Why can't you write action plans when there are no risks?

You may know the feeling- you want to write an action plan for a student, but when you try you are told they they don't have any risks! 

There are a variety of good reasons why you may want to write an action plan for a student who doesn't have an identified risk (polar bias or composite bias) on STEER.

• You know background information about this student which provides a full picture
• You're observing behaviour issues or signs of poor wellbeing
• This student is very close to the boundary of having a risk. For example, they their self disclosure is low, but not quite low enough.

 

Why doesn't STEER currently let you write plans?

It would be very hard to measure the impact of action plans

One highlight of using STEER, is that you can measure the impact of your plans! If we let people write action plans in cases where there is no identified risk, then it would be impossible to measure the impact of that plan. Moreover, it would also disrupt the whole school impact figures which your SLT use. It would even disrupt STEER's own averages, making it difficult for schools bench mark themselves.

Some teachers might write unsuitable plans which could even be harmful

Without the guardrails currently in place, some less experienced staff might write unsuitable action plans. For example, someone might write a plan to reduce high self disclosure, when a student actually already has low disclosure! If implemented, this plan may actually have a negative affect on the student's wellbeing. As the stakes are so high when supporting young people, we have chosen to keep these safeguards in place.

What can you do instead?

Write a monitor comment!

Monitor comments allow you to record free text on any student's assessment. This is a great way to record your observations or actions which you are planning to take. Crucially, they don't need to be connected to any polar bias or composite bias. 

Do you have different view on this?

We want to hear it. This is a decision we periodically review and always keen to hear teachers' perspectives. If you want to meet with our product team, fill in this form , we'd love to chat about this, or any other topic.