The Bridging Service – preventing school dropout

Challenge: How to support young people and prevent drop-out? 

School dropout has long been a complicated problem for schools and has developed over the course of time to become a societal problem. This is because students who drop out from school often lose their social network. The problem is exacerbated when students who do not complete upper secondary school are left waiting for several months for other agencies to intervene and help.  
 
Without a completed upper secondary education, it is also more difficult to enter the labour market, which in turn can lead to lasting isolation. 

Grünerløkka is Oslo's most populous district with 62,500 inhabitants, and it is also the district where differences within the population are perhaps greatest. Over the last years, the district had a worryingly high dropout rate at the transition to upper secondary school.

They introduced many useful measures and initiatives to address the dropout problem, but quickly realised that it did not have a single root cause. The reasons are manifold and complex. They had to rethink how to help students have a better everyday school life and wanted to come up with a service that was centred around the students in a new way.  

Approach: Dedicated bridging resources 

Together with the Norwegian Education Agency in Oslo, the district entered into a collaboration with designers at Designit and social economists at Menon Economics. They received financial support through Stimulab, a Norwegian programme which stimulates user-oriented experimentation and innovation in the public sector. With an eye to the challenges linked to high-school dropout, the team re-examined previous reports and measures and carried out supplementary insights from students, district employees and the Norwegian Education Agency.  
 
Their work revealed that 80% of pupils who complete their first year of upper secondary school also complete their education. The figures indicated how much there was to be gained for both students and schools by strengthening the services around the transition to upper secondary school. It was evident that many students fall between two stools during this transition: They leave a safe environment at lower secondary school and move towards a future in upper secondary school that feels unclear. And although there are many good services and advisers for the students, the actual transition from lower to upper secondary school was uncatered for. This was an important revelation.  
  
In order to create a better flow of information and reassurance during this period, the team designed a new service in collaboration with the district and partners called the The Bridging Service. This introduced a new role – the bridging guide – to work flexibly across the district and schools. The bridging guides aimed to provide students with the follow-up and support they needed, from the last year of lower secondary school up to and including the first year of upper secondary school. 

Bringing content to the role 

The first thing they did when starting the collaboration was to get an overview of all the measures that had previously been taken. What worked well and what didn’t? 
 
What became clear was that many of the resources and services students were asking for were already available. One person was nevertheless lacking: a dedicated bridging guide, who had a full overview of the available services and the capacity to follow up students on their way through the system.  
 
The bridging guides would move outside the classical school framework and have a mandate to follow the students between their various arenas on and off school. By working across the gap, the bridging guides would be able to help students with answers and solutions and at the same time lighten the load for counsellors and teachers.

Result: Avoiding the fall between two chairs

The Bridging Service was launched as a pilot project at Sofienberg lower secondary school for the 2022-2023 school year. Over 75 students received guidance from the bridging guides working at the school.  
 
The guides were present with students in the classrooms and joined them after school when needed. When the students began at upper secondary and lost the support apparatus from lower secondary school the bridging guides followed them through the summer holidays to their first day at the new school and on through the next six months. The bridging guides could offer prompt assistance to students since they were already visible at school and had built up a good relationship  
 
Not all students will necessarily complete upper secondary school and those who drop out are also to be prioritised and to receive follow-up from the bridging guides. They quickly bring in NAV’s Follow-up Service (Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration) or other available services to ensure that this group has meaningful activity in their daily lives and that they get help to make plans for the future. 

A more flexible offer 

Teachers have summer holidays. Social workers and counsellors sign off for the day before the sun goes down. However, the bridging guides had the opportunity to be present and available after school, at weekends and, perhaps most importantly, during the summer holidays before they started upper secondary school. 
 
They were there for the students when the admissions were announced, and they comforted, celebrated and planned the autumn together with them. Here is where the Bridging Service reveals its quality. It clarifies gaps in the services that exist and create new solutions that are always based on the students' concrete needs. 

Benefits: Enormous learning value

Results of the service’s activity go beyond all expectations. During the two-year trial period the bridging guides actively followed up 75 young people through 10th grade and the first six months of upper secondary school.  97% of the students who were followed up by a bridging guide in the pilot project's first year have completed their first year of upper secondary school. For those students who chose not to continue at upper secondary school, the bridging guides helped them find meaningful activities and alternative educational courses.  
 
Unfortunately, and despite the excellent results of the pilot project at Sofienberg lower secondary school, the local authority and the Education Agency do not have the opportunity to continue the service. The Bridging Service was discontinued in 2024, even though the goal of providing a good transition to upper secondary school has been achieved.  
 
There is lots to learn for other cities, municipalities and others from the important insight, work and good results achieved in this project. The Bridging Service is a stellar example of service innovation and inclusive design in practice. It is to be hoped that new students will be encouraged and supported by their own bridging guides in the future as well.