To
agree the minutes of the previous meeting of the Children,
Families, Lifelong Learning and Culture Select Committee as a true
and accurate record of proceedings.
All
Members present are required to declare, at this point in the
meeting or as soon as possible thereafter:
I.Any disclosable
pecuniary interests and / or
II.Other interests arising under the Code of Conduct in
respect of any item(s) of business being considered at this
meeting
NOTES:
·Members are reminded that they must not participate
in any item where they have a disclosable pecuniary interest
·As well as an interest of the Member, this includes
any interest, of which the Member is aware, that relates to the
Member’s spouse or civil partner (or any person with whom the
Member is living as a spouse or civil partner)
·Members with a significant personal interest may
participate in the discussion and vote on that matter unless that
interest could be reasonably regarded as prejudicial.
1.The deadline for Member’s questions is 12.00pm
four working days before the meeting (Thursday, 14
January 2021).
2.The deadline for public questions is seven days
before the meeting(Wednesday, 13 January
2021)
3.The deadline for petitions was 14 days before the
meeting, and no petitions have been received.
Due
to the COVID-19 pandemic, all questions and petitions received will
be responded to in writing and will be recorded within the minutes
of the meeting.
The Chairman welcomed
the new Executive Director to the Select Committee meeting and
invited her to provide a summary of her findings after one month in
post.
The Executive
Director had a high level of confidence that the council’s
children’s services had made significant improvement and were
no longer ‘inadequate’, having completed the steps of
the improvement plan from the previous Ofsted inspection (2018),
and now implementing a “Getting to Good plan”. Feedback
from the Service’s January 2021 mock inspection of the
Children’s Single Point of Access (C-SPA) and the Early Help
Hub assured the Executive Director of the rigour of the
Service’s self-evaluation
practices. The upcoming three-way peer review undertaken under the
South East Sector Led Improvement Programme would provide a further
opportunity for the Service to test its self-evaluation. The
Executive Director acknowledged that there was still more work to
be done to achieve a ‘good’ Ofsted rating, and
was meeting with Ofsted and a senior inspections officer the
following week to discuss Service readiness for the next
unannounced Ofsted visit.
The Executive
Director informed the Select Committee that a review undertaken
jointly by the Department for Education (DfE) and NHS England
confirmed that the Service had made good progress with its
provision for children with Special Educational Needs and
Disabilities (SEND) and, as a result could demonstrate clear and
sustained progress and no longer needed to be subject to DfE
scrutiny with six monthly meetings. The Executive Director and SEND
Systems Partnership had reviewed progress at the last meeting in
order to identify areas for continued focus.
The Directorate was
operating well during the third Covid-19 lockdown despite
continuing its improvement programme and receiving frequently
changing expectations and guidance from DfE. The Executive Director was pleased to report
that a reduced workforce (due to shielding, illness and
self-isolation) was not preventing the Directorate from undertaking
essential work, and face-to-face contacts were still being carried
wherever possible. Covid-19 had delayed
some of the Service’s improvement work, but progress had not
stopped or been lost.
During
their first month in post, the Executive Director had identified
several priority areas for the Directorate: children’s social
care improvement; children with additional needs and their families
(SEND capital programme investment in specialist placements in the
county); cultures and behaviours and inclusion practice in schools;
and supporting children and young people with mental health and
emotional wellbeing issues. At the end of 2020, the council agreed
a new contract for emotional wellbeing and mental health services,
which was now in the mobilisation phase – the Executive
Director was the chair of the Assurance Board for the programme.
The first meeting confirmed the scale of the task; however, the
workstreams were well established and met weekly, recruitment was
underway, and progress was being closely monitored. Closing the
attainment gap, which was widening due to Covid-19 restrictions,
was another Directorate priority. It was also important for the
Directorate to focus on the council’s ...
view the full minutes text for item 5/21
Liz
Mills, Director – Education, Lifelong Learning and
Culture
Jane
Winterbone, Assistant Director – Education
Maria
Dawes, Chief Executive Officer, Schools Alliance for
Excellence
Key
points raised during the discussion:
The Chief Executive
Officer (CEO) of the Schools Alliance for Excellence (SAfE)
introduced the report, summarising the key points. SAfE’s
short-term priorities were as follows: providing reactive support
to schools through the Covid-19 pandemic; safeguarding headteacher
wellbeing; focusing on quality first teaching and working together
to ensure best practice is shared; supporting and challenging
vulnerable schools; the disadvantaged strategy; and working with
the Local Authority to support the joint approach to
inclusion.
SAfE was
considering the implications of the Covid-19 pandemic on its school
improvement contract and had subsequently amended its Key
Performance Indicators (KPIs) due to the cancellation of Key Stage
and GCSE examinations in 2020 and 2021 – as those qualifications had not been assessed in
the ordinary way, attainment data was not comparable to previous
years.
A question was asked about the changes made to
SAfE’s performance indicators in light of the Covid-19
pandemic and the lack of performance data and routine Ofsted
inspections. The CEO responded that performance indicators were to
be reviewed again in light of the third
national lockdown and changes to the assessment of GCSE, AS and
A-Level qualifications in 2021. SAfE was giving more
prominence to disadvantaged and vulnerable children in the amended
KPIs, with four of the six KPIs now focused on that cohort. SAfE
was also trying to shift focus onto measurable outcomes for Key
Stage 4. In 2021, SAfE would be able to compare the gap between the
non-disadvantaged and disadvantaged cohort across
Surrey.
A Member
asked what the implications were of the cancellation of GCSE, AS
and A-Level examinations in 2021. The CEO responded that, compared
to 2020, exams had been cancelled earlier in the 2021 academic
year, so SAfE had time to undertake a detailed consultation with
schools to consider how best to assess Key Stage 4 and 5 children.
The Director added that the Service was working on destination
planning, supporting key stage transitions, and providing
additional support for pathway planning for young
people.
SAfE asked that all
maintained schools complete a key-skills needs analysis, which was
a self-assessment of schools’ strengths and areas of concern.
SAfE was also working with the Service to identify vulnerable
schools and was supporting an increased number of settings due to
Covid-19. SAfE would also be identifying where more formal
intervention could take place for those schools where little
progress was perceived to have been made.
The Select Committee
was informed of a number of key overarching issues in
Surrey’s most vulnerable schools, as identified through the
risk assessment process: safeguarding;
challenges for small schools; budgetary constraints; governance;
Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and inclusion;
and inexperienced leadership. SAfE was working with the council and
Phase Councils to identify mitigating measures against all the
aforementioned issues.
To provide the Select Committee
with information regarding the education and careers support that
is available for vulnerable young people in Surrey, including the
current priorities for increasing vulnerable learners’
participation in education, employment and training.
Liz
Mills, Director – Education, Lifelong Learning and
Culture
Jane
Winterbone, Assistant Director –
Education
AnwenFoy, Head Teacher, Surrey
Virtual School
BenedicteSymcox,
Operations Lead, Family Voice Surrey
Key
points raised during the discussion:
The Head of Surrey’s Virtual School had
been in post since June 2020 and had experience as the headteacher
of Virtual Schools in a number of other local authorities. Virtual
Schools were established as champions of local authorities to
promote and track the progress and educational attainment of
children or young people who were in care to ensure they receive
the correct support, have their needs understood by teachers, and
achieve educational outcomes comparable to their peers.
Surrey’s Virtual School was fully staffed with a new team,
following the restructure, that had been assembled by the governing
board.
The Operations Lead
explained that Family Voice Surrey was a parent carer forum that
provided independent collective representation for families with
children who had any degree of special needs or disability from
0-25 years old. The organisation welcomed the council’s work
around transition into adulthood, which presented a challenging
time for families with children with additional needs. Many
families who reached out to Family Voice had children who were not
in education, employment or training (NEET), which was a
stigmatising label. One of the most commonly raised issues was
about SEND children not being able to manage a full-time working
week.
A Member asked what governance arrangements were in
place for the Virtual School. The Head Teacher stated that there
was a dedicated governing board, chaired by the Cabinet Member for
All-Age Learning, which had taken an active role in the Virtual
School’s improvement journey. The governing board had
recently discussed being reconstituted as a subgroup of the
Corporate Parenting Board.
It was noted that the cohorts least likely to
progress to post-16 education or training were those with poor or
persistent absence; those who had been excluded; those whose first
language was not English; children of young parents; and children
with illness. These cohorts needed targeted support to help their
transition into post-16 placements. Through the Participation
Strategy, officers wanted to explore how to achieve a more
impartial approach to providing guidance and advice in school
settings to children. The Head Teacher stated the importance of
understanding young people’s individual strengths and having
ongoing conversations with them to help them see themselves as a
learner post-16 with more positivity. The
Head Teacher emphasised that education stability and
minimising disruption was key, but it was difficult to find post-16
provision where young people could start mid-year.
It was
explained that the Service was working with schools and post-16
colleges to make the Maths and English core learning offer more
exciting and relevant for those who had not yet passed their Level
2 assessments in those subjects. Functional Skills became a key
element of the curriculum and provided a key step towards attaining
these Level 2 qualifications. Adult ...
view the full minutes text for item 7/21
For the Select Committee to review the
attached actions and recommendations tracker and forward work
programme, making suggestions for additions or amendments as
appropriate.
1.
The Assistant Director informed the Select Committee that they had
discussed with transport colleagues and the school in question why
some children were turned away from public transport to school in
Epsom. The Assistant Director was assured that the issue was
resolved.