Transcript

that the first item on your agenda is appointment of chair. This is just for the committee to note that at the annual council meeting it was determined that the Labour group would chair this meeting and the committee is advised that Councillor Theresa Carvery is the chair of the committee for the municipal year. So I'd now hand over to Councillor Theresa Carvery. Thank you. Thank you very much for that Kerry. As Kerry said I'm going to be chairing today's meeting and it is a pleasure. I'm also joined by Kerry Shotton and Sharon Thomas who are going to facilitate our meeting and we're also today joined by a number of other officers who'll be presenting us with reports during the meeting. My thanks in advance for your hard work. May I now remind you that all phones should be switched off and background noise kept to a minimum especially if you want to hear me. All microphones should be muted until you're invited to speak by myself and then return to mute once you've spoken. If you wish to speak please indicate to do so by raising your hand if you're here in the room or by raising by using the raised hand function if you're online. Without further ado I'm actually going to move to agenda item two which is the appointment of the vice chair. Do we have a nomination please for the appointment of vice chair? Thank you. Councillor Mckeown. Could I nominate? Could I propose Councillor Caroline Priest please? Could I second that? All those in favour please raise your hand. Okay. Thank you very much. That's Kerry chair. Thank you. Moving on to agenda item three. Apologies. We haven't received any apologies chair. Oh sorry chief officer. Chair we have last minute apologies from Vicky Barlow, senior manager for school improvement. I'm afraid she's unwell. Thank you. Moving on to agenda item four. Do we have any declarations of interest including whipping declarations? And I understand that we have two today. Yeah I'm a governor of St David's. Item 10 chair, Salton and Broughton school network review. I've been advised by Gareth I can speak on the item before leaving the room. When we get to that part there I'll go into the part two and then you may leave if that's okay with you. My god I'm having control. Okay so we're going to move on to the minutes of the last meeting which are found on pages five to fourteen in your notes. So we'll go through for accuracy and then we'll go through if you'd like to make any comments. So page five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve and thirteen. Would anybody like to comment on any aspect? Thank you very much. All those in favour please raise your hand. Thank you. Thank you chair. Members will see the current forward work program shown on page 19 of the agenda. I was going to add in the future meeting dates from September but members will be aware during the AGM there were some suggested changes to the schedule of meetings specifically around where there are two meetings in the same day. So I know that a revised schedule of meetings is being shared with group leaders so once that has been approved then I will add in the future meeting dates. Members will also be aware that we've got a special meeting scheduled for next Tuesday on the future options leisure libraries and museum services and whilst it is under the remit of this committee again all members have been invited to participate in that discussion. The next meeting following that is the joint meeting the annual joint meeting that we have with the social and health overview committee and members you'll see the items listed there. Moving on to the actions arising from the last meeting. I have spoken to Steve Jones around adding an item on the forward work program. This will be done when we've got the future meeting dates. We will have that in but I've spoken to him about the report coming forward. You can see there that the majority of the actions are completed and I have received an email from the chief officer around progressing the suggestion from the leader about members being invited to the food and fun program so that will be taken forward following the meeting. Thank you chair. Thank you Kerry. Okay do we have any questions? Councillor Mackay please. Thank you chair. I hope I'm not jumping the gun. I wanted to suggest a possible addition to the forward work program. Is that the correct point? It's all to do with the redundancy payment. I'd like to ask if it's possible to tell us why the redundancy payments that previously were carried by the county have now been passed to the schools. I would like to ask if it's possible for that to include some information on the rules regarding teacher resignations and whether or not we we met that time scale in in the light of the announcement which I think was the one at the meeting at Hardin High School and in fact perhaps even going further than that and perhaps looking at whether or not the setting of the county council budget could be better timed to actually allow some more flexibility for schools. This is clearly a major and significant issue for schools. It's clearly causing a great deal of difficulty. I know that myself from my own commitment and I'm sure other people know that schools are finding that they are suddenly faced with a considerable in some cases considerable sums of money that they have to find and this is a great difficulty and I think a report to this committee is called for. So that's one proposal. If you want to deal with that I'd like to come back again. Okay um I think it's in order to add that to our that's all right with you obviously it's members committee and officers are here to serve their members so so we'll put that onto the forward work program sorry we'll put it onto the forward work program but I think we should allow time for it um an art you know and a gender item to be collated etc because obviously so yeah I wasn't putting a timetable on it at all as appropriate because it's happened anyway um but I just thought those were all interesting issues that we we should think about uh that was all. Councillor Mackay would it it might be helpful if you could perhaps drop us an email then because you you mentioned a number of things there you would like the report to consider which may not solely be the remit of this particular committee when you were talking about the council budget setting process as a whole so perhaps if you could be quite specific in your email then obviously I can share that with other um officers and we can identify the most appropriate route to bring you that information back obviously we do bring you a report at the beginning of the academic year don't we on school balances and I think we've already committed to provide you with an update some further information as part of that reporting around the level of workforce restructuring in our schools so I'm guessing that might be a perhaps a natural fit into that report because obviously the I don't want to get into the detail now but obviously the the processes in terms of the cessation of teacher contracts the end date for those if the redundancy processes have been worked through would be the 31st of August so we would be in a position to provide members with obviously a very clear position statement as at the 31st of August by the time we get to that September report if that's helpful thank you thank thank you um you had another point as I'm not uh of a teaching background I don't really understand the the rules relating to teachers leaving dates and so on I know they're there um and and I would like to expand my own knowledge a little sorry the the second point I'd like to make is in relation to the current cuts I'm more than well aware that the the work that our staff are having to undertake both in county hall and in schools is enormous in relation to the cuts and and their efforts to try and create budgets which are going to be relevant now I know we do look after our staff but I wondered if the committee felt that perhaps a report on the efforts that we're making and specifically because of the issues this year might be appropriate I leave it in your hands I think it might be good for the whole committee to have an understanding a full understanding of that process so I'd be happy for that to be added to the work program as well if you wish sorry can I just clarify again then Councillor Mackey so I when we write the report obviously we're very clear about your expectations so I suppose it's linked to the previous report that you've suggested you're seeking assurance around the mechanisms for supporting schools through the budgetary challenges that they are facing the human resource processes that they are having to go through is that what you're seeking as an assurance in terms of of yes I can give I can give the committee that assurance absolutely now but I'm more yes I'm you know we're more than happy to bring a short report to committee that outlines all the support that schools receive through the various departments within the council in terms of these processes around finance human resources support for teacher head teacher well-being which obviously is not the sole responsibility of the education portfolio obviously you know governors as well will be providing some of that support but yeah more than happy to put a short report together around that Councillor Parkhurst please yeah thank you chair there are two items that I'd like to suggest for consideration for the forward work program the first is particularly with a general election having just been called to assess the potential impact of vat being applied to private school fees including special needs so how that would affect this this council if there was for example an influx of children who previously went to private schools who perhaps had special needs who then come into the public sector and my second suggestion is to have a review of the financial controls in the education portfolio I was particularly concerned during the governance Nordic committee to see that one person had had a credit card bill of 138 000 pounds over several years which had apparently evaded the controls that the council presumably has in place to spot this sort of thing so that suggests to me that in the further scrutiny is needed on that aspect and then just finally in terms of the actions on page 26 there is reference to the emergency planning arrangements being circulated to members of the committee following the school closures and I can't recall if those papers have been circulated so if they haven't when might they be so please thank you can I thank Councillor Parkers for his suggestions um I'm not really understanding your question around the the purpose of the report around potential changes and influxes of pupils with additional learning needs can you just clarify that are you asking what capacity do we have to I mean because it's a bit hypothetical really so I'm not quite sure how we would address that in the report can I can you try and help me understand more specifically what it is you're seeking insurances on yes it if if if BAT is applied to private school fees then there could be additional children leaving the private sector and coming back into the state sector and there are many such children who have special needs who are in the private sector whose parents or guardians may not be able to afford additional fees so then this would then come back in into the state sector and possibly put extra strain on education budgets so thank you I understand your question sorry it's it's not it's not a current risk it is a potential risk so that you're seeking assurance have we got have we got sufficient information to put down a report Jeanette or can we possibly give Councillor Parker's a short answer there while we go away and think about that one yeah I'm not sure how we would answer the question because we don't know which children are in private education which flincher children are in private education and who then would be coming back into the system we obviously know those who we've placed in independent specialist provision of our own and our own doing but from a county-wide perspective we wouldn't know a piece of work that we are doing I think this is probably related to what you're talking about is we are obviously looking at our capacity at the moment as a local authority and drawing up proposals about what we think that needs to be given the challenges we've got around making specialist provision for children that we know of now so if there was an influx to us as an authority then there would be an additional strain on the provision that is already full in flincher but we're we're building a plan to to identify that and I think the other piece of work that we are doing with our schools and particularly in the primary sector is trying to get a better understanding of the costs of additional learning needs within that sector at the moment because we hear quite regularly and from our head teachers the pressures that children with additional learning needs meeting their needs in our school system is having on schools and I think it probably relates to your points as well Councillor Mackey in terms of funding for schools. So we're doing that piece of work to try and get a better understanding of the pressures that they feel under at the moment with regards to the needs that they currently know and are looking to meet so we could bring something in relation to that and that would give you an overview of where we are as a council but I'm not sure how we would then feed into any probabilities in terms of what you're suggesting where parents may feel that they can no longer sustain private education for their children. Would that idea or report that we've suggested would that be helpful? I think that's an excellent idea. When do you think that report might be completed? We're doing the work at the moment in terms of the specialist educational capacity and it's linked into work that Jenny Williams is doing around the school modernisation programme so that will be going through council processes soon. We're trying to complete that by the end of this academic year and then similarly we've asked the head teachers to collate information by the end of the academic year for us to review in the summer holidays so certainly going into the autumn term after that then we should have some more information that we can bring to the committee, if that would be helpful. I'd like to ask that that report be brought to us in the autumn term if that's in agreement, if you're in agreement council Bargurst. Yes thank you chair it's a matter of understanding the risk to the council in terms of additional you know financial burden particularly at a time when we know that budgets are you know stretched to them to the limit and you know have it you know having a contingency you know plan in place you know should that risk materialise. Thank you. You know as members will know one of the methods in which we meet highly specialised needs is through the use of what we refer to as out of county provision and this is something we have shared with members before through a workshop but not in this current administration so actually we have been arranging with our democratic services colleagues to hopefully put a workshop schedule in for members in the autumn term that would include an overview of outer county provision as well which again would support this discussion wouldn't it in terms of how we manage that provision. Thank you. Yes thank you. I can appreciate why Councillor Parkhurst may want this on and I appreciate there could be implications but presumably next week as manifestos are published for all the political parties we could go through them all and look at the commitments that are down there for all of them and we could end up with reports for all of them so can I respectfully suggest to Councillor Parkhurst that we should wait until we know the election results and then consider I'm sure officers have heard what you said today and I'm sure they will be preparing for any eventuality but there may be clear commitments in other parties budgets which may have implications and may need costings and can I ask chair as well that obviously given the terms of reference of this committee the credit cards being examined by this committee should only be those used by officers within this directorate because otherwise I think the committee might exceed its terms of reference. Thank you. Sorry just on the question around the information on emergency planning no that hasn't but I will chase that up to get that circulated to members. Thank you. Do we have any more questions please? Okay so we have three recommendations and we're going to ask Councillor Mackay's to the forward vote program please so they'll be picked up as an action and the report from Jeanette's team will also be picked up as an action so may I have somebody to propose the recommendations please I'm not going to read them out thank you and some people move on block yeah all those in favour please moving on to agenda item seven changes to school improvement the delivery models in wales this is going to be led by our chief office of education Claire Homard and it's on pages 29 to 38 in your report over to you Claire. Thank you chair so today's report is to provide members with an update on changes to school improvement delivery models in wales following the decision made by the Welsh government to review its funding mechanisms for school improvement activity and this was linked to what is generally referred to as the middle tier review that was commissioned by the previous minister for education in the Welsh language Jeremy Miles so the report outlined to you the approach that was taken with regards to that review and some of the early findings from that review which obviously informed Welsh government's decision then in terms of changes to the to the grant funding structure effectively diverting funding that had been previously provided to the regional educational consortium back to the local authority and directly to schools so as the report outlines this is going to create quite a change in the way that school improvement services are delivered going forward however the timing of the announcement from Welsh government in its draft budget in December literally just before Christmas meant that obviously you know implementation was going to take some time so the minister requested that the sort of financial current financial year really was viewed as a period of transition and that local authorities should continue to work effectively with their regional services and should passport back you know elements of that funding to enable the regional consortium to continue to undertake their roles not to destabilize the school improvement landscape and obviously the offer for schools so that was the sort of the short term request from the minister and obviously we have a longer term objective then to develop new models of school improvement based on the outcomes of that little tier review so hopefully members have found a report helpful I've outlined obviously the the purposes of the review set up by Welsh government in section 101 of the report I'm not intending to read those through so that that work was undertaken during the autumn term of 2023 and the initial findings of that review were were given to the minister who obviously then made that decision to change the funding mechanisms so that indicated a significant change really in the way that the financial fund the funding actually was was transported as I've outlined there and in section 103 you can see the total amount of funding that the new local authority education grants comprises of and Welsh government have structured that into four particular pillars school standards equity reform and comrades and there in 103 you can see sort of the broad areas but that come under each of those pillars so from a Flintshire perspective you know we have had to be working at pace to manage this change and as we have always done we have maintained an effective working relationship with our colleagues in Guare and I think members you will understand that this this sudden change of policy from Welsh government has caused a great deal of consternation and anxiety for our colleagues working within the regional school improvement service you know there was very little you know advanced notification you know there was a public announcement and obviously that has caused anxiety and uncertainty as as colleagues in the service wonder what the future will hold so the priority of the six chief officers on the Guare senior management team in the in the short term was obviously to to manage that anxiety and to stabilize the situation and give colleagues in Guare the assurance that you know certainly for the year ahead our aim was to try and maintain as much of an approach as business as usual. Here in Flintshire we have been true to the minister's request that we should passport back under the four headings outlined in 106 of the report elements of that grant funding back to the regional consortia so that they could continue to deliver the excellent support that they provide for our schools so I can confirm that that we have passported that funding back in full as per the minister's direction and it's also just worth remind reminding members as well that the regional service does receive a proportion of funding directly from the council through the inter-authority agreement between the six local authorities and Guare and that detail is outlined at 107 in the report and members will be aware through the financial discussions that we had around setting the budget but for this financial year the contribution to Guare was reduced by 10 percent as part of our efficiency measures. Not all local authorities have followed the direction of the minister and I'm not making any judgment about that that is an individual decision for each local authority. So effectively what that means is that we now no longer work on the basis of a regional business plan because not every local authority has put all elements of the funding in. So for this financial year what we have now moved to is a position of each local authority having an individually commissioned plan based on the level of funding and going back into the regional service and so that is what we have been doing. We felt it was really important though as the six chief officers to recognize that there were some elements of the regional service delivery model that technically are funded through the inter-authority arrangement from all six authorities that needed to be protected and this was particularly important around the role of the role of the core lead officers within Guare and those of you that support our school performance management processes will be familiar with our two colleagues one for primary and one for secondary you know and they are our very effective link between the Guare school improvement advisors who are out in schools you know they are undertaking that function on our behalf and then the information is fed through those two core leads and we felt it was absolutely vital that that those positions were maintained to ensure that continuity of information coming through to local authority officers so just for your information the sort of the core functions of the core leads are outlined there at 109 in the report. Another area that again all six local authorities were very clear on is that we had a continued our very effective regional approach to schools causing concern and this is something again that we felt needed to be protected so through the contribution of the core funding again we have been able to protect that support. I'm pleased to say in Flintshire we actually do not have we have hardly any schools in the statutory category of concern but we and that I believe is in part because we have a very successful graduated model of early identification and early intervention to hopefully prevent schools you know getting into that situation so it was really important for us that we were able to protect that approach and again that has been secured as part of the funding model. It's quite complicated trying to get into discussion about days and hours of time but this is effectively how the regional service you know allocates its resources so in 111 of the report again you can see there that the funding from you know that goes into where provides the equivalent of 4.43 days of officer time yes I know Councillor Mackey it's yes it's an interesting calculation isn't it but basic but basically this is the sort of the core of the improvements activity that the school improvement advisors undertake so we've always had a model where every school would have you know a minimum of one visit per term for the school improvement advisor to work with the head teacher and the senior leadership team you know identifying the school's priorities you know supporting you know their self-evaluation activities then feeding that into their school improvement priorities and of course and that is the core driver for school improvement isn't it so that work is really important and needs to be protected so those three termly visits have been protected plus an additional one day for sort of that major evaluation process and identification of priorities for the following year and the 0.43 actually is going to be continued to be used to support the head teacher performance management process that is a statutory requirement that head teachers undertake a with with with members of their governing body a performance management process it has always been supported by the where supporting improvement advisor as because obviously they know the school well so that is effectively an afternoon to undertake that performance management process so that's sort of the core support for schools and apologies members if I'm sort of I'm picking up quite a bit from the report but I think it's quite a complex matter and obviously a significant change for us so then we get into then one of the differing levels of contributions from the local authorities and how then does that translate into support for individual local authorities so as I've said because we have passported the greatest proportion of the sort of those grant elements back to where we are getting the maximum time back for our schools in Flintshire and again we felt that was really really important to maintain the quality of support and you know the work that our schools are doing to continuously improve standards for learners so that is the equivalent of an additional 4.3 days per school and flincher and then there is a menu of activities then that schools can you know identify what would be best suited to their needs you know and how they wish to prioritize that time you know to support their school improvement priorities so sort of sections 113 and 114 of the report you know give you an overview of the kinds of support that schools would be able to draw down in terms of their improvement priorities and just to say as well that you know the support for our specialist schools and our pupil referral unit of school plus Darwin again you know that they will have the same amount of support but of course that will be very individually commissioned based on their particular needs. I think what I really want to emphasize is that it was critical for us that our schools perceived no visible difference in the support that they were getting. They value the support that they receive and actually every school in Flintshire regardless of its performance has a support plan you know from the local authority and the regional service to support their improvement priorities and obviously those plans run for the academic year so while this change has been affected from the beginning of the financial year obviously school support plans were in place with support identified to be delivered during this summer term so for us we felt it was absolutely vital that that support continued to be delivered so effectively what we did was we worked out how many days of the time you know that already equated to in terms of those support plans removed that from the allocation and protected that you know to ensure that business as usual and then we have a remaining number of days to be allocated across the autumn and spring term days allocated for the financial year so we have had really constructive discussions with our head teachers through the primary and secondary federations and we have communicated our rationale to all of our schools and head teachers seem to be happy with that proposal so as you can see there in 1.17 we have worked on principles really in terms of how we would then allocate these additional days to support our schools and they are outlined for you there I think it is absolutely vital that we retain some days in reserve as a contingency you know we obviously continue through the inspection cycle we hope they are all positive but obviously things can change in school at quite short notice it was important that we had some days to be able to use to support that and also to identify perhaps where there may be some emerging themes and priorities within the local authority that again collectively we would say actually you know this issue is cropping up in a lot of schools we can dedicate some of the support time around that I think it's also worth noting that schools themselves through this funding model have actually received more funding from Welsh Government and they've received that directly based on a formula determined by Welsh Government so schools themselves have had some funding to support you know their professional learning plans as well so we are in the process now of finalizing the local authority commissioned report there's just a few more little bits and pieces to go in that and then that report will be signed off by myself as the chief officer by the cabinet member and the senior team and you know and will be available for all it you know it is a public document so that's been our priority really over the last few months is to to manage this transition to put in place a model that will support us for the following financial year and minimize the disruption to school but obviously the outcome of the middle tier review is indicating you know a change of direction then longer term in how local authorities will deliver school improvement services there will not be a large regional consortia approach minister was very clear that local authorities cannot deliver this function on their own and there was an expectation that we will work in partnership that might be with one neighboring local authority but they're you know I'm a firm believer of not throwing out the baby with the bathwater and there are some elements of our regional provision that has been very effective and it's and it's cost effective in some areas isn't it to work together so we will be you know we are having lots of informal discussions you know as chief officers across the region about you know how sort of future plans may emerge so the Welsh government are obviously keen that we work through this at pace our colleagues in Guare to be fair want us to work through this at pace because whatever the future models look like that will potentially give some certainty to their employees if there are vacancies then that will be created within local authority teams but obviously Guare colleagues you know would be in a position to apply for so I think you know we're all we're all very sensitive to that but you know that is a technical process as well in terms of human resource management you know I don't really want to get into details of cheapy because I'm not an expert but obviously you know that there are cheaply implications here referrals within local authorities are similar so those roles currently have been undertaken within the regional consortia so we are at the early stages of developing our thinking around what a new model will look like we have committed to continue engagement with our head teachers and we are pulling a working group together that will start meeting after half term where together we will shape what we believe need to be the facets of a really effective school improvement service as I say taking the best of what has worked well so far making changes you know where we feel appropriate and then that will also then lead into the discussions with other neighbouring authorities about where we may effectively pool our resources so the initial time scale from Welsh government was very very rigorous they wanted us really you know by the end of the month to be able to say who we're going to be working with and in in what way and collectively through our discussions as the directors network with the new new cabinet secretary for education Lynn Neagle and Welsh government officials we are being very clear that actually whilst we appreciate the political imperative and we again appreciate the need for colleagues in regional consortia to have some certainty this is a major piece of change management it is absolutely critical that we get it right so we don't want to rush it so we are asking for some greater flexibility from Welsh government and we have been assured that the cabinet secretary is listening to our request for a little bit more time because of course you know we need to develop those proposals we need to think them and of course and then we need to bring them through the political approval process as well so there is a there is a lot of work to be done but I can assure you all officers of the portfolio obviously are committed to developing a new model going forward that you know focuses on the needs of all of our learners you know for us that is absolutely critical we spend a long time don't we talking about our pupils that have quite specific additional learning needs who you know who are not always necessarily within you know our mainstream provision it's absolutely vital that every learner is being supported to achieve their potential so I'm sorry that's a long introduction to the report but I'm appreciating it is a quite a quite a complex change that we're managing at the moment so I'm hoping members have found that helpful thank you chair thank you Claire I've certainly I've certainly found it very helpful you took us through that report I understand councillor Mackenzie you have a question thank you chair um I'd just like to give a bit of history first if you don't mind I've seen Guare from its in from its start to its finish because I can remember Nigel Steele Mortimer talking to members it must be 12 years ago I guess about this wonderful new school improvement service that there's going that we had to do that Welsh government were insisting upon it and how it was going to make a huge difference to the way school improvement was dealt with and everything he said didn't happen and you all know that I have great the gravest concerns about that there hasn't been any school improvement you may disagree with me but it seems that the Welsh minister doesn't um and now the plug's been pulled um I think that in itself the way the plug has been pulled has is abominable to put any organization into the situation when you basically tell them in December that their funding for next year has gone and they are begging more or less for their funding to be returned to them having had it sent somewhere else I just think is it shows a complete lack of respect and a complete lack of thought for the individuals concerned I think the county council has to be given some degree of praise certainly because they have in fact stepped up to the plate and I think I've left all my notes behind this is from memory I think about 1.7 million pounds is that correct 800,000 and money that has been ported to us from Welsh government I think about 1.7 million is being paid over to them if I've done my sums correctly and my memory's correct um and that seems a great deal of money for for the number of days we're getting back but I won't go into that because all all the workings out I didn't they're on my desk at home so we won't go into that I would like to ask if there is any money left over at the end of the year could we have it back because it is a lot of money for what I reckon is about seven days work seven days people's work a year so but I won't go into that because I haven't got the the facts um yes we're going for a new scheme um and there are some incredibly competent experienced people who work for glare glare I've got to say that some individuals who will be irreplaceable if we don't manage to take them on board in my view in my view um but I'm not sorry to see it go because quite frankly I have never been personally convinced in fact I've been convinced the other way I have been convinced that they have not done what they are supposed to have done which was improve school performance thank you councillor maki councillor parkers please yeah yeah thank you chair um councillor maki is very um generous um and whilst he doesn't want to discuss the uh amount of you know money involved I would like to probe a little further because I want to understand some of these figures um 1.7 million has been has been mentioned as a figure that we as a council have paid where this year I'd make it 1.759 million yes sorry I agree um for that reading this report if I understand correctly we get we get 672 days um for the school support we get 124 days of of of where time for the where schools need improvement and we get 43 and a half days of support for the core leads which amounts to 839 days which equals 2 000 pounds per day so I just wonder how many extra teachers we could afford for 2 000 pounds a day and picking up councillor maki's point of has square done its job if we had these additional teachers who would cost a lot less than 2 000 pounds a day I would I would imagine you know how much you know better would our schools be uh so my first point is about value for money and how we achieve that in the future my my second point is um chief officer mentioned that different local authorities have done different things or some have returned some of the money or some have done different things I would like to know what those other measures that we have taken are and why we decided to give all the money away when on the face of it is costing an arm arm and a leg but what could be done a lot cheaper and possibly a lot better by other means thank you councillor parkhurst and thank you councillor maki I am not in a position to discuss the rationale for other local authorities decisions about their um passporting of the funding back to grey um obviously that's not for me to say um I think it's probably worth noting that whilst obviously the report describes the direct um individual days support for schools guerre officers are involved in other activities as well which from which flint to schools benefit in terms of the delivery of a wide offer professional learning offer um so whilst yes you know obviously that's the number of direct days delivery schools have access to a professional learning offer that their staff can access and guerre officers uh time is also involved in the delivery of that we have um a lot of you if you look at the guerre bulletin you will see there is a significant amount of professional activity being offered and we also have guerre officers supporting the national leadership program delivery which has been very successful which allows staff to access support at every stage of their journey from a newly qualified teacher through to um you know moving into middle leadership senior leadership head teacher positions and executive headship beyond that so the report possibly doesn't reflect the whole of the workload that guerre officers are involved in for the purpose of the report I focused on the model in terms of the direct delivery into into flinches schools and how the allocation of time and days has been calculated I have to say I you know I it's disheartening in some ways to hear comments that you believe that there has not been a positive impact on school standards as the chief officer I wouldn't necessarily I don't know I wouldn't agree with that you know if you look at our estin profile of our school performance that is an incredibly positive profile and you know the work that our guerre colleagues undertake on behalf of the local authority in supporting all of our schools um you know to deliver um you know quality provision for their children I think is reflected in you know in the outcome of the incredibly positive reports that we are receiving from estin um you know I have positive conversations with our head teachers about the support that they receive from their school improvement advisor and then from the specific subject support teams within the guerre consortium that then come in and help them with their school improvement priorities so you're not describing something that I see as the chief officer Councillor Parker's please yeah thank you just very briefly I think any school teacher would probably say that the best way to improve school standards and educational results is to have more teachers in schools um and whilst there will always be a need for an overarching system to address you know special you know situations um I'm just staggered at the amount of money that the council has spent on this um and I think we need to look very carefully how we you know deal with this in the future um Councillor Eastwood please uh can I just say that having visited schools um I get really positive comments from teachers in relation to the support that they get from guerre because they bring in templates they've been organizing collaboration with schools and they've also been given that overreaching view of how to cascade especially like the new curriculum they have given that bespoke service to schools that they cannot find internally or from other schools so we do need that independent person coming in with that overview and I think we do add value to our school improvement thank you um Claire please for my recollection it's a while since I've looked at it there is clear educational research but the number of teachers does not necessarily improve the quality of education there's a lot of work done around the pupil teacher ratio and the what the evidence points to it is about the quality of the teaching not the numbers of the teachers so I'm not I'm not sure that I fully support that argument I think again members need to remember that the local authority he has had to work at the direction of Welsh governments Welsh government made the decision to establish regional consortia way back in 2012 2013 uh you know so we we we we transitioned into that new model and I think it you know I wasn't chief officer at the time um I was a member of the junior member of the school improvement service at the time and the service itself and I think when we've had you know the managing director here and other colleagues from guare when they've done their annual reports to scrutiny I think there has been a recognition that the service has evolved and developed over time okay and you know and our head teachers have had very constructive discussions as part of that development over time and you know help help to shape the service you know to where we are today again we are in the position where a decision has been made to change the delivery mechanism for school improvement services in Wales and as a council we have to work to that change of direction and our professional view as officers was within the service was that the most important thing that we could do particularly for this next 12 months was to ensure ongoing stability and continuity for our schools in the support that they were receiving from the regional school improvement partners and as I said I believe that support to be effective but as I said that's reflected in the performance of our schools and for those of you that do participate in our school performance monitoring meetings where you are seeing directly the impact of that support from guare particularly in those schools where they are facing more challenges you know many members sitting around this table have commented on the constructive nature of that support and the positive impact it has been having in those schools so I think it's really important to reflect that you know we are all having to manage a significant change here in the direction of school improvement services and the most important thing from our perspective as a portfolio was to protect the offer to the learner and to our schools. We could not create a school improvement service in eight weeks so we really, Councillor Park has did not have a great deal of choice in terms of passporting the funding back to guare from a timescales perspective but actually we believe that the support that our schools have been receiving has you know has been effective and the most important thing was to was to ensure that continuity and give us that time then to develop a new model of school improvement services beyond March 2025. If I could just reiterate as well I've not long been out of the classroom but guare have certainly driven up standards of learning for our children but not only that they're there to support our governors as well and some of our governors have found them to be a great support in carrying out their function and supporting the entirety of the school so they have played a significant part in that. Thank you chair. I just wanted to say how I thought how professional, how critical friend is what all the heads call guare when they come in they come in they support etc. I've actively seen this taking place as a governor but I've also been part of the school's performance monitoring group and over the last year and a half I've seen it in action and the actual high school heads how they have benefited from the knowledge and the background and the skills of the members and officers of guare and how they have enriched and taken those schools on a journey and it has taken them through from a lower level and Claire wouldn't mind me saying that to a very higher level in a very short space of time and we wouldn't be in the situation we are now without that support and if you've got somebody who's a critical friend it means that they've got no affiliation to anybody inside the school they can be there and they can be the support measure but they've also got the knowledge to give that extra bit of support as well so I find them and they have maintained throughout this process because they knew all this was going on they've maintained their professionalism they have been such high quality it's unbelievable and when all this stress etc have been going on they've maintained that and I want to commend the team Claire's team for actually putting all this together that is an achievement in itself so well done Claire and your team that is phenomenal what you've put together there and yes the links need still to be there yes it needs to carry on and it is really good in preparation from Esten Inspection don't forget we've got a new curriculum we've got the new curriculum so yes they've all needed that support within there so yes and I totally agree with you Claire so yeah thank you very much. Thank you. Councillor Roberts please. Yes thank you Chair. Gui and before Gui arrived what was there before Gui arrived? Who remembers curriculum support services CSS? Oh yes I can see Claire nodding yes a combination of services and I have to say as someone who was in schools at the time schools were struggling there wasn't enough resource for CSS might have been resource for specific subjects now you know I've had my words to say to Gui in fact the first meeting I ever went to I asked them for Claire will remember this I asked them about the reserves they were holding and said I thought we could do a lot better with our share of the reserves than they could they made sure they haven't had a risk or massive reserve after that but the advice I got when I was in school as a head teacher from Gui was absolutely invaluable a head teacher came in spoke to you looked through your plans looked through plans you had to develop the school gave you advice and gave you pointers on where they felt it could be improved and so on so I fully agree with the comments of Councillor Briggs actually you know I do think Gui has been a positive force and you know Claire and her fellow officers have a considerable amount of work to do now let's make no mistake on this at trying to weave and develop in effect a new service because that's what's being asked for now where did the pressure came come from for this well a lot of the pressure for this came from the education sector itself who wanted this what they called the middle tier reviewed and the minister responded and actually did that and I would say to Councillor Mackay I believe I know the data that Councillor Mackay is referring to and I believe it's a set of data that showed where flinches position was at one time as first or second wales I had a feeling it was that set of data and yes but as council priest said the landscape has changed so dramatically since then the five a to c to judge the whole of the education system within a county on five a to c's and let's also remember at that time we had what I would now look back on as almost the iniquitous standard assessment tests right at key stage one seven-year-olds being prepared for examinations and sitting down and you could read the word to them so you couldn't explain it so I could read what is the product of six and seven but they didn't understand what the product was and as a teacher not being able to explain that to the children is extremely difficult now do I believe that getting rid of that system based on tests was right at that point yes I do and do I believe as a teacher that schools are accountable and have to do the best for the young people in them yes I do but we also need to remember and we've talked about finance today but of course we haven't talked about the covid legacy and the covid legacy in our schools is massive and it's not a positive legacy the reason these officers are facing an increase in special needs and so on is partly down to the covid legacy when the youngest of our children because that's the focus was never on them it was always on the 16 year olds taking examinations but the the real loss was with the very very young children taking those first steps in education and I know personally that they're still trying to catch up with that and I do genuinely believe that schools in 12 13 years time will be saying that was the generation that missed nursery or reception because of covid so it's a very different landscape and I think now we need to work together to establish something new something appropriate with head teachers with unions to establish something new which will work for whoever we end up pairing up with Claire and I it's interesting to note that Claire says local authorities must work together because I do seem to remember back to CSS days that there were certain local authorities who wanted to do their own thing and didn't want to work with anyone. Thank you for that. Councillor Bill Crease please. Thank you chair and please accept my apologies if I disappear off into the ether but my connection is not growing. I find myself in the position where I agree in principle with what the chief officer said, the cabinet member said, the leader said and indeed what Councillor Parkhurst said but the reality is from my perspective that I do not believe pupils in Wales are any less able than pupils in England or Scotland or Northern Ireland and I certainly don't believe teachers are any less able in Wales than they are in England, Scotland or Ireland but we do have this persistent differential between some people consider an invidious method of measurement but it's consistent and consistently shows Welsh pupils are not making the progress in education that English pupils, Irish or Scottish pupils are making and that's my concern. We can look at what Gueyr has done, we can look at what the portfolio has done but until we face up to the fact there does appear to be a systemic structural difference between what's happening in Wales and what's happening elsewhere and unless we face up to that and square up to it and as practitioners and as councillors and scrutineers accept that that is the case can we start challenging that and changing that. I genuinely do not believe pupils in Wales are any less able, I don't believe teachers in Wales are any less capable. There has to be in my opinion something within the system, within the structure that is causing this disparity and we must tackle it, we must face up to it and we must somehow find a resolution. Thank you, thank you Councillor Crees. Yeah thank you Councillor Crees and I don't disagree with a word of what you've said, absolutely not. I mean the evidence is there isn't it clearly in terms of the things like the PISA outcomes and some you know interesting reports undertaken by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, it is there in black and white. Perhaps what I could reassure you Councillor Crees is that I know because members will know that I am currently the chair of the Association of Directors of Education in Wales so I have to have the privilege to be involved in national discussions. So my conversations you know with Welsh Government officials you know and with the new cabinet secretary who we met a few weeks ago, Welsh Government absolutely acknowledged that this is an issue that they need to tackle. I believe they considered the middle tier review to be you know part of the journey towards addressing those issues and in our regular meetings with Welsh Government officials this is very much the topic of conversation actually and we as directors have been pushing Welsh Government to be more specific particularly around their role as the national government in terms of having clearer priorities and perhaps a fewer number of priorities for the education system to be focusing on. I think you know we would all recognise haven't we that you know over the last few years there have been a plethora of new initiatives, additional learning needs reform, major curriculum reform, many you know lots of new initiatives coming down the pipe all the time that we as school improvement services have to keep picking up you know and obviously trying to manage so I am reassured by the conversations that are being had at a national level at the moment. There is an acknowledgement that actually we need to narrow the focus on the core challenges that we are facing across the system in terms of you know core skills of literacy and numeracy in particular, pupil well-being, how that impacts on pupil behaviour, how that then impacts on attendance and all those other conversations that we will be having through the meeting today with other reports that you have been presented so yes there is that work Councillor Crease is underway because yes it needs to be addressed and so collectively we are you know trying to move that conversation forward at pace at a national level if that provides you any reassurance. Thank you yes. Thank you have I got any other questions please okay we've got two recommendations the first is to confirm that you've received sufficient information about the changes and the second one is to acknowledge that there is a significant amount of change management to be undertaken so could I have somebody propose the recommendations please thank you Councillor Crease and a seconder please thank you Councillor Wood all those in favour please raise your hands thank you very much thank you I'm sorry to our Chief Officer because I'm going to have to call upon you again to talk about to talk about it another because we're going to talk to us about another change about the estin revised frameworks for inspection so I'll leave this with you Claire thank you hopefully this one will be slightly briefer as I say and you know apologies from Vicky she has developed this report for you because members were keen to understand the changes in the estin processes going forward so hopefully the report provides you with an overview of the changes for the inspection of schools and also the inspection of local authority education services so estin have been through that review process they published a report the learning inspector it there are a number of recommendations in that which have been considered and estin obviously have made adjustments to their inspection processes as a result so I think I'm going to focus on 102 in the report in terms of the sort of the major changes from schools so from September 2024 under the new framework schools will continue to receive a 10 days working notice for a core inspection there was some considerable discussion about whether that 10 days should be cut still further and you know schools virtually have no notice at all but the reason estin chose not to to go down that is because actually they find the time to gather review views of parents parents and stakeholders very valuable as part of the process and obviously removing any notification time would not allow that to happen so that's why they decided to keep that 10 days working notice in the new framework going forward so you'll see now that there is a reduction from five inspection areas down to three teaching and learning well-being care support and guidance and then leading and improving the structure of sort of the estin teams haven't really changed in terms of they will still include you know somebody within the school requiring to be the nominee and the use of peer inspectors so those current practitioners who bring that you know up-to-date knowledge as part of the inspection process and a lay inspector as part of the team they will still publish a report which shows the areas of strength and improvement as you know we moved away some time ago from actually having summative judgments in estin reports one of the changes however is that rather than it being one visit every six years estin are introducing an interim visit as part of the new process and as you can see there it would probably be a one or two days depending on the size of the school and then it's an opportunity for us to take that health check of that school in that period to see how they are progressing you know with the recommendations from the previous core inspection so that's a change in the new cycle going forward so the next couple of sections in the report just outlined for you you know the main areas of focus under those three inspection areas so i'm not proposing to to read those and then the other change outlined at 106 then is the type of follow-up activity so you will see that there will be two types of statutory follow-up activity these you'll be familiar with these special measures as the category of most serious concern and in need of significant improvement in the current cycle we also had the public category of estin review it wasn't a statutory category but it was an indication from estin that there were some important shortcomings in the school that would need to be addressed but as you can see in the new framework going forward that category of estin review has been removed so you're either fine or you're in a statutory category so so that's that that's the major change there so then in terms of the inspection of local government education services that cycle again starts this september members will recall we were inspected in 2019 under the previous framework so estin again undertook a consultation with stakeholders you know to help inform their thinking in terms of that framework going forward and you can see there in 107 the areas that they have proposed as part of that consultation they are proposing to reduce the notification period to local authorities from 10 weeks to eight they are changing the inspection areas from three to two and so we had outcomes and standards then we had an overview of our services and then obviously leadership and management so they're combining the outcomes with with the service provision and then obviously focusing on the leadership so that there's a change there the other introduction into this new framework actually is the dedicated inspection of youth services youth services have not previously been inspected in their own right if it sits within the education portfolios remit it does infringer it doesn't in all local authorities they would look at the youth services as part of the general inspection however recognizing the importance of youth service provision estin have now created a standalone framework that they have been piloting so when you get your notification for inspection you will also get notification of the youth services inspection about four or five weeks into that time frame so that that is a change we continue with our usual link inspector we have termly visits with our lally as they're called local area link inspector so they they will continue but another change is that estin are introducing an annual focused visit to each local authority where actually they will have a bit of a deeper dive into an aspect of the local authorities provision when the lally comes for the termly minutes a three-hour meeting there are standard things on that agenda schools causing concern for example but actually then that you know there are areas of focus we've provided updates on additional learning needs we've done focuses on refugees and asylum seekers so you know where estin have perhaps have got work going on in terms of their thematic reviews they will use that termly visit to you know to gather information but they've decided that there will be some areas that they want to have a more deep dive on so they have introduced this annual focused visit so we look forward look forward to that we are still waiting actually for the final guidance to be published and i'm not 100 sure but one of the reasons possibly for that being delayed is actually the outcome of the middle tier review because because you can see how they're interlinked so the focus very much in local government inspection of education services is how effective effective is your regional school improvement partner what impact are they having on your behalf in your schools on how do you as the local authority hold them to account well that was certainly very much the focus of the 2019 inspection that we went through so obviously with the change now and this period of transition um you know this is a question actually we are raising with estin as directors at the moment is how is that going to be reflected then in your new framework going forward because the local authorities and then you know somebody can somebody's going to get the call for the autumn term i'm not saying anything uh you know you know we're all going to be in this period of transition aren't we so they're not going to be able to use necessarily a you know a single model because different authorities have different you know different arrangements so i'm guessing that might be the reason for the delay but we are looking to set up a meeting with estin you know to discuss this and other issues before the end of term so we don't have the final version yet but we will be inspected at any point from the autumn term of 2024 so yeah so members that's the quick overview i hope that's what you were looking for in terms of changes to the inspection system for schools and for us as education services councilor priest please i just want to say thank you for putting it on the agenda for me i thought it was something that everybody should have an update on and see the landscape and how it's changing don't know if you know that i was a peer inspector for 19 years with estin so yes i i do know a lot of what's gone on with this um they have a lot of interesting documents on their website if anybody's got any time to actually read what they've put on there but one of the interesting ones which is probably in need of updating is the writing guide now that is when you're actually writing your report you are really studying the amount of words that you can use specifically now the terminology you can't use now that you were able to use before and it's got to be written in such a way that it can't be misinterpreted so it's an interesting one if anybody wants to spend some time looking at the writing guide that's on there but it's going to be an interesting time and i think they'll probably do a couple of pilots first because usually when they've oh they've done it oh right oh right yeah so um yes whenever a new a new cycle is being introduced that you know the typical i'll start piloting so some of our schools who have been through their inspection uh you know this this this academic year have actually uh been been on the pilot yeah so they have been testing it out and now we'll wait and see which local authority gets called to do the pilot inspection uh guinea pig do you have any other questions okay i'll move on to the recommendation there is only one um that we need to confirm that we've received sufficient information about the new inspection arrangements for estin's inspections of schools pupil referral units and local government education services and i'd like to thank councilor priest for bringing it to our attention and having it put on our agenda for today thank you do we have somebody to propose it please thank you and somebody to second it thank you all those in favor please show your hands thank you right we're going to move on to agenda item nine which is school attendance and exclusions it's to be found on page 47 to 62 of your report and i call upon janet rock who is our senior manager for inclusion and progression thank you thank you chair i'm going to lead us through the report to start off with but if i can introduce john grant who's our senior learning advisor for engagement who's drafted the report and sort of leads on this area from our service perspective and also there was a request that our elected home education officer joined the committee and so judith gana is going to join us on screen as well okay there she is so rocky judith as well so if i if i make a start then so there is the report it's an annual report that comes to committee and it provides an overview of attendance and exclusion for the academic year 22 23. looking at the data you will note that counselor roberts has already mentioned the impact of the pandemic and we are very much still seeing that in terms of attendance and levels of exclusion across our our school network and so our attendance levels are not where they were pre-pandemic but hopefully you'll take some comfort in that the numbers are starting to increase slowly because there's been a slight drop there in primary but we now have some national data which we can benchmark ourselves which i always think you know i think members find quite useful in terms of positioning ourselves as an authority and we should take some some comfort in that in terms of attendance our primary school attendance is the fifth highest level in wales and also our secondary attendance whilst it is below 90 percent is the third highest in wales so there's been a lot of work from schools and both central services to secure an improvement in those those levels of engagement we've referenced previously at this committee that is the head teacher's discretion whether they authorize absence or not and we have seen a slight reduction in levels of unauthorized i think this was raised as a concern last time in our last committee meeting that those levels had gone up and we wanted to reassure the committee really that actually this was our head teachers taking parents to task in some ways and say what they were reporting as a reason for absence was unacceptable and i think we as officers and our schools really have education at the core of our hearts we understand it is you know it's an entitlement to our children and it should be protected and reinforced we have seen a change in parental attitudes we have had reference in the committee already to other nations and there was something on the the news about concerns in england about parental attitudes to to attendance at schools now very much a change there in that i think because of what happened during the pandemic parents don't always see the importance of attendance at schools they may have had other children that have gone through the system and they felt they've been fairly successful with not having full attendance at school but it is something that we are we we're reinforcing and trying to be very proactive with our schools and ourselves are are enforcing that you'll note in in paragraph 104 we have referenced there around the financial climate and there are challenges within schools to provide that level of support but also claire's also referenced the changes to the grant structure where money is now going directly to schools that had come to us as a portfolio where we were able to support children who were potentially neat and we're looking at ways that we can continue those services given the changes in the grants that have been made we recognize the importance of sharing the attendance data to all involved so it goes to our management team as an inclusion and progression team but also it goes to our senior management team on a regular basis so that we can we can scrutinize that we've also had requests from schools that they see each other's data so they can understand i suppose where they they stand in across the county but also look at what's working well and to share good practice and john chairs a group of our secondary pastoral leads where that information is looked at regularly isn't it john so that they can um sort of ask questions of each other to to look at how it's working across across the county so that's been a positive development um we have had a focus on year six seven transition where we know it can be challenging moving from primary school up into to secondary and that work across our education welfare service is supported by our community focused um our community community focused school service there's too many s's there and again that's a service that sits in in john's area so they've got that synergy across we have issued model attendance policies to all of our schools and the piece of work that we are undertaking is going around all of our schools and making sure that they've got that graduated response in place so that they understand clearly what the steps are that they should be taking in response to absence and how that then progresses and where we as a service come in to support that we've had some very good responses um to that work from our education support officers so we've got um two tiers within the education welfare service we've got the education welfare officers some of whom have been sort of social work background but they're our higher tier and they do the legal work on behalf of the authority and then we have the education support officers who provide that additional level of support working predominantly in our primary sector on from a support perspective we have had some um welcome walsh government grant funding to support this area they recognize the challenges that local authorities and schools are up against in terms of increasing attendance and claire actually sits on a national forum don't you claire so we've got an additional role within our service at the moment so the assistant support officers and they are doing a lot of the leg work they're out there in the community they're knocking on doors when children have not turned in into school they're bringing them into schools and having building those links between the schools and the the families and that's had a lot of positive impact in some of our areas where we've targeted those hasn't it john um there was a reference to elective edge elective home education in the committee i think it was in february wasn't and that was where the request for judith to join our meeting today came from so we thought we'd include just a brief overview of elective home education um for 2223 our numbers you know they're similar to um the region but also the national picture are increasing and we have seen an increase up to 177 individuals who were electively home educated in that year and the majority of pupils who become electively home educated in that year were years seven to nine and the month at which they went electively home educated was september and so that makes you think about that transition doesn't it across where that's having an impact on children and they are and their families are making that decision we provide very good support to this community the the legislation changed fairly recently um but still doesn't give us a lot of powers in terms of requesting to see um what the the offer is we ask to see that but parents don't actually have to let us in and so it is about building relationships and judith would be able to to expand on that and later on to say about the importance of that um of being proactive and positive about those visitors and that visits that are made and how that is working well with them with our parents um i mentioned the education welfare system service providing that legal challenge and this was um a process that was stopped during covid but has been brought back into the fixed penalty notice process and it's not something that we did um regularly as an authority but we are using it actively as part of our toolkit really because again at the heart of this is the right of children to be in schools and access education and we feel we have to use all of those tools available to us to support that so as it says in the period 99 um fixed penalty notices were issued um and where they weren't um paid then we followed up with our legal team so some of these parents have gone to court for non-payment and for non-engagement and some of we've received quite significant fines um 600 pounds i think we have one for 800 pounds didn't we john and so this is it's important about getting that message out there as well that you know non-compliance with it so you have a legal duty as parents your children to be in education then we are going to use the tools that are available to us to um to promote and secure that and so a big part of that has been about getting the information we note from the data that illness is still the main reason for absence and we're very mindful of those um children within our system who are presenting with mental health challenges and find engagement with education um so difficult and we have made reference in the report to um a recently developed project which is the neurodevelopmental improvement project it's a regional project and we bid for some money within that to work with our colleagues in health particularly around neurodiversity and that's where we're finding a number of um pupils within our school system who are finding it particularly challenging to engage and so this post works across health and schools looking at those who are on the waiting list for a diagnosis and supporting them to maintain their placement and the um the years that we're focusing there is year six over through to year nine so again that transitional period and the challenges that are brought around in the secondary sector um it's a a project that started um in january and we've had notification that it will extend now through to hopefully the end of the next academic year so it's something that we're going to build on and hopefully schools will benefit from and will support an improvement in our attendance and engagement um after the positive of attendance uh seeing an increase in that uh sally we do have to report that our levels of a of exclusion are increasing um notably in the the secondary sector we have got an increase there in fixed term exclusion and in permanent exclusion and we've noted that the the reasons for or the majority of the permanent exclusions were related to substance misuse and we have undertaken to review our substance misuse policy um and part of that is looking at the sanctions that should be um put in place for a range of substance misuse because there is a range around that with having something on your person to actually um using an illegal substance and so we've been working with our schools around a change of policy there because we are very mindful of the support that is needed for individuals as well as appropriate boundaries that need to be in place with our schools and a big part of our work is around trauma informed practice and we are really promoting that across both primary and secondary sectors we have set up a trauma informed champion group where we're bringing practitioners together where the school is on that journey around trauma informed and in a point of of trying to make significant improvement in that area and we work with our lead officer for children who are looked after and our principal educational psychologist and we've got an established group now that is looking at practice across our schools with the aim of them becoming champions to them and go and work with other schools to show how that can be implemented across their their schools as well but a significant piece of work that we're working on as a portfolio is our belonging strategy we've started the work as a senior management team and looking at what our visions and principles are around belonging but also how and that will then filter out to to our schools to our partners and to members as well particularly in their role as governor so that's something that is being developed in the the resource implications section we have flagged there the increased level of demand so we are still seeing a lot of demand for individuals who require individual home tuition and that comes through our iotis panel we've referenced earlier about the challenges we have in relation to our specialist provision and we are working on increasing capacity there but as you say it's a challenging picture still in terms of exclusion i stop there chair for questions thank you very much any questions please Councillor Parkhurst please yeah thank you chair thank you Jeanette for a very full explanation looking at table two on page 55 there you know when you go back to 2019-20 there were very few you know schools which had less than 90 performance in in terms of attendance and now it's for almost the majority at least it it's the largest band should i say do we not need to have further bands below this so that we can see you know are they 89 percent or are they 79 or 69 or you know what it is i i think that would be helpful secondly um is there any variation in terms of days of the week because we know that um you know staff absence in in employment it tends to be you know mondays and fridays it is is there a similar pattern with with schools is there any correlation with when parents are are working from home and do we know why there are variations in attendance so there are three primary schools for example which are 96 plus percent um but there are 16 less than 90 so you know what are the reasons of that is their sort of best practice that that can be you know learned from thank you today's issue has been raised in the the national press in the last month or so about monday and friday working parents being at home and we're definitely seeing some evidence in our schools where patterns of that nature are taking place but we haven't done an analysis of that and i think it would be something to be doing over these next few months so we could feedback and scrutiny in 12 months time if so if i come in chair around the um the schools um we do tend to find that those in the the highest um levels are potentially small rural schools um that have the sort of 95 96 percent in terms of the primary schools and then those where they uh the attendance is lower can be around a range of factors um including um the mix of the of the cohort that they've got there are some um groups within our community where attendance is lower than others and so we can map that against some of our schools um and some of our more deprived areas as well where where there is challenge actually of getting children into schools so we we're able to to map that against um demographics in lots of ways as well in terms of improving practice then that's been part of the um eso's role to actually go out and ensure that all schools are doing the work that they should around attendance that they've got that graduated response and you those of you who are governors in our schools you may have had sight of that and to say you know what it is you may be aware of letter one letter two letter three that goes out to parents to inform them around the process where their child has not been in school but we're looking at getting consistency in that um across all of our school network but then also working with those um potential groups um or schools where attendance is proving to be more challenging you know we've got to commend some of our schools for being really creative in the ways that they look to engage their communities and again it comes back to um where education is valued and where it isn't as a big factor that schools are are working with and trying to to address as well any other question oh Councillor Mackey thank you chair first of all thank you very much thank you very much this is just the sort of report i want to see it starts off it tells us what's happening i love comparing us with other people other counties it gives me a it gives me a level it puts me it makes it possible to see at a glance is this working or not and it's working great well i know everyone's having great difficulties with this i know this from we probably all know it from our experience what i like to see is when we've got senior officer and the people hello judith who are working out there on the coalface and doing the job and and i think what this committee wants to say is a big thank you because you've already turned this round it's better and you've also got a good system across the county which is good it shows we're all working in the right way and all doing the same thing i think that's what i understand to be happening anyway now i didn't understand and i'm not going to try and pronounce it i'm going to call it nd profile in paragraph i do know though that that there is a problem area that the number of young people who cannot step over the school from door is now becoming a significant figure and schools are very unhappy about it i know that for a fact as well whenever it crops up you can see they that their whole being that they realize this it's good to see that something extra is happening because obviously we've got to try and resolve this and stop it getting any worse um that's good i'm a little bit concerned about the pressure um that i can't quite remember how it's worded here um i i think the mental health side of things i think we turn that as a service under pressure in the report yes i'm right um i've got the paragraph i just can't find the right part of it um and i was hoping that we i could think of something to say that would would actually say can we get health to give us more support here now i know that's impossible and and i realize that um but that's what we need because if this is this is young people's future and if they don't get to school we know they don't have as good a future and if that's because they have a health overriding issue that is getting in the way we can't solve it it's a health problem and if we try to do it well i know if i try to do it i make it worse so so i'm not expecting you to do it um and and that was the one thing i wanted to pick up if if if we could i mean i know the answer to it is more health professionals who haven't yet undergone training getting the training and being available to recruit but that applies to so many things into teaching in some areas doesn't it so i don't know so thank you very much great report i haven't really got a question apart from that one and the answer to that i think i know what the answer is thank you thank you for that exuberance i'd like to call upon oh sorry did you want to answer first and i'm pressing the buttons and wrong buttons um just to reassure you that we do have regular meetings with health and we discuss the concerns and actually the nd project that you refer to is a collaboration between us and health and we've actually got another project um in the offing um that will bring more of this role on board so we're hoping to have another two practitioners that will work across rexham and flincher as well but also um just in the the next report that we've got coming and in the joint committee meeting in june around additional learning needs we've had have we have had a request to increase to include more information around what we're doing and to support children with a an nd profile so we'll have more information to bring to you and at that june meeting as well just what i like to hear in reply to thank you very much um lisa allen please hi yeah i would just like to add um about attendance in relation to the school budgets as they are currently um my concern is about the school's ability to continue to provide the brilliant initiatives that they have for family liaison pastoral care um those sort of family learning programs that i know are happening and are really successful and having a big impact on attendance and sort of lowering the barriers if you like between families re-engaging with school um my concern is around sort of the staffing levels that it takes to be able to maintain initiatives like that um for example you know staffing is one of the the biggest budget constraints on a school um i know certain schools aren't renewing ta contracts going into the next academic year aren't following up with apprentice contracts and those sort of support members of staff in schools are providing a lot of the the pastoral elements within the school that would reduce attendance concerns um additionally sort of the investment in those sort of mental health services buying in services into schools the different therapies the different support programs that that children need to be able to re-engage with schools so i think it's obvious in the report that we have made a significant amount of progress and that is to be commended um but i think there's a little question mark over the ability of schools to continue to provide different services that would have a significant impact going forward on the levels of attendance in our schools thank you thank you chief officer please thank you lisa and as officers we're not going to disagree with anything that you're saying there um i think you know we all know don't we the challenges that we are facing as a council in terms of our budgetary position and you know the difficult decision that elected members have had to make in terms of um you know taking money out of the school's delegated budget to enable us to protect council services across the piece and get to that position of that legal unbalanced budget you know and we did identify that you know these areas in particular would be an area of risk um as you know head teachers and governing bodies are having to you know review the amount of funding they have available and we are absolutely you will see that in a report later in the year you know we we are seeing a significant restructuring of the workforce in schools and sadly the um the posts that often um fall first are those additional additional posts that you describe that are supporting you know the pastoral needs needs of our learners and particularly the most vulnerable and you know the other very effective programs you know as you reference you know like family learning so it it's with a really heavy heart that i sit here today as the chief officer because you know collectively we've had to make those difficult decisions and yet we know the impact that it is having at a school level um so yes it is a risk it is a risk that we obviously will be continuing to monitor with our schools um you know and and keep bringing to the attention of members because you know that's all we can do in terms of sharing the you know the the outcomes really of those difficult decisions that had to be made earlier in the year to get you know to get to that budgetary position so i don't know if Jeanette you want to because i know our schools are incredibly creative in the approaches that they take um you know to support uh children you know our focus on nurture uh you know and other initiatives as well so i'll hand over to Jeanette because you know there's still a huge amount of fantastic work being undertaken by our practitioners at a school level for which we're very very grateful there are there are a wealth you know you referenced a lot of those Lisa but you know we've got schools who are setting up um off-site provision for those children who find actually being in the school building really daunting and need to be accessing their education elsewhere we've got schools Claire's referenced nurture groups schools setting up their own type of specialist resource provision in-house to to meet the needs um adult community learning you mentioned there we've got our um shared prosperity fund and strength in numbers and that's doing a lot of work with parents as well using the school environment and supported by our schools there's a huge amount of creativity where schools are demonstrating that they really understand their cohorts and trying to put in things that are responsive to those communities and seeing themselves as a community asset but the risk you know as you've referenced and as Claire has referenced is that those are the first things to go because we you know we understand that schools have to have a teacher in front of a class and that's where the additional things that make such a broad and varied educational experience that is accessible to all that's where the challenge comes so we definitely recognize what you're saying thank you mrs bartlett please thank you chair um i'd just like to go back to the point about the additional teacher for um children with a neurodivergent profile i'm delighted that that post is in place and their families are waiting a long time for diagnoses and a diagnosis can help enormously and i just wanted to clarify as schools being encouraged to make accommodations for children while they're waiting for a diagnosis because that that will help enormously thank you so this post is um the the children that the post is working with are identified in collaboration between health and education and so they will be children that are on the waiting list and and as the spotlight says you can be waiting for up to i think it's four years at the moment for a diagnosis it's a really long period and whilst we and whilst we um we don't work to a diagnosis to provide support if an individual needs support they don't need a diagnosis under alnet um for some parents and for some children that that process is really important to get an understanding of their particular needs and so um the idea behind the post is that they work collaboratively with the family with the individual so they're maintaining their position in school and enable them to stay there and access their education in an appropriate way so hopefully that provides some clarity about how it's working but as you say we have got um more posts that will come on board with that and it is about strengthening those links between health and education and working with families providing strategies and support um so that that child can maintain their entitlement to education in a suitable setting thank you thank you any other questions okay moving on then we have one recommendation and that is uh to consider the attendance and exclusion data for flincher schools and the actions undertaken by officers to support increased engagement and the safety and well-being of our young children our young people could i have a proposer please thank you and a seconder thank you all those in favor and at this point if it's all right i would like to propose that we have a workshop or some information for us as a committee on what exactly is a trauma-informed school um you know um i'd like to know more about it and i know it's probably too soon but i'd certainly like to hear about your belonging um thank you okay okay quite lengthy reports well you can i was going to wait i was i will tell you why there was a reason we're going to move into a part two but two of our counselors have to leave so i thought before they left they could have their discussion because they've been allowed to speak so i thought they could speak and then we would all go for a comfort break if that's okay with you so as you all know as a counselor in favor of disclosure as much information as possible about the decisions that we take however i'm now asking for a proposer and a seconder from our committee to exclude the press and the public for the reasons stipulated in the agenda thank you thank you all those in favor please thank you now i'm going to call upon counselor shawcross oh sorry let me just check we've just got to stop the live stream sorry sorry