Engaging the early adolescent: What do stakeholders say about the Keeping Kids Engaged in School program?

Anne Coffey, Shane Lavery
The University of Notre Dame Australia, Australia
Leigh Sinclair
Imagined Futures, Fremantle, Western Australia

The level of engagement of students in schooling has long been associated with the type of educational outcomes achieved. This relationship is very apparent during early adolescence. It is during this developmental period that young people navigate the transition between primary and secondary school and may disengage from schooling. The Imagined Futures' Keeping Kids Engaged in School program is an intervention program designed to promote early adolescent students' desire to stay connected with school. The research explored how students and their parents/caregivers, and key school informants from four participating Government schools in Western Australia perceived the program. Two forms of qualitative data were collected from four focus group interviews with 24 students in Years 5 to 8 who had participated in the program and one-to-one interviews with five of their parents/caregivers and five key school informant staff members. Results indicated that participants from all four schools strongly endorsed the value of the program. The research had a particular focus on honouring the voices of the young people to whom the program was directed. It is their endorsement of the program that is of particular import.
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Authors: Associate Professor Anne Coffey PhD is the Associate Dean Secondary in the School of Education, at Edith Cowan University. Formerly at University of Notre Dame Fremantle Campus, she has taught at undergraduate and postgraduate levels in courses on research design, early adolescence, student leadership and strategic management in education. She also supervises students at the Masters and Doctoral level. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3314-6159 Email: a.coffey@ecu.edu.au Associate Professor Shane Lavery PhD coordinates postgraduate education in the School of Education, The University of Notre Dame Australia. He coordinates and teaches in courses on research design, educational leadership, and service learning, at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. He supervises students within the School of Education Masters and Doctoral programs. ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6626-0073 Email: shane.lavery@nd.edu.au Ms Leigh Sinclair is the Executive Director of Imagined Futures which comprises over 70 organisations [https://imaginedfutures.org.au/]. These include not-for-profit and government agencies as well as a variety of philanthropic entities. The purpose is to provide a cross-agency approach to complex social challenges within the community. Email: imaginedfutures@stpats.com.au Please cite as: Coffey, A., Lavery, S. & Sinclair, L. (2024). Engaging the early adolescent: What do stakeholders say about the Keeping Kids Engaged in School program? Issues in Educational Research, 34(2), 459-475. http://www.iier.org.au/iier34/coffey.pdf