Issue - meetings

The Panel are recommended to note the report and appendices.

Peter Nathan and Paul Bishop presented the report highlighting the key points.

Most of the violence reports is towards support staff. Schools carry out risk assessment on the children involved. Enfield has approximately 56,000 children with violence problems, which is relatively low.

Enfield facilitate training for schools and the schools also hold their own training.

The report states that Cllr Andrew Thorp requested information to be included in the report, however this was requested by Cllr Ruby Sampson.

Members asked what can be done to understand more about what violence is happening in schools. Officers explained that they rely on reporting from the schools which needs to improve. A newsletter was recently sent that encouraged schools to report incidents to the council. If a school is run by an academy they report voluntarily. In relation to the numbers going up in the report, this is likely due to the number of reports we receive going up.

Members requested more detail to be included with the data provided in the report. Officers recommended to do this in another year, once there is more robust data as reporting is being encouraged.

Cllr Ruby Sampson commented that the report doesn’t reflect the experiences of teachers in Enfield. Officers explained that the Council can only collect the data which the schools provide.

Following a question from Members, officers explained that the main reasons for the serious incidents reported are in relation to children with special educational needs as they can often have triggers.