Background Issues

Every year in the UK, around 10,000 secondary school children are excluded from school, and over a million truant. The social effects of this are enormous.

The following statistics are taken from recent Mori polls, Home Office research and a recent report by the New Philanthropy Capital.

Effects of exclusion & truancy:

• Truants and excluded children are more than twice as more likely to be sexually active, smoke, drink and take drugs
  
• Excluded children have a 3 times greater risk of contracting depression
• The average persistent truant costs £44,400 to society
  
• The total costs of persistent truants amounts to £800 million per annum
  

Violence, truancy & exclusion:

• Over half of excluded schoolchildren admit to carrying a knife
• Truants are more than twice as likely to commit crimes than non-truants

Costs of imprisonment:

• The annual cost of imprisonment is around £50,000
• An Audit Commission study based on a real boy who had served intensive community sentences and two six-month periods in custody by age 16, calculated that a mentoring-based strategy, similar to that provided at Frontiers would cost nearly four times less - £42,000 compared to £154,000. The analysis was based solely on the costs incurred to statutory agencies and did not factor in the wider costs of the youngster's involvement in crime and the impact on his family and others.
  The study suggests that every pound spent on social support for children who enter the criminal justice system at an early age could save at least £3 in the future.
  

New Horizons:

• Students’ attendance increased from 20% at school to 90% at Frontiers

• We work with around 1,000 young people every year.

• Most of our students have moved from being disengaged & unclear what direction to take, to being engaged and empowered, going on to further education or satisfying employment.

• Students have on the whole ceased carrying weapons and begun to engage more fruitfully with their community

Bulgaria Expedition

As part of New Horizons, a group of students embarked on a life-changing adventure to work with orphans in Plovdiv, Bulgaria.

New Horizons

The Frontiers Alternative Curriculum

We offer a unique four-term programme, New Horizons, for young people who have had negative experiences at school and are disengaged from the learning process.

Our Students

Our students may satisfy any or all of the following:

• Come from disadvantaged or disruptive backgrounds
• Have a history of challenging, disruptive, violent or criminal behaviour
• Have been or are about to be excluded from school, or truant regularly
• Have recognised a condition such as Aspergers Syndrome, ADHD or autism
• Are on risk or child protection registers
• Have low self-confidence/self-esteem
• Have been bullied or find it difficult to mix with their peer group
• Have drug or alcohol addictions

Students generally attend our centre three days a week instead of school. We take students out of the academic environment and teach them practical, meaningful skills which re-engage them with learning and increase their confidence.

Students study Open College Network (OCN) qualifications in for example, Archery, Campcraft, Canoeing, Car maintenance, Carpentry, Coaching, Confidence Building, Cookery, Crafts & textiles, Estate Maintenance, Farm Craft, Horsecare, Horticulture, Painting and Decorating, Teamwork, Woodland Survival Skills, Working With Children. We also teach other qualifications in eg. First Aid.

Our Approach

Our students are often caught up in negative behaviours and attitudes that are not getting them what they want, and Frontiers staff coach them beyond these attitudes, helping them find better alternatives. Our high staff-to-student ratio enables us to tailor-make our approach, taking into account each student's needs in a way not possible in a more formal environment.

We encourage students to explore, to take their own initiative and to pass on their skills to others. We use positive strategies (also known as non-aversive strategies), which do not use punishment to modify behaviour. A non-aversive approach involves understanding why the child or young person is behaving in challenging ways, and aims to teach more appropriate ways to meet their needs.

We adopt our pioneering Enablement Model, which combines six key elements: family, self-reliance, visualisation, esteem, identity, and perspective, to lead our students to greater maturity.

Our Results

Our students have moved from being disruptive, disengaged and disenchanted, towards a productive future. Some have applied to further education (e.g. Media Studies at Henley College, Animal Husbandry at Berkshire College of Agriculture, Beauty Therapy at Maidenhead College, NVQ in Catering), while others have found work that satisfies them (e.g. landscape gardening, hairdresser at Toni & Guy, mechanics, catering).

Student attendance has changed from around 20% at school to 87% on our courses.

Our Experience

Frontiers have a proven track record in running expeditions and event planning, its staff having over twenty years experience in this field. Staff regularly run outdoor camps, expeditions and adventures for disaffected children, many involved in drugs, alcohol and crime, and with challenging behaviours. Staff include qualified teachers, a canoe instructor, cave instructor, expedition leader, and ski instructor. They have extensive training in, for example behaviour management, coaching, NLP, youth & community work.

Location

We run our New Horizons alternative curriculum from two sites:

• Path Hill Farm (our base), Pangbourne, nr Reading. View directions
• Hill End Outdoor Centre, Oxford. See their website or view directions

Bulgaria Expedition

To further build our students' self-esteem, we encourage them to take positions of responsibility, looking after others and teaching the skills they themselves have learned.

We also encourage them to give something back to society, by doing work that supports others less fortunate than themselves.

To further these goals, we run a project where our students travel to another community and pass on the skills they have learned at Frontiers, giving something back to a group of people that has less opportunities than they do.

This year’s students organised a trip overland to an orphanage in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, where they passed on skills learned on the New Horizons course, such as bush-craft, agriculture and running camps.

Longer term, through our new organisation, Pioneers, the skills passed on by our students will enable the orphanage to form a self-sufficient co-operative.

This is an extraordinary win-win enterprise: the students gain self-esteem by giving something back, while the orphans get desperately needed help in becoming self-sufficient.

Read full details of this exciting new project.

Referrals

We take referrals from schools, Connexions, PRUIS and other organisations. Please contact us if you know someone you feel may benefit from our courses.