Helping keep CREDS in Cambridgeshire schools
CREDS is a service in Cambridgeshire that provides support for schools and settings with children from minority ethnic backgrounds, including Gypsy, Roma & Travellers and children with English as an additional language. Many schools across the region see CREDS support as invaluable. However, with the sector facing budget cuts, CREDS is faced with the possibility of becoming a traded service or closing.
The service decided to commission some research with their users/potential users before making any vital decisions about their future. We were delighted to be recommended to them by the Cambridgeshire Council from previous work we completed in the Early Years sector. Our work with them began at the end of the 2016 academic year.
Essentially our task was to gather information about what schools in Cambridgeshire could afford to pay for CREDS and how best these services could be offered so that CREDS was still accessible for those who needed it most. Given the variety of schools and their ever-changing requirements we felt both a qualitative and quantitative approach appropriate. It was a 3-stage process beginning with depth interviews, followed by focus groups and quantified with a telephone survey. We spoke with around 130 schools across the county.
As expected, results were complex and dependent on certain situations, i.e. the numbers of minority pupils attending the school at any one time. The most definite conclusion was that schools’ needs and their affordability varied greatly from school to school and term to term so any offer produced by CREDS would have to be flexible. Our conclusions and suggestions were presented to CREDS who will use them to try and form a financially viable and flexible programme that will allow them to continue reaching the needs of pupils who need it most in Cambridgeshire.
“The project was a real pleasure to work on. It really gave us an insight into the struggles that the education sector are facing from both the schools’ perspective and the council’s” said Rachel Clark, project manager of the survey. “I hope that our research enables CREDS to produce a sustainable traded service that ensures the continuation of the services they provide”.
More information about CREDS and the work they do can be viewed here.