Agenda item

These reports are not attached to the agenda and will be circulated ‘to follow’.

Cllr Lappage led on this item.

NOTED:

1.    Cllr Lappage had led the workstream on exclusions in the previous municipal year. At the Council meeting 1 July 2020, it was agreed all work on workstreams would end, but that items could be added to panel work programmes, as in the case of the exclusions workstream being added to this Scrutiny Panel. The thrust of this work was to make a difference and reference was made to the reflections in a prison report. Exclusions should be a catalyst for change for the positive, however exclusions are often as negative downward spiral.

2.    Cllrs Pite, Yusuf and Lappage observed a Fair Access Panel (FAP) and noted that there appeared to be a lack of consistency between schools in how they approached exclusions; different schools across the borough excluded for different things. Officers advised that schools are independent, the split of those attending FAP is 50/50 between academies and community schools of various kinds. Each school will have their own behaviour policy and operate in different ways. Headteachers and governing bodies have different views on exclusions. What is considered a very serious offence at one school may be handled in a different way at another school. The local authority works with schools to try to improve consistency and try to get into the school before a final decision is made on exclusion. The Behaviour Support Service (BSS) has alternatives to exclusions which can be used effectively before this stage is reached. It is very difficult to get consistency across schools, as schools are very different. In terms in FAP this does work well in Enfield, these meetings deal with a lot of pupils and the schools are well prepared for these meetings, there may have been discussions prior to the meeting. It is important when the children go to another school, they do not repeat the same behaviour.

3.    Concerns were expressed that it seemed that some students are moved back and forth between several schools, Clarification was requested who has responsibility for a child when they move from school to school. Members were advised that if the child is still enrolled at both schools there is joint responsibility.  The local authority has tried to put a limit on the number of managed moves to no more than two. There must be exceptional reasons to move a child to a further school. In terms of who is looking after the child there should be a relationship between both schools. At FAP there is accountability from both schools, so everyone knows exactly where a pupil is. If the move is starting to go wrong the expectation and requirement is that the home school is involved with the new school to get together with the family and the young person to try to resolve the difficulties. If home schooling is taking place at present as choosing not to be on site, the responsibility will be with the home school until they physically attend the new school. If started, then the new school will have responsibility for that young person.

4.    Following a query on moves when they will be sitting exams, it was confirmed that it is very rare to have a managed move in year 11. There will be an agreement on the responsibilities prior to the managed move starting. In year 10 it will be the new school who take responsibility.

5.    Councillor Vince expressed concern that some of the observations made during a previous workstream approximately three to four years ago and issues raised at the Vulnerable Young Peoples Group and that things do not appear to have moved forward. Specific mention was made on Governor Training where it was felt that governors did not fully understand exclusions and so extra training was requested which did not appear to have been done. Cllr Lappage advised that she did attend governor training and fed in issues and the Director of Education has feedback some changes.

6.    Cllrs Karakus, Pite Yusuf and Lappage attended Orchardside Pupil Referral Unit (PRU) and were very impressed. The Headteacher raised an issue on having no bikes, the workstream were able to facilitate speaking to the Council to access a grant for bikes which are now on site.

7.    Members were surprised to note that Ofsted have reflected some concerns about the service and officers were asked to provide an update on this. Officers advised that the last Ofsted report (13 June 2018) was prior to arrival of Celeste Fay (Headteacher) and was graded as requires improvement. It is the Headteacher’s job to turn this position around. Due to Covid there have been no inspections since April last year. If Orchardside were to be inspected, it is expected that they would now get a good rating. Once inspections return an inspection will be requested. Orchardside runs a number of programmes that are not normally run by PRU’s but cannot be expanded any further until it comes out of requires improvement grading. Members were advised that the numbers of permanent exclusions have gone down in Enfield. This creates an opportunity to do more such as potentially developing other provision, but before this can happen the Ofsted rating must improve.

8.    Following a comment on what had been learnt from the Timson Review particularly regarding Alternative Provision (AP) and PRU’s, officers advised that information on Alternative Provision has been included within the Secondary School Behaviour Service report in the agenda pack. In Enfield the local authority works closely with AP’s. The Council has bought in a company called Pivotal that works with behaviour and changing school and AP culture. Pivotal have trained all AP’s and these provisions are also quality ensured every year. In Enfield members of staff visit AP’s and ensure attending students are mentored.

9.    Post Covid - How well are we in Enfield prepared for children coming back to school and what plans are there in place to manage behaviour to avoid exclusions? Each school has carefully considered and will have their own plan, however there is sharing of practice. Schools will stagger the return period with reintroduction to schooling. Last September children and young people were pleased to return to school and the structure this provides. However, after 5 weeks some children were beginning to struggle. There will be catch up programmes in school, and in Enfield the National tutoring programme will be used. The Behaviour Support Service are aware of who is likely to have the most difficulty and will intervene with schools.as before. There will be support from the Educational Psychology Service for staff and others who will find the return difficult. There is also currently a weekly meeting with Headteachers.

10.How supported are the staff in schools? There are regular meetings, staff have been redeployed and doing trauma informed practice. BSS staff have been going into schools and doing drop ins for mental health for staff, normally this would be for students on the verge of exclusion. These were drop ins without referrals and after lockdown this will once again be in place. NEXUS is also starting their own YouTube channel to engage with young people to provide support online including speakers on mental health.

11.Whilst there is an acknowledgement that Enfield is below the national average level for exclusions for 2018-19, attention was drawn to paragraph v on page 7 of the agenda report. What work is being undertaken with these overrepresented groups (Black Caribbean heritage and Gypsy/Roma pupils? Officers advised that one of the problems with data is that groups are put together, within the groups Black Caribbean pupils are overrepresented and in the achievement data there are particular groups not doing as well as others. The Enfield Learning Experience Partnership has been set up, this has a subgroup to look at disadvantaged pupils in general and part of that is to look at Black Caribbean pupils. Mark Rowlands will be working with at least 20 schools focussing improving achievement and looking at best practice in terms of disadvantaged pupils. Also, the Director of Education has met with Orlene Badu who runs the Black Achievement project in Hackney and also works in Brent to discuss what is working well in both boroughs. Brent have set up a champions programme where each secondary school has a member of their senior leadership team who champions underachieving groups. The champions have their own support group with other schools. Orlene is going to talk to a small group of headteachers about setting something similar up in Enfield. Once champions are set up this will include looking at engagements with parents. Members asked for an assessment and a follow up report on the overrepresentation of certain communities, including Gypsy/ Roma community and young people from the Black Caribbean community.

12.What is the liaison between the police service and the education service to prevent young people being lost in the system? When the workstream looked at this there were Safer Schools vacancies the number of these have now reduced. Officers advised that from a Community Safety perspective there is a lot of joint working with BSS. The Reach project mentioned in the agenda reports is supported by the Community Safety Unit through funding from the Violence Reduction Unit at the Greater London Authority. There is also a project Sparks to Life in schools providing extra mentoring funding through MOPAC and the London Crime Prevention Fund. An update was provided on the current cohort for the Gangs Partnership Group. There are 15 young people: 1 is in Alternative Provision, 1 has been excluded from college; 2 new referrals one of these has been permanently excluded. Whilst it is not a causation it can be a factor within this group.

13.There has been commentary around the DfE bringing forward a stronger regime on behaviour, one of the unintended consequences is that children with SEN are 6 times more likely to be excluded. How is balance met between achieving good behaviour and avoiding more exclusions of children who are vulnerable? When the workstream visited the PRU the Headteacher reflected that speech and language issues was a key part of children’s behaviour deteriorating. Officers advise that in terms of speech and language this is correct. Members asked why statutory deadlines were not met. One of the issues at present is that schools cannot access provision unless an EHCP is in place. The local authority will be setting up an intervention provision costing roughly £500k from the High Needs Budget. There will also be another intervention team looking at autism. This will be long term over at least the next 5 years setting up a team to intervene with young people. This will also include training staff in schools so that they are much better prepared for working with young people. Regarding the DfE behaviour model there is concern on this that there is a suggestion to change the terminology to suspension and expulsion. This model will be consulted on at present. It was noted that a change in terminology was something that the workstream had looked at around more positive language for this.

14.Members acknowledged the successful NEXUS programme and the many other examples of good practice that the former workstream saw with excellent progress made.

15.Responding to a query on CAMHS waiting times; Nicholas Clarke the clinical lead for CAMHS advised that CAMHS is multi-faceted service consisting of different specialist teams catering for different needs, and therefore different response times. The overall performance indicator for CAMHS as a whole is a 13-week target from referral to first contact. Broadly speaking this target is consistently met, and in a typical month over 90% of referrals have a first contact within 0-6 weeks. If a young person has very urgent crisis needs, they will be seen within a working day. The area that sees the most pressures is the Generic team, which is the biggest team in the service catering for the broader range of common mental health problems. The Generic team receive the highest volume of referrals. During the course of the last year the referral patterns have been affected by Covid with dips and surges in referrals, with the Autumn term being particularly challenging with high referral numbers following school return. The challenge within the services is about having capacity to meet demand, this is a historical issue pre Covid in terms of the level of resourcing in the service and the national picture of increasing need year on year.

16.What about the whole financial support regarding the long-term consequences of Covid? In terms of broader national agenda. Over the last 8 years the demand for CAMHS has doubled. In an NHS population survey conducted in 2017 and followed up in 2020, the estimated number of children who had a probable mental health disorder rose from 1 in 8 in 2017 to 1 in 6 in 2020. The proportion of the mental health budget going to CAMHS is around 8%. Therefore, we are a long way off parity of esteem for children and young people mental health despite rising demand. In a local context, the productivity of the service, waiting times, rates of accepted referrals etc the performance is very good according to national benchmarking. In terms of staffing in Enfield our workforce numbers are in the bottom 25% according to the benchmarking. There have been a lot of changes over the last year, health commissioning has moved to a sector wide commission group covering North Central London. This group will be looking at equity of resources relative to populations and this is a stated aim across the sector.

Cllr Lappage then thanked all the officers, members and colleagues for the NHS for their work on this and recognised the good practice future work on this topic should include the following:

·         Overrepresented Groups

o   The Director of Education indicated that further work was taking place to fully understand and to correct any exclusions with regards to overrepresentation in certain communities. Members asked for a report on the findings and progress of this.

·         Fair Access Panel

o   Members recognise that schools have their own policies and a number of schools are academies, however work should to continue on find a better process to manage for pupils between schools with particular reference to establishing common practise across the borough. All schools should exclude for the same reasons across the borough.

·         Governor training

o    Governor training on Exclusion needs to be looked at and needs to take place in smaller groups in order that governors are able to better understand the complex legislation and the local process with case studies available, and there also needs to be more support available for parents and pupils throughout the process.

·         CAMHS

o    The 13-week timeline for referrals still seems excessive and members would like a report on any possibility of managing that down. Members would also like further information on what lies ahead and the planning for the inevitable future increase in referrals. A request was also made by members for more information on better funding for this service.

·         Speech and Language Therapy

o    The Panel recognised that the waiting lists for this are too long and given that this is a key trigger for exclusions, wants an update on this. The update should address the service not meeting its statutory six-week advice submission and when that is likely to change.

·         Post Covid 19

o   The Panel would like to see an action plan for the growth of mental health issues affecting young people that are arising as a result of the pandemic both for the present and post-Covid-19.

Members recognised that the events of the last months will have an enormous impact on young people's lives and may result in difficult to manage behaviour at school. The Panel should like to see all the other updated plans for managing behaviour in schools post-Covid-19.