives post compulsory school age.
3.52 Post-16 aspirations and realities
As noted in Section 5 a large proportion of the interview sample expressed an interest in pursuing post-16 education. The older mothers were asked retrospectively if they had had any specific plans for the first year post-16 and if they had followed those plans through, to enable comparison as shown in Table 3.29 below.
The table shows that there was no overall difference between the numbers of young mothers planning to go to and actually entering further education of some description (25). Where differences do exist, is within the plans and reality of each woman. Some women who planned to gain employment or continue on education instead chose to have a second child whilst others who had planned to focus on being a mother or getting a job actually opted for continuing in education.
Table 3.29: Plans versus reality of post-16 activities Actual activity
Specific job 6thform school/
college
6th form SPU FE college Compensatory year
Yr out then FE
F/T mum Total
Specific job - - 2 - - - 1 (1 had
2nd child) 3
6th form school/college
- 2 - 1 - - - 3
6th form SPU - - 4 1 - - 5
FE college - 1 1 4 - 2 3 (2 had
2nd child)
11
Compensatory year
- - - - 4 (2 in SPU 2 in FE)
- 1 5
Year out then FE
- - - - - 2 - 2
Planned activity
Full time mum - - - 1 - - - 1
Total 0 3 7 7 4 4 4 30
The added value of specialist units for post-16s
Not all specialist units can accommodate post-16 mothers. For those that do, not all were originally meant to. Over the last few years, however, this has changed for a number of reasons. First, many teachers within the specialist units could see the potential of keeping young mothers engaged post-16 who would otherwise leave education. Many of these mothers had missed substantial proportions of their pre-16 education and therefore had not been able to sit any or many of their GCSEs and so some units started to offer ‘compensatory’ years.
This was eventually supported in DfES guidance on supporting teenage parents in 2001 (DfES 2001) and whilst this form of education is not without barriers (discussed later in this section), it has offered many young mothers who would have left education the chance to gain some of their GCSEs. As one young mother describes below:
[Head-teacher of specialist unit] let me come back and do Year 11 again and arranged that. I’m doing year 12 here like as an extra compensation year. So I’m doing Maths, English, Science, health and social, RE, IT, Citizenship, Child development. And I’ll sit them next June. Helen, 16, Area A.
Second, specialist unit teachers also noted that when many of their mothers went on to college, without continued support, they would often struggle with a new environment that did not always take into consideration the fact that they were mothers. Offering these mothers the chance to come back to the units where it was easier to cope was therefore seen as a better outcome than letting the mothers drop out entirely. As one mother describes below, having the chance to come back to a unit after a failed attempt at college allowed her the additional year she needed to make the transition into post-16 education:
Basically, I went to college to do A levels and it meant I was on the go from 8 in the morning till 5 and then the homework, and at this college they expected you to do 4 A levels which was too much. It was just too much, I gave up after 1 week. I couldn’t leave my baby for that long every day, I missed him and wanted to spend more time with him. So instead, I didn’t give up entirely, I came back to [specialist unit] and I did my Maths GCSE again and also did GCSEs in sociology and human biology, I ended up with a C in Maths, a B in sociology and an A in Human Biology.
I also sat my AS level in Art here and got a C overall. And then I
continued and then this year I’ve been doing the full A level in Art, looks like a D overall at [specialist unit] which is great because I get to keep contact with this place, and also I’ve been going to college and doing AS level Sociology (so far an A overall) and AS Level Biology (so far a D overall but I’ll have to work hard to keep that)…. Laura, 19, Area F.
Third, when some mothers failed to get the grades that they had expected to get them in to college, allowing them to return to the unit to repeat some exams, was a solution for many who thought that they would have to give up. As one mother describes:
I wanted to go to college for IT but I didn’t get all the grades I wanted and then I couldn’t get sorted out in time after the baby was born and it got really stressful so I was going to stay off and look after the baby but they said if I was going to do that why didn’t I come back here, and do some more exams to boost my grades and qualifications and apply to college for next year, cause I could bring her with me here so it wouldn’t cost for childcare. Jenny, 17, Area E.
Changed aspirations
Early sections of this chapter explored the ways in which many mothers had changed perceptions about education and their life aspirations. A number of the post-16 mothers also talked about how their increased achievement during pregnancy had opened up new avenues for their future that they had never considered before. This therefore resulted in some noted changes from their post-16 plans to their reality as one mother discusses below:
I am really enjoying it, because I never thought I would end up doing a course like this. Originally I was going to go to college and learn to work with children. But do you know why that was, I thought, I wasn’t thick at school but I did a lot better than I was predicted to do when I got pregnant. People were really shocked and were ringing me up and saying congratulations and everyone was really shocked I did so well because most of the girls have dropped out, the ones who became pregnant. I wanted to work with children, but that was really because I didn’t think I would get the grades, not that there’s anything wrong with working with children but I didn’t think I would get higher than 4 Bs. A lot of courses you need 4 Bs and you go to college and work with those 4 Bs but when I
got all of them (I got 1 A*, 1 A, 4 Bs and 4 Cs) it gave me more choices, some courses needed 6 Cs and above and then it was like well I can do that now, so I went through the brochure, you know the little thing you get and looked at a whole load of different things and it opened it up much more for me. So I am really enjoying the Law course, it is very hard work it’s 9-6 most days and then home work. Elisa-Jade, 18, Area I.
Motherhood first
Although one young woman planned to be a full-time mother, in reality five decided to be full-time mothers, which included three who went on to have their second child during that time. A number of mothers stated that they did want to go back to education later and have a good job but that they also wanted more children. They argued that it would be silly to disrupt your education twice by waiting three years and then having the second child, so they had decided to have their two children close together. This raises a point of concern with the new Care to Learn initiative, which will only provide funding for those starting their learning with Care to Learn funds under the age of 19. If a mother chose to have a second child before returning to education, she would most likely be too old to be eligible for Care to Learn (see end of this Section for further discussion on Care to Learn).
Taking a Gap year
Although only two mothers planned to take a ‘gap’ year before college, in reality this was the case for four. There were two main reasons for this. First, for those who had made the decision to take a year out as their initial plan, this was because they wanted some time with their child before they thought about college, as one young mother noted below:
I’ve been taking time with my son before thinking about going on to college. I want that time with him. Michelle, 17, Area A.
Second, for those who had planned to continue with education after Year 11, either they got to the end of Year 11 and they were simply shattered and decided to take a break for a year before continuing, or they started college and then conceded that actually they did want some time to be a mum first. Often in these cases, reintegration officers (if able to work with post-16s29) would involve the
29 See commentary on Figure 3.11 for explanation of this point.
mothers in small courses and group activities, to keep the issue of education on the agenda, which was welcomed, as one mother noted below:
I did some of the crèche course, but I didn’t really want to go to college straight away I wanted to wait till next year but [reintegration officer]l is finding lots of little courses that I can do in the mean time to keep us busy and in touch with it. And that’s when I got in touch with the Monday group and it’s great cause there are lots of other young mums there and the babies go in the crèche and you get time to talk and stuff. It’s a very supportive group, everyone’s going through the same. And well I’ll start the crèche course again in April and they will count some of what I did this year so I don’t have to repeat it. Stacey, 17, Area D.