Systemic vulnerability as a lens to explore young people’s experiences of transition from alternative provision settings to post-16 mainstream education

This paper considers the experiences of transition for young people from alternative provision (AP) to post-16 mainstream settings, drawing on an online survey distributed via Headteachers of AP/ post-16 institutions to staff and young people in a large local authority in the Northwest of England. It reflects on previous transition research and argues that transition can be viewed as a site of vulnerability for young people, with consideration of transition from a lens of vulnerability apparently absent in previous research. The pervasive narratives describing young people in alternative provision as “vulnerable” are critiqued, as well as some of the issues in conceptualising vulnerability. “Toblerone model” of relational spaces of vulnerability has been reconceptualised in this paper to model the possible sites of vulnerability that impact on the transitions young people make from alternative provision to post-16 mainstream settings. The paper concludes by presenting an adapted model of vulnerability which could be used to reconsider some of the issues which may impact on young people’s transition to post-16 settings, before and after the point of administrative transfer, and provide the staff who support them, both in alternative provision and in the transfer setting, with new possibilities for action.