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There is no summary of this meeting yet. Summaries are written once the council publishes the minutes, which are its official record of what a meeting decided. They usually appear a few weeks after the meeting.
1.1 Apologies were received from Councillors Liam Cowles and Chris Tew.
2.1 The following interests were declared: · Councillor Janet Jones declared a personal interest as a Governor at Blaenavon Heritage VC Primary School. · Councillor Colette Thomas declared a personal interest as a Governor at Nant Celyn Primary School and she also had a Grandchild who attended Cwmbran High School. · Councillor Lucy Williams declared a personal interest as a Governor at both Pontnewydd Primary School and Woodland Road Primary School.
3.1 The minutes of the meeting held on 23rd November 2023 were confirmed as an accurate record.
4.1 The action sheet was noted by the Committee.
5.1 The Chair highlighted the purpose of the report which was to review pupil attendance, exclusions, children being educated at home and children missing in education figures and consider whether the relevant policies were having the desired impact on improving performance. 5.2 The Chair welcomed the Executive Member and Officers to the meeting. 5.3 The Chair gave thanks on behalf of the Committee to Mr Stephen Lord and his colleagues at St Alban’s RC High School for their informative visit, which proved very useful in preparing Members for the meeting. 5.4 Officers provided an overview of their roles and highlighted the key areas of the report. 5.5 Following Members’ questions and comments, the following main points were made: · All schools were asked to set attendance targets and Officers looked at the targets set to see if they were aspirational enough. Officers would continue to challenge schools to ensure the targets were appropriate and that they were reviewed regularly. · It was the decision of the Headteacher whether to exclude a pupil and each school had their own level of tolerance and their own policies. Officers identify schools of concern and share best practice with them. There was a psychologist that supported schools and tracked trends. · Each school had different provisions for managing their pupils, some of the provisions in place to avoid exclusion were internal withdrawal spaces or some had offsite provisions, however this sometimes proved harder to integrate the pupils back in to mainstream school. One school did not have any provision in place and Officers were working to get one developed as it was important that they had processes in place to deal with the pupils themselves to take the pressure of the Pupil Referral Unit (PRU). · Each school should identify the training needs for their staff in order to protect themselves, the learners and property. The Local Authority had arranged for staff to do training via Team Teach. Additional training could always be sought if required. If an incident occurred and a member of staff needed time off, the school would be responsible for liaising with the member of staff and managing their return to work. · Some Agencies provided Team Teach training. Schools could also provide training for agency staff, however agency staff should not be placed with complex children. · There would always be instances where a child would need to be restrained, however if physical intervention was used schools needed to record that and the log was monitored by the Local Authority. Regular checks were carried out on how many interventions had taken place and whether the type of intervention was appropriate. · Officers would need to report back to committee on the number of exclusions which were appealed. It was the parents’ choice to appeal an exclusion and the Local Authority would support parents in that process. Parents were also entitled to Independent Advocacy and the Council had a service level agreement with SNAP Cymru and Officers always directed parents to them. Officers worked with both the school and parents around alterative options such as managed moves or moving the leaner to the PRU. Officers were confident that the exclusion process in place was appropriate, but they would be reviewing it to ensure that it was clear and consistent for each school. · Torfaen Schools had closed the gap on the national average with regards to attendance and Officers were confident with the processes that were in place and that the positive trend would continue. There were however some challenges within secondary schools. The Education Welfare Team were keen to explore reasons around leaners being absent from school and worked with families and made appropriate referrals when necessary. The Education Welfare Team worked with psychologists and the anti-social behaviour teams to encourage leaners to thrive. Governor training had also taken place so that Governors could hold schools to account regarding pupil attendance figures. · Schools were also taking part in two campaigns which encouraged good attendance, ‘Not in Miss Out Campaign’ and ‘Strive to 95% Campaign’ and there were lots of mechanisms in place to monitor attendance. · The ALN Team and the Education Welfare Team work closely together and as a result have managed to reduce the number of learners on reduced timetables from 225 at its peak to 70 and have brought them back to full time education. · The Local Authority circulated attendance data through schools so that all schools could see the data which sparked conversation around processes and best practice. The ‘Not in Miss Out Campaign’ had been operating for over a year which was encouraging good attendance. The School Forums met on a termly basis to build relationships and share best practice around increasing pupil attendance. · It was the role of the school improvement partners to be more involved with recognising schools who had excellent attendance results and provide scope to share best practices. The Local Authority already shared attendance data with the Education Achievement Service (EAS). · Estyn had released a report on attendance and Torfaen were already addressing lots of the points within the report. · The school-based teams were able to give clear guidance to parents and carers regarding when they should keep their children off when ill. Schools strive for good attendance, and it was important to get pupils in to school. Welsh Government had issued guidance regarding illnesses and isolation time which schools could refer to. The Education Welfare Team were always available to offer advice and parents were encouraged to get their children back in to school, there was a need to move away from pandemic era where children were kept at home for long periods of time. There was still some confusion over sending children to school when presenting Covid symptoms. The Local Authority had access to Public Health Wales for advice for schools and parents. · There was a coding system used for marking absences. Illness was classed as an authorised absence. · Welsh Government had altered the criteria for persistent absence from those missing 20% or more of school to those missing 10% or more of school. The Local Authority did not see this as an issue as the overall attendance was going in the right direction. The Education Welfare Team were already working with schools that had pupils that this could affect to try address the problems and get the children back to school. · The Local Authority wanted learners to undertake their revision for exams in school rather than at home as it was better for them. There was however an authorised absence code for study leave. · The Education Welfare Team analysed school registers and checked the codes and spoke to schools around areas of concerns. Officers would be speaking to schools where lots of pupils were being marked as absent for study leave. · All schools received a pupil development grant on a yearly basis which was administered by the EAS. As a part of the grant, schools were required to draw up action plans to demonstrate what they would be using the money for. Two schools within Torfaen that had a high free school meals cohort chose to invest their pupil development grant money effectively which saw the attendance figures gap narrow between pupils entitled to free school meal and non-free school meals pupils. Schools had also chosen to use the grant money to employ Family Engagement Officers to work with individual families to try and establish the reasons in the breakdown of their children attending school and work with them to reintegrate them back in to school. · All learners in Primary Schools were now offered free school meals, one of the challenges that Local Authorities now had was what would be used as a proxy for deprivation in future years. Officers were waiting to hear from Welsh Government on what indicator they would be using going forward. · All secondary schools in Torfaen had utilised their funding to employ a Family Engagement Officer that met the needs of the school. Where attendance was a concern, some schools had employed two Family Engagement Officers. · There was a high level of collaboration with school staff, attendance officers and ALNCOs and there were clear processes in place for school refusers. Home visits were carried out where necessary, referrals were made where appropriate, open dialogue was carried out with parents and advice was offered. There was a comprehensive system in place and all schools had a named Education Welfare Officer. · If a child was not attending school, Officers looked to determine whether there were any additional learning needs which was causing a barrier and offered appropriate support. All secondary schools had access to CAMHS for support and parents were encouraged to book a GP appointment if their child was stating that they could not attend school due to anxiety and follow up support would be provided for them. There were school based counselling services available along with outreach counselling services. Officers liaise with ALNCOs over learners that might need additional learning provision, as the Local Authority did not want to issue warning letters to parents over non-attendance if their child had a significant barrier to learning. · The Local Authority had organised a number of online training sessions for schools around new policies and processes and attendance was 100% over the three sessions. The sessions were also recorded, and the video was shared. Schools really liked the flexible training approach. Two sessions were scheduled for governors but the take up for the first session was very low. The Local Authority was working with the EAS to make a more interactive online model for governors. · The Education Welfare Service referral forms had been changed which had sped up the process. The forms referenced whether support had been offered, accepted or refused. The process was much speedier and transparent. Home visits were carried out and parents were spoke to on a personal level and the school was provided with feedback. If attendance was still poor, another meeting would take place along with the school too. If the parents would not work with the Education Welfare Service it could lead to prosecution, however that would be the last resort. · The Local Authority had asked all schools to join the ‘Not in Miss Out Campaign’ but some schools were already working on improving their attendance in their own way. The figures were not showing that the schools which were not participating in the above Campaign were having worse attendance figures. · Headteachers had discretion as to what absences they did or did not authorise. Fixed Penalty Notices were issued where appropriate. It was felt that warning notices were more powerful. There were only 190 school days per year and if children were permitted to go on holiday in term time, they were missing a lot of school. · The number of pupils leaving schools for Elective Home Education was lower than last year, and Officers had seen a number of children return to school education. Officers always looked at the reason why learners had left school for Elective Home Education, the biggest reasons were anxiety and post Covid issues. The Welsh Local Government Association had carried out a piece of work on this, and it was consistent across Wales, with many choosing home education due to fears around Covid. Some families opted to do home education to avoid prosecution over their child missing school and some families just preferred to educate their own children at home, which the Local Authority respected. · The Local Authority had a duty around the wellbeing of children and safeguarding them. It was important that if a family was choosing to home educate their children, that the children were receiving a good home education. The Local Authority worked with parents, organised conferences with guest speakers and activities, families were provided with leisure passes to use the facilities at Pontypool Active Living Centre, book tokens were provided, and support was offered for the children to sit their GCSE’s. There was an Elective Home Education Policy which would be put on the Council’s website. · Welsh Government had clear guidance on Elective Home Education that Local Authorities had to deliver on. Children needed to receive an effective education, which would vary from families. Families were offered a visit from an Officer, and they always tried to facilitate the children to sit their exams if requested. · The Executive Member responded to a question and stated that if amending the school calendar would show benefits, he would not be averse to it, and it may also assist parents with childcare arrangements. Any changes had to be beneficial for the learners. · There would be a national consultation on the changes to the school calendar. · The Behaviour Conference took place on 18th and 19th January at Ysgol Gymraeg Gwynllyw and it was well attended. The target audience was the Senior Leadership Team of each Secondary School. The feedback received was good. It was not a one-off event, and it was proposed to launch longer term support for Teachers and Teaching Assistants via online modules. The Conference was offered to other Local Authorities within the region, and some attended and really valued the session. · The PRU was able to accommodate 28 learners at one time but there were currently 62 learners registered there. The Local Authority also had other sites, there was one in New Inn which supported learners with anxiety and one in Abersychan which was for learners who had been excluded for 15 days or more. These were short term interventions which provided learners with the opportunity to return to school. Whilst learners were at these sites they also remained on the register at their school, they were dual registered. The PRU had an Attendance Officer, and the register was shared with the school, to ensure the pupils were accounted for. · Learners who struggled with full time attendance due to being overwhelmed by the size and noise of the school could have a modified day. To have a modified day, they had to have a pastoral support plan in place. The plan would allow learners to access alternative education provision such as the use of tuition, use of college or the use of military preparation. Schools commissioned their own alternative education provision for their learners. The Youth Service also supported those learners, and it was a way of keeping learners in school by varying their activities. · If schools were using alternative education provision, they had to notify the Local Authority on what providers they were using, what monitoring arrangements were in place, the attendance of the learners at the provisions and what level of qualifications the learners were able to access. · Primary Schools did not tend to use alternative education provision, the majority of learners in primary school were accessing the school’s curriculum. There were one or two learners that were educated outside of Torfaen and were in registered in specialist schools. · The Local Authority met with Coleg Gwent on a regular basis regarding early access to college for pupils to increase the provision of Education Other Than At School. The Local Authority block booked a number of placements for children from the PRU. Officers were also looking at alternative avenues such as vocational placements. There was a new café opening in the Civic Centre which would provide work experience opportunities for young people. It was important to find the right offer to spark the interest of the young people when school was not the best place for them. · The Local Authority was monitoring the in-house training within clusters and schools to ensure there was a sufficient number of staff trained to support de-escalation and physical intervention. The Local Authority was also holding a network meeting the following week. There were also specialist trainers who were observing the new trainers. Ongoing support was provided for new trainers. · It was agreed to provide Members with further detail on the expectations, transition package, and what led to the outcome achieved within the case study carried out, which was attached to appendix one of the report. · If a child had been permanently excluded or was at risk of exclusion, parents were able to apply for another school, however due to the geography of Torfaen one school was always caught in the middle and was receiving all the pupils which had been excluded from other schools. The Local Authority wanted to change this and introduced the fair access protocol. Since the introduction of the protocol, all schools were working collaboratively and were also working with their learners because if a learner was excluded, they had to move school and the protocol ensured that the learners were spread out and not all sent to the same school. The Local Authority was working with schools to look for solutions rather than permanent exclusions such as access to the PRU, alternative provision or training. · If a Headteacher was considering a permanent exclusion they had to contact the Council’s Head of Additional Learning Needs, Inclusion & Wellbeing and an element of challenge was provided and the Headteacher was asked to consider other options, one of which was the managed move process. Schools were often doing the managed move process between themselves before contacting the Head of Additional Learning Needs, Inclusion & Wellbeing. The communication between the schools was great and if they could liaise with each other to use the managed move option it avoided permanent exclusions. The managed move had to be agreed by parents. Parents had to have options, the managed move was not instead of a permanent exclusion because they might want the right to appeal. If parents wanted to appeal the managed move option was not available to them. · During the managed move process the child remained on the current school register for six weeks and attended the new school on a trial period, if at the end of the six weeks it had been successful the child moved on to the new school, if it was not successful the Local Authority would look at what additional support may be required for them to return to their existing school. · Last year there was only one appeal against an exclusion and that was successfully overturned, and the parents won their appeal, although the outcome was the parents decided to move their child to another school. This year there had been two appeals so far, one was successful, and one was upheld. · School transport was a pressure for the Local Authority, however there was a Transport Policy in place which was adhered to. The Council did have a discretionary travel option, but this had to be right for the learner and had to be cost effective. 5.6 The Chair thanked the Officers and the Executive Member for their contributions to the meeting and they left the meeting. 5.7 On completion of their scrutiny activity, the Committee offered the following recommendations for consideration: Recommendation 1:- Members were concerned that school governors may be experiencing difficulty accessing the Hwb and other training options. As a result, Members recommended that this issue be explored, which may increase the number of governors accessing and attending future training. Members also recognised the benefit of on-demand (pre-recorded) training; however they stressed the importance of live training sessions for school governors too, such as group sessions. Members therefore recommended that live training should remain an option; however ways of increasing attendance should be explored due to the low numbers at recent sessions. Recommendation 2:- Members were pleased to hear that EAS School Improvement Officers (SIPs) were engaging with schools regarding ALN and Attendance; however it was acknowledged that there was further scope to utilise SIPs in order to share best practice amongst Torfaen schools. Members therefore recommended that the LA and EAS explore further opportunities for SIPs to share best practice regarding Pupil Attendance amongst Torfaen schools. Recommendation 3:- Members praised LA officers for arranging the Behaviour Conference in January 2024, which was attended by colleagues from across the EAS region and Torfaen Learning Zone. Members recommended that the LA continues to be proactive in sharing best practice across the region, via arranging or attending future regional opportunities. Members also stated that it would be beneficial for them to receive feedback in the future regarding the outcomes of the conference, in order to assess its impact. Recommendation 4:- Members acknowledged the current vocational opportunities available to learners who could benefit from alternative provision, such as the café which would soon be opening in the Civic Centre; however they were concerned that the opportunities were limited. Members recommended that further vocational opportunities be explored with local companies and suggested the potential use of Business Connect and other local groups in order to achieve this. 5.8 In conclusion Members also offered the following comments: · They commended Officers for their very comprehensive report and confirmed that they were satisfied by the responses that officers provided to Members’ questions during the meeting. · They commented that tables within future reports should be consistent throughout, in order to avoid possible confusion. Some tables within the report were in ascending order in terms of the dates provided, whereas others were in descending order.
6.1 The SO presented the report and invited members to review the information contained in the appendices to the report and agree an item for scrutiny at the next meeting. 6.2 The Committee agreed to scrutinise the ‘Annual EAS Business Plan’ at the next meeting, to be held on 14/03/2024.
7.1 The date of the next meeting was noted.
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