Transcript

Good evening, everyone. Are we ready? We are. Yes. Good evening, everyone. Welcome to our final Children's Education Subcommittee. Meeting being held at Town Hall. My name is Councillor Abdul-Mannan and I will be chairing this meeting. This meeting has been held in person with the committee members and key participants present in the meeting room, while others are joining online. Should the technical error happen that prevents online attendants from participating, I will decide if and how the meeting should continue after taking advice from officers. This meeting is being filmed for the Council website. For public viewing, people who are participating in the meeting will be included in the footage. I ask members at the meeting to only speak in my direction and to engage and speak clearly into the microphone so that they can be heard and their comment can be properly recorded. Justina, do you have an apology from anyone? Yes, Chair. I have been informed that Councillor Deputy Mayor Mayem Telukta has sent his apologies. Justina, anybody else? Any apologies? No? Okay. Any members getting DPA to declare? I have a DPA to declare and the reason is, one of the items is about free school meal and my partner, wife, work at one of the schools, who supply the school meals, primary school. So I thought it might as well declare it. Sorry? Yes. That's for everybody. Last meeting. Can somebody record if the meeting is clear? And a second, please. Yes. Fantastic. Yes. Fantastic. Last meeting, can somebody record if the meeting is clear and a second, please? Yes. Fantastic. Action log. Any action log, anybody any comment on action log? No, that's good. Okay. So, our first item this evening is to review of the work of the Children's Safeguarding Partnership. We would like to welcome Steve and Carol Cesar, Associate Director of Safeguarding Children's NHS North East London to present this item. You've got ten minutes to present this, please. And then we'll send it to the members for questioning. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Just to say, I've got Lynn Glover online from NHS colleague from the Safeguarding Partnership, who's with us. Also, Susanna, our Director of Supporting Families as well. So, I'll just, I mean, colleagues have got the slides, but shall I put them on screen? Or, can you, is everyone? Would you give me a piece of paper to write a summary? For the one to say, for the one to show, what's the one to have written before? Yeah. Yeah. So, I'll just really, really quickly go through. I'll have a share the slides just so you know what I'm talking about. So, we're at that time in the year where the Safeguarding Partnership is putting together its annual report, and that will be ready in the next couple of months, and we'll share the report, the annual report, obviously, with this committee when that's published. So, this brief presentation is just to go through how we're putting the report together, and just to draw out some highlights, which I'll do just really quickly. So, just a reminder again, it's key partnership, statutory partnership between Council, NHS colleagues, and our colleagues in the Police. The core principles of the Safeguarding Partnership, Child Protection, Assurance, and Learning. This is our structure, so you can see the board there, and then the various subgroups that feed into that. We've reviewed that structure this year and made it a bit more streamlined and clearer. In terms of scrutiny, we have an independent scrutineer. So, just to remind you, one of the partners, and in this year it's myself, one of the partners chairs the board, but then you have an independent scrutineer who sits on the board, and we've recruited a new one called Sarah Parker, who's excellent, and she'll be writing her views in the annual report when it's published. We've also got young scrutineers. Again, they'll be writing their view of the year so far. So, really pleased we've recruited three. Jabeen, Masha, and Zaid are our three young scrutineers. We've done case reviews, and one case review, and some rapid reviews this year. One of them was published, which is one of the features that was overcrowding in infant safety. And there's another case review that will be published soon, which, again, some of the themes there around send and neglect. And then just some of the themes that were picked up in our rapid reviews, you can see there on the slide. I won't go into the detail of that. We've been doing some multi-agency auditing this year as well, and I won't go through the detail of that. But, again, it's really positive practice to make sure you're doing that as a partnership. The safeguarding partnership has been running a lot of training courses this year as well, 21 training courses. And this slide just shares some of the really positive feedback I won't go through. In terms of key achievements of the partnership, the review of the governance structure we've carried out, the Section 11 multi-agency audits, the training needs assessments, our new young scrutineers being recruited, the publication of our new pathways and partnership guidance, and the production of seven-minute briefings on key topics. And updates to our arrangements in line with working together, which is the guidance, obviously, we have to work to. There have been some challenges. I won't go through them all, but effectively, the underlying theme there is about capacity, capacity of our teams, our partners' teams, and also some budget issues there as a partnership, making sure as a partnership we've got enough budget to do everything we need to do. There are some mitigations we've put in place, but I think, you know, as a committee, you all know the sort of capacity and resource challenges councils and partners are under. You may recall when we shared last year's safeguarding partnership annual report, these were the priorities we were focused on, anti-racism, infant safety, neglect, and peer-on-peer harm. And this slide just goes through some of the progress on those priorities. We're just right now in the middle of our priority setting for the new year, which we're going through as a partnership. And then looking ahead, our sort of areas of focus, some of the practicalities, updating the quality assurance processes, going to put a new website together for the partnership, looking at our impact measurements, expanding our reach across the partnership, and looking at our opportunities to work with wider partnerships and boards. So we have good links with, obviously, you know, the Adult Safeguarding Board, Community Safety Partnership, Health and Wellbeing Board, but we're looking at how we work across the partnership. And that's it, really. There's a whole set of data there, which is sort of a snapshot of some of the data we look at in the Safeguarding Partnership. The section there is very much focused on the stuff that comes into Susanna's service in the front door for time, Chair. I won't go through that, but you might have some questions on some of the specifics within that data. So I'll stop sharing there if that's OK and happy to take any questions. As I said, the actual annual report, when it's produced, we'll obviously share that with yourselves. Thank you, Steve. Any members? Do you have any questions? OK, let me take. Anyone from this side? Go. So thank you for that. I wanted to ask, so what is your, now that we're in a new financial year, to mitigate some of the issues that you've had, what's your short-term goal? And what's your long-term goal? Because obviously, I'm looking at, I looked at some of the reports, and it was like, there was a lower confidence in areas like infant safety, online safety, voice of the child, what actions are in place to raise the standards in the short-term and long-term as well. Some of those themes that have been picked up in reviews, we've done briefings with, across our partners, and some of those lessons learned. And so some of that is about practice and how we work together. But the reality is that I think as a council, we're reasonably well-resourced compared to other councils, and we do have the right investment in our services to respond to the band. But I think it's fair to say, across the partnership, some of our partners' financial position, they're struggling. So for instance, we think that, you know, if we wanted to have more of a contribution from some of the partnership agencies involved, I think they'll really struggle. And there is a challenge, because also they are, they go across multiple areas. So the Integrated Commissioning Board is seven areas, and the Met Police, obviously, is massive as well. So, and they've got their own financial challenges. So I think, to be honest with you, we're not expecting significant investment from partners at the moment. And that's just something that we're going to need to keep an eye on as the board work goes forward. But we've got sufficient budget to do what we need to do this year. But for instance, if we had a lot of case reviews that needed commissioning, financially, the partnership would struggle to support those. And I think that some of the findings of the case reviews does strike to the challenges our families and our children are dealing with because of poverty and other issues. And then also the response from both council and partners to meet some of that we are, we are, we are seeing some of the some of our struggles to meet that at the moment. And if Susanna, you had any other comments on that? Hi, all, hopefully that you can hear me. Yes, we can. So hi, all, my name is Lynn Glove. I'm the designated nurse for safeguarding children with North East London ICB. So I'm one of the very active members with the safeguarding children partnership. So with regards to the questions about the response for infant safety and online safety. So with infant safety, recognising some of the responses during the Section 11 audit, we identified that we needed to show our message wider amongst the wide and multi-agency team. So we did further webinars during Safe Asleep Week in March this year. We also had discussions with team managers, et cetera, to ensure that messages were being shared. And then during the Safe Asleep webinars, we did have further multi-agency attendance. It isn't just a focus on health and social care colleagues. Even though the safeguarding priority will come to a close, that the messaging with regards to infant safety will still remain, you know, a primary source of health promotion in the likes of our family hubs arena. So our NEL ICB colleagues, they have created a safe asleep training package, and they're actually delivering a trainer model amongst our health visitor and family nurse partnership colleagues, who will then be able to continue to roll out training across our multi-agency partners. Thank you. Thank you. That is always the basic data about the borough that interests me. I've gone down to the Children in Tower Hamlets, right, the ethnic background of people. I've just lost it. It doesn't add up to 100%. i it's it's i know you've probably the um the children's social care plans ethnicity group is a hugely detailed table but the summary that you've got i i reckon there's 10 percent of the population missing sorry it's a nit it's a sort of a nitpicking point but i presume it's the way you've aggregated on certain categories but i it is helpful in just um we'll certainly check that out i think that's page 36 of the pack the children's social care plans ethnicity groups um yeah it is that it's page it's page 36 is the detail yeah yeah certainly um yeah certainly take that away to our uh analysts and double check how they've how they've rounded up some of those figures um the substantial point is the independence yes um so the having independent scrutineers um has has only something that's come in place for the last few years previously it was um a lot of areas had an independent chair of the board yes and so it's only in the last few years that this role of independent scrutineer has come in place and we did have one as we noted in the poor report lorell for a couple of years didn't we um but in terms of um we we advertised obviously externally uh because this is now an established role um within these um within the safeguarding world children safeguarding world so we advertised and put out a uh a spec and the sort of the sort of quality qualifications as experience we're after and certainly sarah parker the our new independent scrutineer is um has been a children's director in a number of councils as well uh done quite a number of case reviews as well and um hopefully she won't mind me saying she's also foster carer as well so she's got a lot of experience um uh in our field in senior roles plus she's done a lot of review work and an independent um uh independent case review work we've had three independent scrutineers in the last five six years so we haven't had lots of um turnover um yeah we've had we've not had lots of turnover of independent scrutineers um but we've had this will be our third one in the last five six years okay thank you steve um i've got a few questions so first i know that yeah i've read the um report about what i'm saying the grooming and sexual exploitation of young people can take many different forms we know that yeah it can occur in a wide range of um you know setting but the common theme in all areas cases is the imbalance um of power and the um you know control extract on young people i just need to ask you how how is the partnership using the data when uh you know and the respond to the child um you know the exploitation if you can you know explain you please thank you thank you for your question um so it's definitely a partnership response um we have every so on an operational level we have a daily intelligence meeting where we have um uh community safety uh we have the police uh we have social care we have others at times for children that are going missing or we're worried about exploitation immediately things that have happened overnight we um have a partnership meeting which is called pre-mace or um multi-agency child exploitation meeting where we go line by line but through all the children that we're we're worried about and then we have our mace board uh which is the more strategic board in terms of how are we responding um as a partnership to those children to any of the themes um that are coming up from individual children how do we uh go into areas in terms of to prevent uh exploitation as well um within the council we have um an exploitation team which is co-located uh with the gangs police and working closely with the exploitation uh police as well and we share our information and our data it's it's scrutinized within there's now in the last year a strategic violence and exploitation group which is actually chaired by myself where we do look at the data and as well as the quality assurance and performance um subgroup um as well as where we look at that but it's very much a partnership response we do training together as a partner partnership as well and sharing of information and scrutinizing data is very important thank you sorry another one i should ask i said okay uh yeah um so what if a child home uh environment environment is deemed unsafe so why is the action i've been taken by the local authority or the multi-agency um so if you can explain this yeah so if if a if um any professional is concerned or a family is concerned about um any safeguarding issue about a home environment for a child um then they would make a referral into our multi-agency support team um where we would look are we so can we do some inquiries multi-agency because within of a front door in our multi-agency safeguarding team we have police we have housing uh we have health we have education uh we have cams we have all those agencies that we can do uh checks and we phone out to families and we make a decision do we need to do an assessment um and if so then we'll do a statutory child and family assessment as to whether we they need to be ongoing support from us or also if it comes in we can look at actually is it's something that early help can support with um via our family hubs or uh in the community as well so you um i'm just looking at your some of your key challenges right um and i'm looking at the first box where you've had like a seven um seven month period of where the partnership was like two-third capacity in the four-month period or the partnership or one-third capacity and thank you for being very honest with that i guess and um so the impact i understand what the impact had on on your team because of that but in terms of the mitigations i don't see it's very clear and to what how you would prevent it from happening again something like that like is there any backup plan so for like because seven months is a long period to have not have full team and i know that you have it now but it could happen again where you don't have full capacity so what's your plan for that the the team the support team for the board now um with the the safeguarding partnership manager and now has two officers and we're also recruiting a trainee so effectively we'll have we'll have a team of four so that should provide a little bit more resilience and as i said before we've got the funding and the budget to cover that um but it yeah it was um it was a difficult period where we when we didn't we weren't we didn't have enough resources in place but certainly with now the the manager role plus two officers plus an apprenticeship uh officer then then we should be we should be in a decent place and and it's about the same amount of resource or the safeguarding partnership would have in place so we should be okay but we'll keep an eye on it given what we are experience so i want to talk about the impact of all of this on staff and i'm sure you have like um things in place for start but could you like just give me a brief on what kind of um help and guidance for staff that you have because dealing with these kind of cases on a day-to-day basis i kind of work in a similar industry so i know like it can be very mentally draining for staff so please thank you obviously the in terms of the the doing the work there's some detail there on the training that we provide on the agenda but you're absolutely right um some of the issues that are our staff are dealing with are significant and and has an impact on them um i think we have a really good um support offer within within the service and particularly in susanna's area and we're really proud of um when you look at things like our turnover of our staff and their well-being and you know the fact that when we're going out to attract new staff people really want to come and work here as well which is positive but i think the the culture and the structure susanna has put in place in terms of the management structure and support and then the other support around them of practice leads and um their peers supporting each other but i'm glad you asked that question because um some of the issues our staff face are really really significant i don't know if you want to add to that um yes and just thinking at the quality assurance and performance board we do actually monitor all the different agencies in terms of their supervision of staff and safeguarding supervision and ensuring um that staff are regularly getting supervision and we would expect that supervision isn't just in terms of direction of children's cases but also about that support um as well yes thank you chair yeah i just want to ask yeah what action are being taken to people for an improvement upcoming national forms reforms in children's safeguarding yeah that's that's a really good question um we are assessment of what the reforms are asking councils to do and partnerships to do um our own assessment says we're in a in a good place because some of the things we're already doing here in tower hamlets are in line with where the reforms are are taking us um i think it's fair to say um some things are a significant change and uh we're we're waiting to learn a little bit more from there's been some pilots done in other council areas and they've taken some of these reforms and piloted them and taken them a bit further ahead than than other councils so we're very keen to learn from those pilots to make sure they work because you know to be frank we feel we're in a really good place in terms of particularly where our social care and and wider family support services are so in order to make significant reforms we want to do them in a way that protects the good work we're doing now and also reassures our staff that we're not making significant changes that they might you know find find uncomfortable or or might destabilize the good work that's going on as we all know we had a really positive ofsted inspection that talks about the good work we're going on but obviously the reform agenda is there we need to respond to it we've established a reform board that i'm going to chair but also we're going to include wider children's services and and indeed partner agencies because it's all part of a partnership so i think um we're in a good place where we're ready for the reforms but we're also being cautious about about some of the changes suzanna is that fair would you say thank you chair just uh if you can explain uh what process or what mechanism are in place to evaluate whether training uh translates into better safeguarding outcomes for children and how is update monitored across partners agencies um so in terms of the impact of training we do have a an effective learning group um as well that which is multi-agency um to make sure that the right training is being put on and that any anything that comes out of any of the rapid reviews or a child safeguarding practice review or any learning that it's all in the same place and we're monitoring to make sure that we are addressing what those areas are we have a multi-agency audit and so for example the last multi-agency audit we did the topic was neglect that was one of our priorities and we wanted to see in terms of what is the impact of some of the work we've been doing around neglect as a partnership and we had about different about eight or nine different and multi-agency partners who came together to look at some children and families experiences and so we have that we also have via the quality assurance and performance group we uh that we've done each agency contributed to the section 11 safeguarding audit which is to assure ourselves in terms of their practice and in terms of safeguarding and their learning um as well um and that's that's the forum where partners have brought their individual uh audits at times to them and the multi-agency audit as well is scrutinized the quality assurance and performance board to see the impact of the work we're doing and uh and how often um is you likely to engage um in this so we have so we have um the quality assurance and performance board happens uh quarterly and we normally have some form of audit whether single agency or multi-agency uh this year we had uh two sessions of multi-agency audit um and that's what we're looking at in the the following year as well thank you chair i just want to find out if you are aware of the recent there was a tragic incident happened last week uh a child was uh killed by his uh feminine feminine yeah brother do you have any update on that i know it's ongoing it's very early yeah um i think obviously because it's a public meeting we we we can't go into that but just just to assure you um our agencies are working really close together um to support the family and and make sure obviously which is you know devastating incident for the family that we're we're responding effectively working really closely um myself susanna uh all the senior colleagues in in the police all in contact talking about our response and um yeah and yeah it's you know it's it's an awful incident but fortunately very rare um and there will be and because of the age of those involved there will likely be a domestic homicide review which is slightly different to a children's case review but there will be a review so we can get any of the learning from um what's happened and obviously we really feel for the family in the community uh who've been devastated thanks thank you chair i've got a couple of questions um on your report page 22 um considering of the overcrowding and infant uh safety what lesson have um learned from the recent child safeguarding reviews and how are they influencing service of delivery um also wanted to add on this that we often hear especially young children they disappear for a day or so and on whatsapp message and so and so going on around all around the community gets frustrated and afraid as well do we have any data or any update what actually happens to them where do they get on how do they come back and what happens let lynn would you mind just answering the the point around infant safety and and sort of what we've learned from reviews and um you sort of touched on it earlier if that's okay would you you mind covering that one and and then suzanna and i'll cover the second question around children who go missing thanks yes um so with infant safety the the a couple of different uh issues with regards to infant safety we have uh safer sleep you know do families have appropriate and safe places for the for their babies and infants to sleep we have um things like window safety as well and then obviously the the overcrowding situation which has been mentioned with regards to the uh recently published safeguarding practice review so that was one of the reasons why infant safety was chosen to be one of the safeguarding priorities so within the safeguarding partnership we don't wait until a rapid review or a safeguarding practice review is published as soon as we identify the needs we we encompass that with that in our rapid review working group and on our action plan so if there's individual actions that can be uh supported by individual agencies we will support and follow that up within that rapid review working group and effective learning forum meeting and through that we'll then discuss the different avenues that we can embed learning so with regards to infant safety during we wanted to try and link in with national um national agendas such as child safety week which happened in june last year where we delivered three webinars uh based on infant safety with different themes we sent um invite fights out to multi-agency partners and had quite a good attendance and fervient with regards to that in march of last year nell icb offered a safer sleep conference and i was delighted to say that we had many multi-agency colleagues attending that you know it was brilliant to see our police colleagues there as well as uh health colleagues social workers child minders etc the message is important to identify that this is it's everybody's business if it's you know it's not just up to the health visitor to be providing infant safety advice it's it's um acknowledging that wherever there's a contact with our public that we could potentially be sharing information so such as in uh bats hospital at the royal london hospital they have um on the screens they have a um the digital posters that will go around and deliver uh child safety uh safer sleep messaging and it's about ensuring that even though it was our safeguarding priority that that information continues to be out there ensured which is it's great to see that um it's actively on the agenda with health visiting family nurse partnerships social workers are more worried about it and to understand the consistent messaging so families aren't getting confused and it's also about being realistic of expectations so ideally we would like uh babies to sleep in their own carts but we have to be aware that families are limited with funds they're limited with space and it's if they are going to co-sleep it's how to do that safely so it's about ensuring that our frontline workers are able to have conversations that don't just say you shouldn't do this it's like how can we support you in doing that safely um yes so so infant safety is still on the agenda in lots of our different areas within children's services and then also in the likes of housing and public health that's really helpful thank you lynn just on the uh query then about children who go missing and your point that when we see uh communication in the media and elsewhere and local media about a child who goes missing sometimes that is a child who obviously has gone missing from their own family and occasionally although it's quite rare it's a child who's in our care who's gone missing so they'll be they'll be an alert um it's really tricky isn't it because on one level you'd like to be able to reassure people when when the child's found but because of obviously uh information sharing about them and their own privacy and their family and their circumstances it's quite difficult for us to for the authorities ourselves and the police and others to then communicate that an individual's been found safe and well but i guess just to reassure you know suzanna you just explained in terms of our process when children go missing and then return and how they're supported thanks and yes so when a child goes missing is reported missing and we work very closely with the police we'll have a strategy meeting with the different agencies um to share information think about what the risks and how the different agencies can intervene to try and locate the child and share that information and when a child is located then we all children are offered a return home conversation and we go out and we try and do these return home conversations sometimes children don't want that and just because they say they don't want to talk to somebody why they went missing we within our exploitation team make sure that there's a support worker that will continue to follow that up to try and build a relationship and with that child that's gone missing in particular any children that might go missing frequently we are well aware of we also um discuss them on a regular basis a multi-agency meeting uh so how we can intervene preventatively and to support them as well we also look at what some of the themes are about why children are going missing and how we might be able to look more strategically at what the themes are and intervene but also what individual children why they might go missing are they if they're in care are they going back home to their parents are they going to see um somebody that they might be a boyfriend or a girlfriend might be doing that and just trying to understand um to prevent those children going missing you go one more uh just follow up on this uh sorry so once you find identified those children and obviously have do you have any sort of data that what are the reasons of these children going went missing and then what our council are doing to prevent you know further happening children going missing down the road yes we we do keep data we have a data analyst within our exploitation team we work with the police in terms of their data we also look at the themes from those return home interviews and that's where at the strategic violence and exploitation group we look at the the data and the themes we also look at how we what things might the team be able to do are there children that might need some more support in a different way is there something at school we need to put in or different things that we look at to try and prevent those children going missing going forward steve i'm going to do the last question on this if we move next topic last year the subcommittee requested data on peer-to-peer harm with particularly focus on sexual assault and harassment within the school we are told that the ths cp does not have data on peer-to-peer harm in the absence of the data how does this partnership identify key trend risk in the area and ensure the evidence-based response i think um because of the issue around here on here home we did as you'll see in the paper select that as a priority for the board so um whilst the specifics around um for instance school data on peer-to-peer harm and the nature of that whilst that's not available all the data is presented to the safeguarding partnership um looking at obviously the the age of um the victim and the offender and sometimes offenders themselves have been victims in the past as well so we do have that data but it's um um in terms of how we get the dates from schools on the incidents they're dealing with that that can be very difficult there's no um sort of statutory framework and statutory return around that specifically obviously ourselves and suzanna and lisa and her team are obviously in contact with the schools talking about the issues they're dealing with um but the the specific issue on that data on peer-to-peer harm in schools around that issue um is we're reliant on um sort of individual schools feeding back rather than an actual data set can i just ask lisa yes so um all schools complete um and are asked to complete an education safeguarding uh tool and uh child on child harm is covered in that um the uh audit return is is tracked and monitored by our education safeguard and challenge around some of their responses so um they we that team is working with schools in terms of um the incidents that they report yeah we can swiftly thank you thank you steve thank you presentation was good question from everybody is somebody online thank you for this is for online those participating so i can see it properly here um we're simply going to move on to next item on the agenda please thank you all i'll leave now bye thank you lane thanks bye uh so chair we're joined by members of our youth council because we thought you'd be more interested in some of their views on uh key stage five education and beyond so lisa's kindly invited some of our young people to join us um i'll hand over to lisa if you wanted to pull out some of the key issues first thank you yes thank you welcome uh young lady and the young men you'll see how the meeting get run as well so lisa over to you thank you so um in terms of this um session i think originally uh we were going to be looking at the institute of academic excellence and i'm sorry to have to tell you that we received notification last week from the department for education that um they uh don't support um the um this proposal so um in terms of this session we know that the council has been particularly focusing on uh level three and a level qualifications so in the powerpoint that we produced there's quite a range of data about that a level performance um and um we also um have provided information about how the local local authority supports our most vulnerable um students at key stage five in terms of those children in care and obviously that's a key priority for us as corporate parents um i'm going to hand over in a moment to uh the young people who um are going to talk to us about um their respective key stage five journeys about how they made the decision to do what they are doing or what they're going to do in some cases um and about what's going up well and what sort of um support and they think that they might benefit from in the future um i think uh you will be aware that in terms of um a level outcomes um they are um really low um compared to national and compared to other areas in london and it's interesting that if we look at applied general um a levels and so um kind of b-tech equivalents that actually our performance across the borough is much better and it is above national and i guess data is an interesting thing isn't it so um there are you know some some causes for concern around our average point score for a level but also some highlights so if you look at the percentage of 19 year olds with a full level three qualification tower hamlets actually ranks as the ninth highest in england so it's interesting and i guess it's interesting to unpick that and in terms of our context important to say that uh when we look at the prior attainment of students in tower hamlet six forms um the um the average student has quite low prior attainment and you will know um councillors very well um and certainly the young people are aware that in neighboring boroughs there are um various colleges that are particularly targeting and students who have ambitions to go on to study at oxbridge or or or at um russell group universities um so i think we need to bear that in mind and also worth highlighting that there is currently no specific resource within education within the council that focuses on outcomes at key stage five nonetheless and there has been quite a bit of improvement activity that has taken place over the past uh 12 months uh we did commission an independent review of post-16 outcomes that really focused on student voice and we've had a couple of send uh sorry key stage five summits one focusing on um send and one focusing on mainstream and that's with our school leaders and we are also working with london higher and to raise aspirations around accessing higher education targeting not only young people in our secondary schools but also our youngest learners in our primary schools so we've got quite a number of uh children and young people engaged uh with london higher on those projects and really important i think also to say that when we have had those um summits with head teachers and they have identified themselves that there is much to do to improve um a levels and they have commissioned their own um review of key stage five provision through um that um so um i'm going to um hand over now if i may to the to the young people um who will give us uh uh uh well introduce themselves and and give us a a flavor of of their views and and and how they made their choices i'm going to hand over to if at first who is uh the lead for education in the youth council good evening everyone my name is if i'm i'm the lead for education i'm currently in year 12 studying history politics and philosophy and i moved out of tower hamlets to study at the ncs which is in newham and i think my most primary concern as to why i did choose to study at the ncs and not stay in tower hamlets was mostly because of oxford progression and i think the support in tower hamlets for ambitious students like myself who wants to go on and study in oxford or the ivy league for example i don't think it was as strong in tower hamlets as it was in the big three as they're known in newham so brampton ncs and lae where there is a there is a very rigorous program for people that do want to go on to these schools and um i think what's actually quite interesting is a lot of the students that go on to oxbridge from these schools in newham actually are from tower hamlet secondary schools so clearly there's some kind of gap where the secondary schools are doing really well in gcse's but then when it comes to sixth form they they recognize that that support for oxbridge just isn't there whereas in my school for example they have dedicated oxbridge teachers programs you know extra learning and resources for students that want to go on to those places because extra support is needed and i think that's the choice that i personally made and i'm going to of course develop on that should you wish and i'm going to head on kind of to see hi i'm i'm deputy young mayor and lead for community i'm currently studying at semplesway secondary school i'm currently doing history politics and re um i chose to stay simply because it was the most convenient for me but also in what he said around oxford progression i do agree in the sense that a lot of schools in town because the support they get there is much more than you would get if you stayed into hamlet but it's not a closed door the schools do offer support but it's much more independent i'm someone who is aiming for oxbridge and a lot of the work i've done has been independent and the support you get from your schools is good but not as good as it was if i had gone to what he considers the big three and i feel like with six forms times has really good six forms and opportunities they are good but they're unknown whereas in other boroughs such as new um lae ncs and brampton they have very good social media presence and with that comes a lot more opportunities being well known to the students which is which is going around to the young people around in tamlets which is pushing them to apply for those schools i think another one is regarding grade boundaries tower hamlet does have significantly lower grade boundaries than the other schools ncs lae brampton all have eights and nines at gcscs whereas simplesway and other other schools in the borough have lower gcsc brownies from six to eight which is much more achievable for a lot of students and they also but also another thing is financial support in timeless we do get a lot of financial support with ema bursaries also in school bursaries that was something else that i decided that would be better for me if i stayed in time let's receiving that financial support whereas if i left i wouldn't have received that support okay um hi i'm mara and i'm currently in year 10 and i'm going to be picking my sixth form choices next year and being honest with you right now i'm considering leaving the borough for sixth form and i think one of the main reasons is why is because of reputation um so many like sixth forms outside of the borough of known big three they have a really strong academic reputation and because you know of their exam results and the support they offer for oxbridge or even like officer results like they show so much good potential for someone like high achieving students who want to aim for those things and i guess being in the environment is really important because it gives you like confidence and because there's like consistent teaching style that gives you the same results which i think can be seen lacking in six forms in tower hamlets and it's all another thing that also comes down to is like the views of students because talking to some of my peers they said that the only reason they don't want to apply to six forms in tower hamlets is because of the things that they heard from current students so there's a lot of negative stories that i've been like you know deter them from applying for six forms in tower hamlets while students from six forms outside of the borough they're genuinely proud of their school and they're kind of showing it off and i think that affects a lot on how students kind of like choose what six form to go to um another huge reason for me is extracurriculars because like when you're applying for universities they do like to see this kind of super curriculars or extracurriculars and i feel like the big three or like any six forms outside the borough they offer so many choices for those kind of extracurriculars with like some schools even having like more than 30 plus choices which is quite a lot and it's like it's a varied for everyone whereas i feel like the tower hamlets those choices can be very limited and i think that tower hamlet schools are really capable like there's so much good that we haven't discovered but i think coming back to what dia did before they just no one really knows about them there's no advertisement you know like there's very little information available and i think if that was more available to all the students you'd see like more students kind of like staying in the borough for the six forms here yeah hi everyone my name is no i'm currently in year 12 i'm studying at bowl school i'm currently i'm doing a b-tech business course and i think a choice why i decided to stay at both school was like as he has said the ema the ema and as well as in my school there's like roam the corridors and make sure the children are not like doing naughty things but i think it's those kind of incentives that keep students in within the borough but also at the same time if there are incentives outside the borough that are larger and more kind of good better looking then students will go outside i think also within a lot of the time as qualified to teach a level for example like a gcse business student they might be moved to teach a level business or a level economics i think that also to like the big issue of lack of teachers in terms of a levels but i think maybe because i was also part of the food scrutiny meeting i think similarly to the food screw in hamlets they need to fill up this checklist and maybe even like a team provided by the council that check up on schools within the borough to see if they are keeping up with the standard of education i think young young gentlemen and young ladies as well for your giving your view my question to lisa before i come to the floor is i can understand the trend on tower hamlets on the sixth form is down to 30 percent uh compared on national average 35 so one of the reason is as you said the the the gcse do really well when it comes to a level most of the students who want to progress in the life they go across the bar into newham nca brampton and academic accident and one of the reason is they give better choice and so on so my question too is are we in the process of doing similar to one of those three flagship six from the dimension those kids are we in the process of doing anything like that entire hamlets if there if it is uh when and how we're going to make sure we keep those children in the barra rather than going over over the across the bar even here is good policy but it doesn't show that good children children who want to achieve something high they're they're not you you may not going to stop them staying in tablets uh what's your thought on that lisa so the there was um a proposal that was put to the dfe and to create the institute of academic excellence which um was uh very similar to um the kind of um school that um has been described in terms of the the big three which would be um really focusing on and getting that pipeline to oxbridge and because the dfe hasn't supported that proposal um we need to uh rethink how we move forward i think um when i met with the young people um uh last week we talked about it and we talked about the need to support existing um provision within the borough and look to um work with uh school leaders and with our young people to make sure that it's the the very best that it can be so um we need to uh to to look to that i think um some of the points that uh newer made are really key uh one of the reasons why the the big three are so good is because i guess they've had a number of years to um get the kind of teacher workforce that they need in place um and teacher specialism is absolutely key and it i know from teaching key stage five myself that there's a big difference between teaching um gcse and then going on to teach um a level standard so it's really um key that we focus on getting those specialist teachers and it's difficult nationally in terms of teacher retention and but there's also i think we talked about last time uh we need to celebrate and promote what's going on in tower hamlet schools a little bit more i guess um it's interesting to me um maybe to ask the young people do you think that it's a a is it a negative that you choose to leave the borough and go elsewhere or is it you know is it is it a good thing that you've been able you're able to to to make that choice i guess i'll answer that question considering i'm the only one here that did move out um it's a good question i think there's both pros and cons to moving out i think one big pro that people tend to have is that oh we're like expanding horizons we're meeting new people we're going to these new different places and that's good but i think a con is that i think that that it says there's a lot of inconvenience like having to move out the borough now that same support you will get in tower hamlet schools isn't really there i think tower hamlet schools are really good at financial support pastoral support but i think that's where they stop that academic support just isn't there whereas the newham schools the big three which i mentioned they're really good with academic support sometimes with financial support but that i think it's like you have to pick the lesser between the two like do you want financial support pastoral support mental health support or do you want the academic rigor that's going to get you into these top unis so for me it was that i had to pick the one with academic rigor because i wanted to really solidify my chances of getting into oxbridge so i think there is that con that yeah i don't have access to things like the ema anymore i don't have access to these things at least in my school i don't really have access to these bursaries but what i didn't have in tower hamlet which kind of convinced to move out was that the academic rigor wasn't there the enrichment really wasn't there so um yeah i think it's an interesting question i think there's like pros and cons to um moving out in like different areas i'd say um i also think it really depends as well on your school um i go samples away and although we don't have this the ability to support every student the students that are achieving achieving high you want to go to oxbridge top russell group universities there are programs that the school does support you with there's one called the elephant group which helps applications towards russell group universities and opportunities are there but it's limited to certain individuals and certain students not to all students whereas at schools like ncs it's offered to nearly every single student and simply it's just because the funding isn't there to support every student in the borough but schools the big ones in the borough samples where mowbrie the all-girls school they have more funding to support more students whereas the smaller six forms more perth um oaklands they don't have as much ability to support the students students uh to the young gentlemen am i understanding that on the key stage five that academically teachers are less knowledgeable in time to support you to achieve this higher standard of grade than those three we mentioned is that am i correct on this but it really depends um i can speak for samples way and our humanities department has amazing teachers who are very well known in their subjects and have been teaching a levels for a long while now and they have shown results in our school for that side of the course however when you go to subjects like stem or social sciences a lot of teachers aren't specialized in those subjects and do lack the subject knowledge for a level content but i feel like schools are trying to find teachers for that but it's just simple lack of teachers right now yeah sorry well what did what did dfc say no to it on proposal was there any reason behind it yes so they identified that that we have a surplus of six form places in the borough so we have um a number of six forms um with provision and so if we had another school um there would be lots and lots of places and we don't have enough students to fill the places they also identified that the proposal was for um a 250 place um school and they've identified that in order to be financially sustainable to be able to recruit the enough teachers etc um that we should be looking at um a a school of about a thousand jenna come along so let the lady first okay so for lisa um you just mentioned um there is no resources enough resources for the key stage five so my question is how do you overcome the lack of resources um or insufficient you know the resources in the classroom the idea how to get this thank you so when we met with head teachers um we asked um what sort of uh resources would make a difference and so they talked about some things that are relatively simple to to put in place and wouldn't cost much in terms of subject networks and conferences subject uh examiner training which really makes a difference to to teachers and and hones their skills for preparing uh pupils for for examination uh they talked about um and i think the young people have also talked about the need to have enrichment activities so it's not only about the the teaching and pedagogy in the classroom but it's about how um it's about the holistic view of of of of the people and and opportunities that we present um they talked about um opening up opportunities across the borough in terms of places for people to study so could we look at how we are operating an idea store for example and could we offer up study space for um our young people um they talked about um it and um i know that during the pandemic the laptops that the dfe provided made a significant difference and to pedagogy and practice um is that something that would um support uh our students in post 16 um in terms of uh the local authority and our role um it would be um really um useful for us to have additional resource within our um data and intelligence team which would help us to um interrogate outcomes um and track and monitor performance uh with uh much more easily than we can do steve might want to add yes so we are um in discussions with with the mayor now about uh an investment proposal um now obviously we've had the decision uh from the dfe about the the new sixth form um and that is going to look at how we could fund some of the things lisa has proposed there um i think the other thing just to flag the the letter that we got back from the dfe did also recognize um we've got some really really good schools in tower hamlets and delivering excellent results and i guess in in our position in the council lisa and myself i guess the challenge to us is well how do we the better performing schools in the borough how can we get others um to lift up but well whilst i've just got the microphone for a second what one of the challenges is it's about what is our approach to education in the borough and do we want to be inclusive and let more young people take qualifications even if we know they're not going to get the highest grades and i think that that's something that young people have touched on is that some of these really high performing six forms have lifted the bar really really high for entrance so you only get in there if you're already really high performing young person and some of our schools are maybe on the top of a levels would be saying well we take a more inclusive approach and and we're not going to set that bar up there because actually we want to give lots more children a chance as well well to go back to your question we are developing a proposal for additional resources yeah sorry my mind was going everywhere and i had like hundreds of questions um thank you for the presentation and obviously like i only want to ask one or two rather than like five different questions um so some of the things we've established is that there are like financial constraints within the borough but at the same time you've proposed uh your proposal was declined but your backup plan is just coming into play now was it uh so first question is like do you have a backup plan before and why not already invest in the schools that we already have rather than trying to get a new school that to me doesn't make sense like if you already think our schools are good enough why not invest in them in the first place and second of all if young people from a normal setting are struggling as it is and i see that uh you put on my report about the virtual schools post-16 program for our children uh care that oh yeah we're a trailblazer we're doing this but obviously that gives me no hope now after hearing the testimony of the young people how do you expect them to survive without the financial backing and and no parental support uh and no no guidance as well and like we need to start thinking about how could it be more inclusive like you said and and also giving a disadvantage but try to be more inclusive at the same time to the ones that are high achieving they want to receive those uh reward because then it's like you're going to paint everyone with the same brush like let's give everyone a chance it's about equity right not equality yeah so we need to be able to support them and like i was looking at a uh my niece at the moment she's doing key stage five uh gcc's and i was trying to look for tuition centers for her which again bizarre you spend so much time in school and you have to have tuition separately to me it's just why but financially it's like 150 pounds or 200 pounds for one month that's not affordable for people who are working let alone people who are struggling surviving so what help have you asked council my question and how can we support you and also in terms of calibers what other support are you going to provide because this seems like it's not enough at the moment so um yeah i think um when lisa was talking earlier about the other work we've been doing so we've had a summit with head teachers we've had a review carried out about the send summit we've drawn up a list of other other possible um things we could invest in um that work's been going on this year so we haven't we haven't and obviously um all our schools are seeking to improve as well so individual schools are are doing work um as well um you picked up the issue of uh children who are in our care and care leavers um and i think we perform we do perform well on that one of the one of the issues though of course is because of the small numbers sometimes you see big fluctuations in in outcomes and performance but our our virtual school which is the obviously the the virtual head and his team who look after education of all children in our care and care leavers um they do work incredibly hard and and do get really positive outcomes and and again without going on about the ofsted inspection some of the elements within that inspection report talked about the virtual school and how uh we're supporting uh our our children in care and care leavers education uh but you know we can we can always do more on that and and i think you know as i've as i said earlier you've picked up that point about inclusion so so you know do we want to go to a position where we we start asking schools to be more restrictive you know we can ask them but actually it's you know each individual school is is has got its own governing body and runs itself we can't impose a regime in terms of you can't let children do an a level unless they reach a particular level and there is disparity in the borough there are some some of our sixth forms do set the bar a little bit higher than some of the others and and some heads would would claim well they're not being being as inclusive but i think that's you get the headline data about your overall a level performance then you get headline data about what proportion of our children are going to the best universities and you need to look underneath that to see as you know the the impact it's having on our our young people as well um but we as i said we are developing a uh you know our proposal for investment and in discussions with the mayor about how we can how we can fund that i don't know if there's anything else sorry um the well obviously because we've just set the budget um going into this year where it's now a growth bid in the new year to try and uh try and invest in that thank you um my question is uh i find a bit interesting uh this one um science is has been singled out as a particularly poor performance what work has been uh has been done to investigate why this is such as teachers um subject knowledge lab facilities examination entry policy and student power attainment in stem and stem what's the uh many do you have any findings so i think as i've said um there is no commissioned resource which looks at key stage five currently so that we we are to to answer your question schools have obviously um interrogated their data sometimes it's due to difficulties in teacher um in getting teachers or sometimes um teachers are ill and it's difficult to get replacements but in terms of um an overall look a borough wide look at why um science is results are are not where we'd want them to be and that's not something that we have the capacity to undertake at the moment and that's why the growth bid that steve alluded to is so um key to driving um attainment and progress forward at key stage five and then joanna please hi thanks for the presentation and thank you it's it's really been informative um it's quite disappointing really that everyone wants to leave town and it's quite frankly um you kind of took the wind out myself because most of my questions were around the yeah you knew that was coming um because because my biggest thing is about the number of vacancies already in our six forms and what are we doing to fill them but um so we talked about how brilliant they are they are in newham and that we haven't actually got anything at the moment but are we thinking one of the things perhaps is then infected as a delegation to newham to find out what's going on there is it because they're only taking the top performing students um the data that was in there it noted 16 schools colleges did that include external colleges because i'd be interested to see how the external colleges are doing in terms of do they do better if they're not attached to a school if not what are the schools doing that are better than the colleges or vice versa um my daughter did um absolutely brilliant in in time so i will not knock it at all um do we know do specific subjects attract more money no so if you were so if a school for instance said we're going to offer maths and science another school said technical subjects it would be the same amount of funding so i'm old i know but when we and i know they've all got their own six forms now when before in the old days we used to have lap one and two six form and everyone would go to one particular six form is there any way of um if it's nothing to do with money perhaps having specialist schools um trying to butter up and i know we can't because i know because i'm working a school but you can only put it to the governors but could we have like a specialist maths could we have someone with technical could we have because it might be easier to concentrate on a specific area within a school and then we know that's where we're going if we want maths i mean i know with st paul's way it's brilliant the other thing as well is do we push enough in other areas because when i was looking for further science um sorry further maths for my daughter st paul's way was full you weren't getting there where would you go in you know it's how many schools are doing it and then if you've got three schools offering the same subjects and they've all got two students it's not viable so what are we doing to kind of say to the schools listen could you run this could you run that and i know it's they are their own masters but it's getting in and making those conversations and i know feb has got ever such a lot of um they work really well with the schools they're really friendly so could it come via that way i'm just trying to think but um whether rightly or wrong i'm quite pleased there is no academic thing of excellence because i just feel like we don't want to be a two-tier system where everyone's like there i feel like if we could share the wealth because we already know what what the schools are going for at the moment and and what might be coming in future in terms of more closures let's be honest because of the falling miles and if we could share that wealth instead of saying oh well you're only the one that's going to survive out of all this when the blitz comes you know i think that's what we should be looking at as a council not trying to now pick off one individually um yeah i mean there's there's a lot in what you've just said um but no all really important and i think that that first point about um and as lisa says you know part of the reason the dfc don't support is as a borough we've got lots of places and not enough children to fill all those six one places and and also you're right because the falling roles that are start we're starting to see in our primary schools now for the first year we're starting to hear from secondary heads aren't we they're now getting more nervous that never mind filling their sixth form the years coming through you know into their into their year seven there they're concerned about that um so we're working really hard uh we've got a school organization group uh that's working with schools to make sure you know we've seen down the road in other in other council areas they're shutting lots and lots of primary schools and we don't want to be in that position if we can possibly avoid it and and you make a really good suggestion which is about could we um could we negotiate and have schools work together in groups around particular specialisms because i know um talking to some of their teachers there are particular specialisms where you just can't get you know really a really strong well experienced well qualified teacher and um you know science is definitely one i've heard of and i'm one or two others so sharing that resource would be a logical way i think i think timetabling some of that has been a real challenge between different schools uh in the past um but i guess the other thing just to be really um open and transparent um some of the some of the secondary school heads i've spoken to there they do get significant resource for the number of children within sixth form and what you sometimes find is they're actually funding other activities in the school enrichment support mentoring counseling whatever it is because the you know the the number of kids they have in their sixth form so we know that that's why there's a level of nervousness around that but certainly you know one of the things we'd like to take forward and that can be very helpful and we want to work in partnership with that is how schools could work together to offer those offer those programs rather than try and do a multiple number of uh a levels with not enough students in each um yeah so um where do i start um so um i guess probably first thing i would like um uh great kind of points um really um insightful points made by the individuals here um i wish you all the best in your studies um around so the point um sleep you mentioned and i echo that in terms of under school those three kind of schools in newham and i do have a close um friend who are actually a deputy um ceo of one of the trusts and they have a few schools in in newham and outside um and having a lot of philosophical kind of discussions around um whether schools should really be asking for top end grades um and at the exclusion of many others who could be coming from on that locality um essentially pulling in and i know these schools have been in the news over the years um so i mean that's a debate um similar to grammar schools i guess um something worth exploring further um and the point around um trying to establish a a school here and specializing in and obviously dfv haven't i guess um there is and i think all of this needs to be looked at with the wider kind of issues around the primary school um you know the the children and and the numbers going down and which will inevitably have an impact on secondary school and then six forms and i think we've had a school open in in the highway in walking mulberry docks um um any of those the the schools that we have now i think the surely the focus should be and i can see where the funding some of that's gone but the focus should be on really you know um supporting these schools from from the council but i think what really stands out for me is this isn't something that's just happened overnight this surely this has been a trend for a very long time um and at the same time our schools here are generally or maybe not um worth clarifying um but our schools here at gcse we've been doing great over the years um and so same schools who are then delivering the sixth form the um uh key stage five um and the vast majority of our schools tend to have six forms now um and with the additional support from the ema the grants and the maintenance i it does baffle me and looking at some of the data 5.2 percent of students achieving um a star to a grade versus 16.2 across london um and then the science and some of these data's um i think the mention around um the lack of support having from the focus groups and um the lack of engagement with the teachers and and probably support from the teachers there's a lot there to unpick but i just feel this isn't something that's just happened overnight um where has the the team the council you know the support and and surely the schools it's not that the schools do not want to focus because our schools here are very proud of of um the gcse results that tend to come out on a yellowish and it's not something where you'd think they wouldn't want to replicate that with with um a levels and and you know um and and the other qualifications so i mean it does baffle me and i don't know if that's some work can be done on this and and it'll be good to hear your views as to this trend that surely did not start just the other day it's been going on and and how serious is the council to really overturn this we're not talking about a small gap it is quite significant thank you you you make um some excellent points and um obviously i'm only started working here relatively recently as is as is lisa um but that's this yeah it's developed over years um and we as you say rightly proud of our schools in our borough and rightly proud of uh the gcse results um but i think um it's as as our colleagues said over here it because the education landscape shifted and the role of local authorities we're there within schools and education has changed um our our level of influence um has means that you know we might say well as a as a council we would like to adopt a policy where look we we want to encourage young people to be doing a levels when we know they are capable of the top grades and that's a policy that we should have and find other programs and other routes for some of our young people um but that's that's not something that schools would support because that might limit the number of children they have in sixth form which financially impacts them as well um i mean i think i think the the figures on uh russell group universities we have seen a positive trend in recent years so the percentage of our children getting into russell group has improved but certainly in terms of oxbridge and and those sort of level uh of institutes where obviously we're not hitting the numbers that some of our neighboring boroughs are um and you're absolutely right are you know we've got brilliant head teachers and leadership teams and they want to do the best for the children and you know delivering such positive gcse results they they do want to improve their their a-level results as well and that's why we've we've been having those sessions with them this year and then looking at how we could make investment um because they do want to uh deliver improved results just as much as we do uh for our young people i don't know lisa is there anything else we'd add to that and just but just to highlight that when we're talking about the poor results that is a level um um when we're looking talking about level three applied general um you know we've performed far better so it's worth remembering and and i guess coming uh as a teacher by by trade i would say that there is a big difference between teaching a level and teaching gcse and that's that's the the the issue that we need to to tackle it's a different set of skills it's a different subject depth of knowledge um it is very different in my experience teaching both gcse and at um a level but just on that point so but that's that's the same wherever you go so newham and all the other boroughs um would we talk about the same thing aren't we that when it comes to gcses and a level teaching a level um and it's not necessarily just for tower hamlets i guess others and that's what the issue is i guess well we're talking about the the big three in newham which have focused on teaching a levels and have done so for for many years and have built up that teacher expertise and subject specialism so um and and that's something that we would want to um see if we can um replicate within our bar thank you uh excuse me ted just wondering if any of the young people could come in is that okay thank you um i was just gonna say particularly about how the borough is good at having russell group university applications but not oxbridge could it be that within those um newham schools is it that the oxbridge kind of newly teachers that come out of there they're getting hired by that and if that's the case how can tower hamlets get more highly educated specialists in the borough i think that goes back to how we how our schools uh recruit and retain the the best qualified staff and there's a range of reasons highest performing the best resourced you know the most engaged students you know those are all things that influence decision made decisions made by teachers lisa i've got a question to you on this and i'm a piece of the waiting that i understand that uh top three mentioned one of them are brampton and the ns nsa they do preparation for a level or key stage five student to have to do pre-exam entry exam to the oxford and cambridge uh i know because my son went in there so i have not seen that within the time the sixth form do that preparations because even if you get the right result you have to have the you have to pass the entry exam to those uh uh university even regardless your result uh to okay pre-admission uh is is there anything that well any of our systems doing that to make sure even they get the aa does not mean they're going to get to oxford and if they don't pass internal exam they're not going to get in so is there any one of the sixth form doing anything about it to help the students to pass those exam so i can see if that nodding i think and so i'll bring him in in a moment but um i know that the um um secondary uh head teachers are part of the group called the elephant group it's a national group um which is looking at supporting um particularly students from disadvantaged backgrounds to get into those um russell group universities so there's a whole program that the secondary schools are engaging with to support students um around that but i'll bring in effect um i think i've a slightly like different view um i think the big three in newham i think they're really good at like supporting students with that entry exams into the oxbridge because of course oxbridge has their own specialization at the lna h80 uk etc but even just applying to those six forms is like applying to oxbridge because they have interviews they have for it for ncs i had to write a personal statement as to why i wanted to attend and they read that they give feedback so i think there's actually a lot we can do right now with talent schools because there's a lot of programs and provisions that these new schools have that i think we can very easily replicate in tower hamlets for example in ncs we have something called osprey supervision programs where teachers in their specialist fields they deliver like lectures and classes in that respective field so for example in a history supervision in class we're taught like the curriculum like what we need to get a levels but then in history supervisions we're taught things that they're normally taught in history in like in university like different empires that we're not really taught about or different theories about history that we're not really taught about in school and that's what oxbridge really likes when oxbridge sees in the personal statement that this person has received help from their school and how to write personal statement they have received extra lectures on the in these subject areas because these unions really like when a student goes out of the curriculum to learn about their subject if if these schools can do it literally just by having in their timetable one hour dedicated to that subject outside of the curriculum i don't see why we can't do that as well of course there are a lot of implications to that which i'm not really aware of but i think like the way we apply to sick form the support that we have in tower hundred sick forms we can really easily start kind of optimizing it for oxbridge ivy league russell group but i think me going to ncs i think that has given me a lot of insights how they do it and it's literally just by sectioning off an hour or two a week to really focus on how to get into oxbridge like even in curriculum lessons the teachers are always talking about this is what oxbridge likes about what you're learning or this is how you get an a star in your subject they really are thoughtful about this if the teachers in tower hamlets are also just as thoughtful we give them a little little bit of a stare like this is what oxbridge really likes i think we can really like start to crank up the results in tower hamlets uh no has something with sorry um i can't speak for all schools in timeless but um samples where as lisa say the elephant group does help but that's limited to a certain number of students per school so at samples where you had to make an application form in the beginning of the year if we were someone who was aspiring to go to oxbridge russell group university and then through that that's when those students are the only ones that get support with personal statements with interview practice for the top schools and it's because of that limitation that it's just certain students who are aspiring to go there resics or if you haven't reached certain gcc grades and your predict grades aren't there you're limited in applying to those schools and so we have an early entry program which is for students who are aspiring to apply to the top universities those are students that are getting the interview practice the extra curricular support the super curricular supports and goal has element group too and it's just it's only helping groups of students in each school whereas ncs brampton lae is the whole cohort and so they have the accessibility to do to everyone whereas in the bar it's limited to certain individuals per school and what you were saying young men another lea they do the bright student they let them to the year year ahead exam so they get to get with the subject early one year so it's within two years a level they get the surprise so they get them to one year a level exam so they get the subject out of the way so they have another year left to do or concern rest of the subject so some of the thing that we should learn from them though the person to keep the entire hundred if they're so bright get them to the exam first and that's back so they go year left to the other exam so some of the thing steve and this is that we should have to learn from others and duplicate it as it's a young and so we can duplicate into time hundreds and keep our student time hundred majority of them go across the barra i know because both my son went across the barra even i tried them couldn't get them here so i'm sure it's not it's the wrong thing to say my son went to outside the barra but it is that's what it is i've got lots of questions but i'm going to try to summarize as much as i can as my colleague ashraf was asking and astrid replied um one of the guidance of the excellence and also lisa actually replied so i wanted to ask obviously council can give some sort of excellence or guidelines to the schools i understand there is not much of uh influence you may have as you used to be but it goes the same as when we spoke about rsc the council has certain limitations i mean certain way to uh say things but we gave the guidelines to one extent but we why did we not actually focus on our academic excellence and say okay these schools need to aim higher on academics why did not did not the council say okay i will invest it if needed be but our academic excellence should be higher at the same time uh we also i also wanted to recommend that obviously we know that where we are uh sort of i won't say uh very poorly but we need to improve uh why didn't we send sort of dedication to our borrowers or other schools to see what are they actually doing why can by this time why didn't we replicate what exactly they're doing i understand from the young uh young our uh present is here they mentioned the number of the supports and extracurricular activities and the oxford pathways and so and so they do and they that those schools are very ecologist attractive to them it's very easily the financial support we from tar hamlets as a young uh were saying that they got free school means ema and so on so much of the opportunities here but still they're not looking any of that they're aiming high of academic should we be inclusive of higher education for our youngs as the young uh some portrait he was saying that um they get some sort of support only limited to some stop student that doesn't show me that it's inclusive to everybody so and also on the report of your uh 68 70 page number 4459 i've noted it down um the number of the students specifically ethnic minority minorities they are very low percentage of a and a star what has actually council we know that hamlets is multicultural and we've got a huge number of ethnic minorities here what are they doing actually the council support those minorities same goes with uh on your report uh on your report uh i've seen that uh only 5.2 percent of the student uh they actually got a or a star where uh the greater london we've got 16.2 percent uh same goes with the education and uh employment outcomes which dropped from 86.9 to 82 percent this is quite alarming for us that we why are we not focusing on uh achieving or uh giving the best opportunity or investing more for our youngs to get the academic uh excellence and can we not actually give the guidelines to the schools that this are the excellence from councils that we expect at least there is some guidance so that they can follow it also these children actually spoke about the students spoke about the teachers retention and getting high quality of the teachers obviously uh if all the schools as uh afshuff was asking all the stood uh teachers get the same sort of uh uh benefit from all schools why are they not scale staying in town do we do we not have the data of it and um you know the governing bodies and whoever they're recruiting do we have enough support for them to say okay we need to do x y and z so that um the week week so recruit the good teachers for our youngs and retain those good teachers for our youngs for better future thank you um yeah obviously that there was a lot in in that um you know and i think our our schools are our school leaders our teachers are are working really hard and i think yes we can look out the borough and look at what some of those other um schools and sixth forms are doing um and and learn from that and see if we can um identify more resources to scale up things like the elephant group that that is that is effective but i think we also just need to be honest about um what what was what we're saying then so do we want to do you want to lift the bar and not be as inclusive and say well only let um young people who get this level of gcse do this level of a level um you know i think i think that's that's a really difficult question and i think uh the issue around the council's influence you know we want to we do work well with schools but ultimately they have their own governing body they you know they're obviously responding to ofsted and and the dfe as well but um you know we can we can work in partnership we can flag up good practice we can apply for additional resources and try and support them but ultimately you know schools have to run themselves as well okay um this has been an absolutely fascinating discussion but i i think i'm going to say something slightly unpopular here i think there's big equity issues here we've been talking about oxbridge as if that is the be all and end all by the way i should say i went to the london school of economics so but the the the issue from equity point of view is at the margin would i sooner have a student get into university because the the capacity went into helping that person to get into one of the other 150 universities in the country and then um we talked about russell group okay and oxbridge i get i get that but i think there is an equity issue about what is what are we directing our schools to do i mean and then i i have to think i have to say about what do what sort of message are we sending to people who are doing a levels and not going to university are we preparing people to get quality jobs which don't at 18 don't require you to go to university and i mean i wouldn't want the school to be sort of judged down if in fact they are doing a splendid job for the students who aren't choosing to go to university and then i mean and then i i think there is another issue as as well which sort of confuses the issue um local university in london um i i suspect as a student if you wanted to um you would want to live at home there must be a draw to living at home to um to save on your perception of debt that you're going to end university from so okay we've had a fantastically interesting um conversation and there's so many things but i i do want to wonder if we aren't putting too much emphasis on oxbridge and getting the top tops against getting the marginal student into either a good job without going to university or a good job in another university um yeah obviously that's um that's a that's a really fundamental question isn't it about what do we want as an education system and what do you want for our our children and young people and their futures and also as we've heard today it's you know from their own voice you know what do they want and and as you say there's there's for some people the university is not what they want so actually they want a different path they want an apprenticeship they want to go straight into the world of work and you know we through our employment and skills team we want to work with local businesses in tower hamlets as well to engage schools which you know i know we do a lot of and uh we should point out as well i think for the first time in a very long time are not in education employment training the neat figures we're in the top is it quintile yeah top quintile nationally because actually um you know that a very small proportion now of our children aren't in any sort of education employment and training and yeah and that's you know that and that's really positive um so yeah i you know i think i think it's really important that we remember there's a range of perspectives and a range of ambitions and we need to we need to support everyone and the final thing i would say is um uh as lisa will i'm sure um want to remind us all our comparative performance on children with their additional needs on their exam outcomes compares incredibly well to other places and that's that's something we should be applauding our schools for as well thank you thank you steve uh thank you for young uh uh children's who well young adults say to come over and give your time really appreciate uh steve and these are thank you we should thank you for your time as well on that topic so we're slowly going to move on to our next item which is the challenge session so give time our final item in this evening is to discuss the attached challenge session report on free school meal if uh and before you can submit to mayor and the cabinet uh i would like to thank you everybody who participated in the in this event over the last eight months uh staff uh councillors schools teachers everybody i really really thank you from my heart and also jay did wonderful job on that uh uh as he's staring on that particular subject so justin as well so i just pass over to that to conclude on the report that you take over please thank you chair yeah all right so um the actual report is included within the agenda pack so i hope you've all had a chance to go through it and read it um just to remind you all that the first of recommendations were shared to you on email on the 7th of april and then a few members who attended the challenge session itself met on the 28th of april to discuss the recommendations and there was general consensus that the recommendations touch upon the right areas and respond well to the evidence gathered just to remind you in a quick summary of some of the recommendations firstly embedding a continuous cycle of school food improvement via the introduction of a tower hamlet school food accountability policy so that the council can hold schools and caterers to account additionally securing fair pay for kitchen staff we found out that in some schools some of the kitchen staff are earning below the london living wage so we want to ensure that there's equitable pay thirdly sharing any independent evaluation findings with um head teachers and parent governors to incentivize improvements and foster a culture of um positive competition because as we saw there's some variance in portion sizes between schools and uptake levels um fourthly strengthening student and parental engagement around school food um the committee had a focus session with parents in the grocer's wing which was well attended and lots of parents highlighted that they're not really engaged much on free school meals we also learned from parents that there's a lot of generational trauma around free school meals perhaps they didn't have the best of experiences and as a result their children are not taking up the food so um we have a recommendation around addressing that free workshop with parents um additionally um enhancing flexible and inclusive access to school food so what we the committee found was that in the month of ramadan lots of muslim pupils are fasting and therefore are not taking up the food as a result that may lead to food wastage um and a poor return on investment for the council when it's funding the food so some schools have started distributing take-home hampers for pupils and what the committee have asked for is to mainstream this and ensure that more take-home hampers are distributed especially with next year ramadan iftar time is going to fall around 5 to 6 pm making it a lot more difficult for working parents to prepare that food for their children um additionally what members found throughout the challenge session was that there's a variance in access to clean and appealing drinking water to schools that may be because pupils don't find the um fountains particularly hygienic or appealing the fountains are located outside of the lunch halls so the committee asked for the council to review this and ensure that there's consistent and clean access to water within schools and ensuring that stipulated as a condition of grant uh and then finally utilizing data in a much more productive way so members found that in swan lee school they started using item level tracking so that they can see what particular items are popular amongst pupils um and then additionally exploring the idea of pre-ordering in primary schools so that pupils have the option at registration to pick what meal they want and that gives the kitchen staff greater assurance of how much to prepare for the day it's something that officers highlighted worked well in other local authorities and potentially something that the council could explore so those are the main recommendations um members and i invite to provide any final comments on the report and recommendation before it is then submitted to the mayor and cabinet for executive approval and i just want to echo what the chair said thank you to all of the officers members schools who invited us in it's been a really productive session thank you um i want to know um are we going to have any further other visits to schools uh to test their food out and um and lastly um in terms of was the where some of our colleagues had concerns of the quality of some of the food that was coming out was that addressed as well in that report uh anybody else any uh joanna go on um i think for me it was about um i think they're saying about all schools has to sign up to the food charter and um that's great but what my concern was when they produce a menu they say this is on the menu and if their children aren't eating what's on the menu they might give you another option and that's no good either i think we need to be something in there that they need to work closer with schools because also i'll give you a really good example we've got a completely new menu now and um i tasted particular i'm not going to go into details a particular thing last week and it was absolutely awful and then i had the same thing at another school just because i was by smile and i said oh let me just taste yours because i know the chef and it was delicious and i know everyone cooks differently but i think we need to also be able to say our children are not eating this and you cannot force us because if you come to my school some days and see the amount of food waste it's absolutely horrendous so there need to be more than an option they need to work with schools to come up with another option on the recommendation was also we should school should learn from others as well that's one of the one of the recommendations as well in this so those schools extremely like a columbia school the chef was door children was drawing the chef how good is for the last 23 years so that's the prime example that was a 97 intake on that school that is brilliant okay almost 100 so thing like that that's the example of the school setting the standard and others can follow learn from this i think that's what those things are put into recommendation in there some schools might might need a different menu because one of the things you said like for instance like some children won't want curry because they have it at home our school loves curry and we always say can we have it back on the menu and it doesn't appear on the menu unless it's in vegetarian form but they want chicken curry thank you your comment uh hassan yep just um quickly on uh the queue and lining up on lunchtime has that been addressed on this i couldn't actually see that from our visit we have seen some of the schools have longer queues especially and sometimes they may have to consider uh whether or they have to choose between lunch and their uh study time because the queues are long and some of the students because of their uh the way the class has been time time has been developed they may have to miss their lunch or may have to be the last of the queue and then who many of them are the last of the queue they actually miss out of the what they wanted to actually get so they sometimes miss their lunch and those ones they come and frequented the very last the majority is they miss their lunch has that been addressed so in terms of queues what the committee found was that it's entirely contingent upon the school's management and how it operates so different schools will allocate a different amount of time towards lunch and that has a real big impact on how the queues fair up and even things like the size of the lunch hall play a role so it's something that the council doesn't really have much influence over but where this report can seek to address some of those challenges is through the tower hamlet school food accountability policy because what that would hopefully do is ensure that there are officers using that dedicated time to work with schools and hold them to account and have those conversations around how they can manage their queues perhaps how they can share best practice and intelligence between schools and additionally where they've done independent evaluations they've measured different things like portion sizes uptake levels i'm wondering whether measuring queues and waiting times is something that could potentially be explored in the future and utilizing that insight and sharing it with schools so that they can better prepare themselves in the future um so yeah hopefully in short answer through the time the school food accountability policy they can address that issue thank you thank you thank you justina thank you for your attendance and participating tonight this was the last meeting of this scrutiny year and he has been honored to chair this subcommittee i would like to thank you all members and officers the hard work and the contribution any other business from anyone no meeting finished no meeting finish thank you you you you you you you you you you you