Transcript

and people screwing the committee. Please note, we are not expecting a fire alarm test this evening, so if the alarm is sounded, please follow my instructions and evacuate the building. Please remember that this meeting is being broadcast live on the council's website. Please turn your microphone on when speaking, and remember to turn it off when you have finished. To make sure you can be heard on the broadcast and in the chamber, please speak clearly and directly into your microphone. I will now ask my fellow members and officers to introduce themselves, starting on my right.

• Thanks, Chair. Councillor Valerie Bostman-Quashie, Barnhill Ward, and Vice-Chair.
• Councillor Rosalyn Ogunro, St. Petersburg Canal Side.
• Councillor Saika Pundall, St. Mary's St. James' Ward.
• Mary Clement, representing Westminster Diocese.
• Councillor Micheline Southingong, Executive Member for Children, Young People, and Families.
• I'm Councillor Paul Convery, and I'm substituting this evening for a clear summit.
• I'm Susie Graves. I'm the secondary school parent governor representative.
• Councillor Ilkich and Carona Lacock Ward.
• I'm Sophie McNeil. I'm the primary school parent governor representative.
• Councillor Nastasugorova-Armstrong for Highbury Ward.
• John, do you want to introduce yourself?
• Evening, everyone. John Abbey, Director, Children's Services.
• Good evening. Deborah Idris, Interim Director of Safeguarding.
• Hi, good evening, everybody. Curtis Ashton, Director for Young Islington.
• I'm Tanya Townsend, Head of Strategic Programs and Strategy.
• Good evening, everyone. Ben Dunn, Assistant Director, School Improvement.
• Hi there, I'm Katie Wood, Interim Policy and Communications Manager.
• Thank you very much. Candy Holder, Assistant Director, Inclusion.
• Good evening, everyone. Paul Senior, Interim Director for Learning and Achievement.
• Thank you. Thank you, Paul, and welcome to tonight's meeting. We have apologies for absence from Nick Turpin, Councillor McHugh, and Councillor Zammit, and Councillor Convery is substituting for Councillor Zammit. Do members have any interest to declare? Okay, we move on to the minutes of the previous meeting. Can we agree the minutes of the meeting held on Tuesday, the 23rd of July?
• Agreed. - Agreed, thank you. Just moving on to the Chair's report. Not much to report. Me and the Vice Chair were invited to the new open G-Pub vibes, and it was actually a really good conversation and a great opportunity to see, you know, they're doing a really good job there. And also, we spoke to the CEO of YMCA, and we briefly mentioned the scrutiny topic and suggested that we might come back and do an evidence-gathering session there, and they were looking forward to that and shared their same concerns around attendance. And also, we have just taken this opportunity that we have our first evidence-gathering session on Wednesday the 18th at LIFT. You've sent our next week. There are no items for calling at this meeting. The next item is public questions. If we are joined by members of the public this evening, I would like to ask that any questions of the agenda item will take that during a discussion of the item, but please bear in mind that some responses may need to be issued in writing outside of the meeting. I think we have one member of public, but feel free to ask any questions. Okay, we now move on to our first item of business, this evening, this presentation. Candy, I know last meeting, it wasn't circulated, but we have read it, so if you just briefly go through the key points, and members will then ask questions. Thank you.
• Thank you very much. So, I'm not sure what I was taking when I wrote this, 'cause I realize it's very long and very detailed, but I think my anxiety was to get as much information to you as I could to prepare you for the scrutiny. Some of that is technical information. It's quite a bit about roles and responsibilities in there of parents, young people at schools, and the local authority. We look at the data, most importantly, and I suspect that's where you might want to focus the conversation this evening. And there's both published data and live data included in the report. The difference being for published data, that is absolutely verified for all schools, and we've got comparators for national and regional. For our live data, there's no comparators, and actually, it's only partial information because not all of our schools give us a live feed at the moment. That will change from this year when everybody is required to upload their data, essentially, to the DfE, and we can then download. Although, I have to say, that process is not running too smoothly in the first week. I have a teasing problem, but I'm sure that will improve, so in future, we'll be a better place. I think the key challenge in all of this is understanding persistent absence because that's the focus for your scrutiny, persistent absence, particularly at secondary school. It is a tricky concept to get your head around. It means missing 10% or more of your attention, so that could be between 10% and 49% of your schooling 'cause if you miss 50%, you fall into severe absence, but it covers quite a wide range and broadly speaking, if you said there were 200 days in the school year, there are not, there are 190, but 200 is convenient for the purposes of illustration. If you miss less than 20 of those days, you're not persistently absent, but if you miss between 20 and 98 days, you would be considered persistently absent. If you miss more than 99 days, I think, then on that example, you would be severely absent, so it's quite a broad range that you're looking at here. In terms of, obviously the report, as I say, goes into the roles and responsibilities, tries to give some explanations. As I've said, I'm sure you'll want to look at the data. What I'm trying to do at the end is give you some potential lines of inquiry as you're going about your visits and your interviews around the barriers, around what's effective, what's working well, 'cause I think it's very important that you're considering what's working well as well as those schools where they're clearly struggling. Particularly, I think, considering vulnerable groups, which we've tried to draw out in the data, and indeed the importance of data as part of your scrutiny. So I think that's probably all I'll say now, and perhaps see what questions you've got to ask.
• Thank you, Candy. Take questions?
• Okay, sorry about that. I have one question, really. Well, it's kind of quite a big question. It's looking at all the data and looking at the charts with category B school and D and E and all of those. One question I had was how do we monitor the way that the person who's responsible for implementing that data in the school, so they categorize it as other or persistent or sick or whatever it is, who trains them? And how do we monitor that the way that they're doing it is going to be the same as F school and E school? I just wanted to know, have we got monitoring in for that? Because there's an element of how, I'm not disputing, it is probably really accurate, but you have to ask the question, how accurate is it comparable looking at all the different schools? So that was the main question. Was there anything else you were gonna remind me? Is there anything else I forgot?
• I think it was around how the unauthorized and authorized absences are recorded, 'cause I think some schools can record it as authorized, and we're just talking about what's that remit.
• It was actually pinning down, and how do we know that actually B school and C school and various things is all being done the same way.
• Thank you, I think they're very helpful and pertinent questions. In terms of how we monitor, i.e. how the local authority monitors that, we've got an attendance support team which is made up of colleagues from Ben's service, my own service, and our early help service. Each school's got some deallocated to them, and they will look at the data with the school on a termly basis. So there's some oversight there. We're up in that this term. Our data team is now gonna produce a report for the school and ourselves on a termly basis, so we will be able to study that data in a lot more detail before we go into the schools to ask those questions and have those conversations. So I guess that's the first thing to say, is that's how we're monitoring centrally. But you're absolutely right in terms of, and the data, probably the other important thing to say, the data is the school's own data, so they are the ones who are returning it. So if there are any errors in that, that's at the school end, not at our end, that's actually fed to us by the schools. In terms of comparability, there is variability, I think, in the use of codes, and that is why the government have introduced this whole raft of new codes, and most of those new codes are around unauthorised absence and trying to make the reporting of that clearer. So previously, before this September, there were 25 different codes that schools could use to describe the reasons for non-attendance. That's gone up to 34 now, and some of the new ones that are introduced are, for example, are really about the reasons, being much clearer about the reasons. You will see in your pack, for one of the schools that we included as an example, unauthorised was about 80%, but literally it was an O code unauthorised. There wasn't any granular detail about that. And this particular school recorded, I think, 2.75 children who were ill. If that's the case, that's a national record. There is no question of only 2% of children suffering illness during that year. So there was definitely something not right about that school's recording, and these are some of the things that we pick up when we go into those schools to ask those questions. How you get comparability across the country, and even within a small borough like Islington, it's a challenge, but again with BEM, we meet with the deputy heads and inclusion leads. We have the conversations with them, so we try to get some commonality of understanding and interpretation through that discussion and monitoring. But there will inevitably, I think, be variability, not only in interpretation, but I think perhaps sometimes in the way that parents perhaps explain the absence or the reasons given. And things can be lost in translation, I guess, between that and the recording. So it's the right question to ask, and it might well be something, again, in your scrutiny that you want to delve a little bit more deeply when you're talking to those schools. And what I'm hoping is that you will be visiting or seeing some of our higher performing schools and some of our schools that are struggling more with this issue and looking at, perhaps for yourselves, what differences there are there, 'cause we know what we pick up, certainly.
• Let's kind of do a follow up.
• Yeah, I do, sorry. I would be interested in the training, because you said there are people going in and sort of talking to them, but that can also come out quite randomly, depending if you've got five or six or something, it's their interpretation. So I'm interested, is everyone that are doing this, are they round the table and it is all moderated together? So they've got a much clearer understand, I'm sorry, but I think that would be clearer if it was moderated together rather than individually, because you're still relying on a variability of personalities and their interpretation. So that's just.
• Well, that's an interesting suggestion. And certainly we've had those conversations around exclusion, school exclusion, so I think there's no reason. Yeah, absolutely, Ben, perhaps might comment there. I don't think there's any reason why we couldn't do that, and bring some examples. Obviously, the challenge is that schools are doing this twice a day, you have to report daily, there's two sessions in each day, so they're making those decisions as they're completing the records. What we could do some of that retrospectively, perhaps, bring some information back and look at that collectively, and say, what would you have classified this as? That's a helpful suggestion, Ben.
• I'm just gonna, Paul, did you wanna? Sorry, the Paul, the officer Paul behind you.
• Thank you, Chair, and it's a really helpful suggestion about the importance of how do we train? How do we support? How do we challenge the lead professionals who are working in schools to deliver this agenda? And the approach of the Learning and Achievement Department working with our schools and settings, and actually, we'll look to work with our schools in this way, and what Ben and his team have been very good on in recent times is looking at developing networks, networks of head teacher professionals, networks of deputies, networks of behavior, so it's a range of networks, and if there's an appetite, a genuine appetite across our school estate for this, this is something absolutely we've looked very, very favorably at. It's a win-win, it's a win for the schools. If we can create that common and standardized approach, strengthen the quality of practice, enable the capacity and capability of the individuals leading attendance in schools to be able to drive this agenda as well, so that's a good thing, but at the same time, it provides us as a local authority with more assurance that we're getting consistency of practice, so absolutely a good point, but I'm sure our colleagues as the term evolves, and we have more and more of our network meetings and more and more meetings with head teachers and lead professionals and senior leaders in schools. If there is such an appetite, absolutely rest assured, I'm sure it's something we'll look at using best endeavors to progress.
• Thank you, let's take questions from Councillor Convery, Councillor Cinco-Onna, and then Councillor Bosnot-Kwashi.
• Thank you, Guo-Chin. The question I wanted to ask in particular, the dashboards that is reproduced at page 28 of the Agenda Pack both suggest something encouraging, but also I have a slight niggle about it, so my technical question is this. The Possessment Absence by Year graph shows the most recent figure is autumn term in school year 23-24, and is then comparing different date points in previous years. Are those the autumn term date points for those years, or are they the full school year date points?
• It is the autumn term, yes.
• It is the autumn term, excellent. Because one feature of, when you look at the data for different terms of the year, generally autumn tends to be a little bit less than spring and summer, and there's several reasons for that. Well, that's helpful because what it's indicating is that the really rapid increase from the end of last decade through to roughly now has sort of plateaued and hopefully has declined a little bit, but, there was a but, the rest of the dashboard shows that we are still pretty much the worst borough anywhere in inner London, and that tells me that other boroughs are bringing their consistent absenteeism rates down, as we are. But the second thing, which is then demonstrated, although not very, very clearly in the dashboard data, is the enormous range between schools in the borough. And I notice that the dashboard, a little coyly, fails to name the schools, even though this is published data, there's nothing secret about it or confidential. But certainly for the academic year '22, '23, the whole year, in Islington, we had a persistent absenteeism rate of 10% at St. Aloysius, and 43% at Arts and Media, with Hybrid Grove at 40%, Cola, Islington at 33%, the rest of the schools across that continuum. So, the borough average is round about 23% at the moment, but it represents an incredibly wide range, and we're still not grasping, my question, if you like, is, are we grasping? What are the factors underlying this extraordinary range? What are some schools getting right? What are some schools still grappling with? And it seems to me that that's almost the key to unlocking part of the question. Understanding the data, therefore, what do we do? Key question is, why is there such a variation from school to school?
• Thank you. Candy, or Paul, do you want to respond to that, yeah?
• Thank you, and I think that's a real relevant and important question, where we'll be looking at where the data takes us, and as Candy's alluded to, and our counselor colleague has just made very clear, we have some schools that are really high performing and performing well in this space, and some schools that aren't doing so well, so how do we shine a light on the good practice in this local area to have that sector-led improvement approach where we use the expertise, the excellences in the schools to help lift the level up of those schools that maybe are, there is scope for improvement, so yes, now that we look at the work of our school improvement approach, our overall integrated systems approach looking at schools, not just about attainment, inclusion, behavior, attendance, we have to look at the whole school for a single lens, not just attendance in isolation, because attendance, variability can be endemic of a wider issue at school, it could be an issue on standards, it could be an issue on inclusion, it could be on many things, but before we get to conclusions about what the action plan is or what the strategy needs to be for that school, we have to have these mature conversations with the schools, we have to diagnose, and we have to try and really drill down where the pressure points are, what are the areas for development, what are the schools doing well, what could they be doing differently, but also looking at some of those schools are in what they call, we call their data set, their family data set of schools, the schools have similar demographics, why are they doing so well compared to the other, so absolutely, I always say good data allows us to ask better questions, we've got some good data here to begin to allow us to compare, contrast, share practice for not just other local schools, but also beyond that as well, and there are regional groups and sub-regional groups as well that we link with our equivalents in other London local authorities, to learn a good practice as well, so whilst we think we've got some good stories in instance of schools, absolutely benchmarking with other local authorities across London will help bring practice as well, so the data will allow us to drill down and be more targeted in response to the specific needs of each of our schools.
• I guess just to follow in on from Paul's, just to kind of find out, have we had any kind of initial conversations with the schools that aren't performing so well, for example, has there been that discussion previously or is there any feedback from those conversations?
• So those conversations certainly have been had and are ongoing, and at quite a senior level, certainly John has been involved in those conversations, and this is a shift in picture, so at the moment, we've got one school that is particularly standing out, we had one school that was particularly standing out last year, and it was a different school, and we've done work with that school, and that's improved, but somebody else has popped up, so it's a bit of a whack-a-mole, really. It's an ever-changing and an ever-shifting picture, and sometimes there are reasons within the school, as Paul said, about organisational change or policy change that lead to what might be a blip. But others, there is a definite trend, and so there are lots of conversations that have been had and will continue to be had.
• John?
• Yeah, thanks, Kandy, and thanks, Chair. I think the point Paul makes is relevant, and it's one that we've come back to a number of times, which is about that variability that can sit across the school system, and Ben will probably talk a bit about that around performance, so there's some good news there. But the accountability and the responsibility also sits with the school, so as much as we're here accounting quite rightly to members at scrutiny, there is something about within school and what you're doing because you can geographically have two schools right next door to each other, one performing really well and another one not performing as well. So that accountability where, you know, notwithstanding everything Kandy said is around how do we work with the schools and that introduction of isn't it professional partners, you know, that now has established itself, and having that professional conversation with schools about what they might be doing or what they may be able to learn because, you know, I have heard an Ofsted inspector say, you know, the attendance is not where you want it, but apart from swinging from the chandeliers, there's not much more they can do because they're throwing all of those tactics at it. And that's by exception, but I think what we want to make sure is that schools are also taking that responsibility for tracking those young people come to school, they know where, if they're not at school, how are they following up, and there are some real rigorous systems that some of our schools have, and are they copied in terms of that good practice? So I think it's a poignant and right question about how do we reduce that variability that inevitably sits across our school system.
• Thank you, John. Councillor Chinkine.
• My question is to Kandy. Basically, Kandy, in the report that you've produced with the absences and persistent absences, are the proves included in this?
• They are, so they're included in the overall, sorry, they're included in the overall data, so the overall barra data is for special schools, mainstream schools, primary and secondary. So in this sheet, the ones that's up there, that includes all schools. And we can, obviously, and we can break those down so we can look at this both in terms of phase, so we can look at special schools, we can look at primary, we can look at secondary, and we can look at school by school.
• Chair, can I ask a follow-up question? Thank you very much for that. John, you kindly said accountability. Schools have accountability and they have a duty to record absences and also to know where their pupils are. What about off-rolling? Who is accountable to that and who is responsible to that? And how, if a school is deliberately and consistently off-rolling students, why are we not doing anything about it?
• Thank you, A-L-K. Off-rolling has been one of those key points for a number of years and you're quite right to point that challenge to us. As I've said, each school has that professional partner. I don't think we had that rigor within across our schools. I don't think it was that systematic approach to accountability that I've known in other places. So we've made sure that is in place and Ben has that. That provides some of those checks and balances that probably didn't aid to that. We've most certainly had some robust conversations, I know I have, around that off-rolling. That off-rolling can not just include where are these young people in terms of attendance, be exclusions, suspensions, and whether that's done on the books, off the books. And we've most certainly had that. You've seen, I think Scrutney, we must say had another group where we talked about exclusions and we really went into the disproportionality that existed amongst the data where too few schools actually had the majority of those exclusions, but also we then went challenged, investigated, and particularly when they may be academy schools, we have to, that jurisdiction, we went to the regional director as well about exactly that. So those powers isn't necessarily the right word, but that responsibility can extend into that. But we have to make sure, and you've challenged that as well about the visibility of young people, each and every one and some of them will have different pathways. But we as a team have talked about exactly that, making sure that schools are accountable for young people. But I believe we have a system, introduced last year, but going forward, where every single school has that professional partner, if they're an academy or free school, then they will have those keep in touch visits, which will be by Ben and Paul, so that there is greater authority and visibility scrutiny from us as a local authority. So that responsibility is shared.
• Sorry, and also, just for the benefit of the committee, because just to summarize what off-rolling is, 'cause, you know, just clarity around what that is. And Councillor Chinko, did you want to make another comment?
• Yeah, before they explain to the committee what off-rolling is, or I can do it, it's up to you, but we talk about us and these schools that off-roll and the accountability and investigations and going and monitoring, what about the parents? There are parents that assume that their children are going to school, believing that their children are in school, they're not notified by the institution that their child is not in school, and then they're placed with fines because the child hasn't attended school. But the parent, there is no connection. My problem is with this, is that it's all good on paper, but if we cannot communicate with our parents and find a solution to this, where half the time parents don't even know. They send their children to school thinking that they're going to school. Some schools don't even bother to ring parents to tell them. How do we monitor this, and what do we do when we find out that this has happened? What do we do to that school? I mean, do we go and investigate? Do we go and question them? I just need some clarification on this because it's such a big issue.
• Yeah, yeah, thank you, and the role of the parents is pivotal to that. Off-rolling is really where a school can take or tries to make a decision with sometimes parents or an alternative pathway that means that a young person is taken off their role at a given time in a given year and provided with an alternative education pathway. However, and I think this is the poignant bit, where young people potentially could be lost and i.e. not in a provision. I, you know, we know of schools where we don't necessarily have the evidence of that, but we know it's pretty well substantiated where we do go and challenge. It is about keeping those young people visible. I'd be interested in the schools, which are not necessarily here, though, okay? But, you know, please do furnish us with that information where you believe that is taking place, where there are a number of young people who are not in school without their parents' knowledge. That's hugely worrying. There is a safeguarding element there, as well as an education right as well. With some schools, and we'll just talk about Islington, some schools where head teachers have that coy, very candid conversation with parents about, you know, maybe it would be in the best interest of the young person if they went to X or Y but not here, or if you keep your young person here, they're at risk of exclusion because of X or Y. And then those alternative pathways are found, the scenarios are often different. We, you know, this, as I said, I think last time, not helpful comment, but it's a duty that is not funded. So therefore, from a previous government's perspective, that duty was removed, that funding was removed. And so in terms of that follow-up, that most certainly has changed, as we've had to then change that offer. We are, yeah, we most certainly look at that, which is why, again, these interprofessional partners will have that connection, will be furnished with that information and be able to provide some of that challenge. I think in Islington, we most certainly take a very pragmatic and fair and balanced approach to fining parents. That's not something members have wanted to endorse. I don't know the numbers for that, okay, but I know they're relatively small because it's draconian. But in some cases, the evidence might suggest that they do need to be fined. So we come at it with a range of strategies. I think we've tried to strengthen that, but the data, and I think Paul's slide that's up there at the moment shows that there is a challenge about the visibility of young people and where they are and what they might be doing. So I think, you know, we accept that, that challenge and observation.
• Thanks, John, that's really helpful, and I know that...
• Just quickly, Chair, I'm really sorry.
• I'll move on. - Literally just one second. But isn't it, according to Ofsted, that off-roling is usually in the interest of the school and not the pupil? According to Ofsted, off-roling is usually the preference of the school, it's not for the child.
• Chair, this is a very important policy area, off-roling, 'cause when our children and young people are not in school, naturally we would have concerns what's going on, and potentially in some cases it may well border into the safeguarding area. Off-roling can be for a number of reasons. Invariably, it falls into education otherwise than a school, which is in the educational inclusion policy area, 'cause normally it's elective home education. I think offices will be more than happy if such a session is required in the future to look at this, and we would welcome data and intelligence around this, 'cause naturally where there is data and intelligence that suggests that we may be seeing spikes or patterns and trends returning to elective home education and increasing the risk of potential off-roling, then naturally that allows us part of our strategic risk assessment processes where we look at each and every one of our schools locally, where we migrate our schools, and there's a need for sometimes escalation where there may be risks identified around schools, and the risk escalation, John has already alluded to, if there are academies, then we use our relationships with those schools to influence, persuade, and negotiate, and in the most extreme cases, then there's a role for our relationship with the regional director. If it's a maintained school, then again, we will have an escalation process with the head teachers, governing bodies, the chair of governors, and so forth, so dependent on context, dependent on the level of risk will warrant the level of response, but as I've said earlier, obviously it's such a matter, such as off-roling falls into elective home education area, which is in the education, otherwise in a school, slash education inclusion policy area. If colleagues, if this is already not on the forward plan for the year, then chair then naturally will look at if this is something that there is an appetite from the committee to look at, then officers will prepare for that, but obviously the focus here is the attendance agenda, which is what officers are prepared for, and there's a significant body of evidence and information and advice and guidance in the report that's been prepared with a focus on the attendance policy area, should there be an appetite to look at education inclusion and off-roling and associate policy areas, and naturally, if a request is made, I'm sure officers will use best endeavors to prepare for that.
• I think I would probably, yeah, I definitely would welcome that, and I think in the context of this scrutiny topic as well, seeing the link of are those who are being persistently absent do end up being off-roled, and I think that's where we can kind of look at it from this scrutiny topic, and Councillor Michelin, did you want to?
• Yeah, thank you very much. I'd like just to add from what the colleague said, I believe, thank you for your questions, and we still have rooms really to improve, because as we discussed with you, we're going to start another project, how we can tackling a bad persistent absence, and also how can we work very hard to communicate with parents and young people, those who are having home education for them to come back to school, as John said, and poor visibility of young people matters, and that's where we're going to have enough time really, really to go in details about individual schools, to try to understand what is going on, and the good news is about from September, as we can see, the DfE put a bit more code to understand when they are recording a bad persistent absence. It will give us a good idea to know really what is the main cause, and how can we approach, and which system help and support can we wrap around young people, families, and working in schools, because even personally, when I'm speaking with some young people, they feel like school is not for them, it's not welcoming them. That means there is many things going on there. That is the main reason there is another piece of work. It can be John, Paul, and Ben, they are working for us, how we can change a bit, a leadership approach and culture approach into our own schools, because there are some schools young people feel really they are not welcoming. That means we need to change those system, and by changing those system, we need everybody around the table, including parents, their voice matters. Their voice of young people matters, and how can we have that kind of accountability is ready to challenge ourself. Are we doing enough, or can we do more? Really, in the near future, we're going to start to put all those kind of things in place, and we're going to bring back the feedback to Squidney, because really, we are determined to check everything in much details. Thank you. - Thank you so much. Ben, you wanted to come in quickly?
• Yes, just very, very quickly, I'm just following up on a point that both Paul and John made around the importance of networking. I think the drive moving forward from the local authority will be facilitating partnership working across schools so that we identify that best practice and share that best practice. And the professional partners are at the forefront of that, because there's a small professional team going into all our schools. They will, yes, hold teachers and school leaders to account, but they'll also identify the best practice. And coming back to the point that was made at the start of this item, one school's authorized absence for a visit might be another school's school visit. And on one hand, it could register as a authorized absence, and on the other hand, it could be a present mark. So it's about sharing the best practice across schools, which I think will be at the forefront of how we move forward.
• Thank you, Ben. Councillor Boston, and then.
• Thanks, Chair, and a really good report. Well done, team, really, really well done. I just wanted to just hone in a little bit, 'cause it's not very specific in terms of demographics, so BME, gender specific, so to speak. And I want to just ask, in terms of the data that's been collected for the persistent absences, how much has come from maybe a BME background or religious reasons as well? 'Cause I know in our Islington, very diverse and inclusive. Some schools that I've visited, I know they have a later start to their school day because they know that there's maybe cultural reasons, festivals, et cetera, so I'm just wondering where that data is, or if you can share it or give it to me later. And then the second point was about the codes, and I guess this is to Candy, 'cause you're the codes person. Just wondering, is it subject to change, 'cause I want to just factor in also, 'cause members have mentioned about parents, and Ben just mentioned about networking. We've got some parents that are experiencing domestic violence, for example, and in the report hasn't actually really mentioned so much about COVID-19 and that impact that it has had on parents, carers, and I just want to know if you can answer that. Thank you.
• Thank you very much. So I think first about the profile and the demographics. That is, you need to look at the granular detail of the reports, but if you see some of the reports of schools in your pack you'll see that the gender, the ethnic profile, and free school meals and so on is in those profiles, and certainly, and that's more in the local data, so rather than the reported data, if you can see that we've got that both at school level and at borough level, and there's absolutely no doubt that it is those groups who are most vulnerable and who have most hardship have got the worst attendance, no question about that. Their attendance is a good five to 10% below the average of both for this school and for the borough, so absolutely, these are the groups that we should be focusing on most because they're the ones that suffer most from non-attendance, so that's the first question and Paul wants to say something on that.
• So Paul comes in, sorry, Chair, it's just about the, like, the groups are not homogenous, so like a breakdown, for example, if you say black, is it our Caribbean community, African, and then breaking it down a little bit more, is it Somalians, is it Ghanaians, just to give us a bit more granular information.
• So we used the DFE code, so there were codes that we have to report on, so we used, so the data is reported in terms of those codes that we report on nationally, but that does include, so example, black Caribbean, certainly includes black Caribbean, white heritage, so they're quite broad, as it goes, and we've got all of that information on those. I'm trying to find this slide, but it's certainly on one of the slides to give an example. You can see it by year group, you can see it by gender, you can see it by ethnicity, and so on, so that is, that certainly is very important, and I'm afraid I've forgotten your next two questions. Paul, did you want to?
• I did, and thank you again, it's a really helpful question, and a really relevant question, 'cause if we really wanted to get into that space to really drill down and look at the intersections where there are those areas for improvement, and Ben has alluded to the network of our professional partners who work with schools, who challenge and support our schools, to help our schools be the very best version of themselves possible, and we've got some very, very good school leaders, we've got some very, very good schools, we recognize it, attendance is an area of improvement, but the data allows us to drill down, Candy's alluded to the benchmark and the compare and the contrast, and to be able to do that, we have to align with the DFE data as well, which allows us that consistency of practice, but as this evolves, as this evolves, and we get more data, and we get more intelligence, more local relevant data and intelligence, we can make better informed decisions how we challenge and support our schools in this space, but absolutely, this piece of work will evolve, it's not the end point, but it's a very, I'm sure you'll appreciate it, it's a very, very well put together, very, very comprehensive report, with lots of helpful information, covering a full range of issues regarding attendance, but there's always scope for improvement, but your points are really helpful, so thank you.
• Thank you Paul, I'm gonna take questions from Sophie and then Councillor, and if there's no further questions, oh, okay, and then the last round, and then we'll move on to the next item.
• Thank you, so just going back to this, this idea of the point about off-rolling and also exclusions, I would just make a request that we get some, if we're looking at school level data, and we're sort of looking at these schools, and they're agreeing, 'cause they've got great attendance data, or looking at school, and we're saying, oh, this one's not so good, I think it'd be really useful to be able to look at that exclusion, and also any other measures which might indicate off-rolling, so for example, I don't know whether there's any measures which indicate sort of levers, like unexpected levers, or levers outside of the normal, you know, whatever it is, you know, year 11, year 13 processes, which might indicate off-rolling alongside that attendance data, because it, you know, I don't want us to focus on certain schools and get their best practice when actually, essentially in reality, it's just that they have a more aggressive policy about moving kids on, so that's a request. And then the second thing is that I think it's brilliant to be looking at individual schools, and I think that I'm really heartened to hear that you guys think that there's some case studies, and some real best practice that we can share and highlight through this process, but I also just wanted to stress that it's important to look at things on a borough-wide level as well, which I think Paul's alluded to, that you're going to do that, because, you know, if we just looked at school data, then that, you know, even if there are some issues around the way schools are sort of reporting data, when we look at the data comparing Islington to other, in the London boroughs, it's clear that there's something we're doing as a whole which is not right, and it's possible that's not necessarily just at the school level, but potentially the way we are moving students around schools in the borough or creating alternative provisions for people.
• So I think your first point is a really helpful and important one, and actually this, just last week, the 5th of September, a really interesting report that's been published by the Institute for Policy and Research, and The Difference, which is a group that looks particularly at vulnerable children, they've collaborated on a report, and they identified an exclusion continuum within that report, and they're saying, okay, you know, we're good at looking at exclusion, we're good at looking at attendance, but we tend to look at those in siloed ways, and then they've come up with another 11 indicators of what they would say were indicators of lost learning, so who is losing learning? And it's a really detailed and very thorough and helpful report, and I think it's given us, I think, a real helpful framework to think about some of the things that you're saying and bring some national data to the front. It's really quite alarming, certainly in terms of the national picture, and we want to look at that locally as well, so I think it gives about 13 different indicators, it includes elective home education, for example, and children internally excluded, and children who are sent to stand outside of the classroom, this is all a form of exclusion, and lost learning, so that's the focus, so I think we could take that framework and perhaps report in that context, this is very helpful and I think a healthy way to look at things, so definitely we could do that, and we'd be pleased to do it.
• And please, rest assured, actually as part of our ongoing and already in place risk assessment process when it comes to looking at our schools, matches such as elective home education, children missing education, exclusions, all part of these levers, and you use the language of levers towards, that lead to potentially children being off-roaded, we do consider these as part of our ongoing and already in place risk assessment activity, but if there are new methodology and new ideas and new areas where we can strengthen our practice, absolutely we're open-minded to that, and I think that's why it's always helpful that our offices are engaged in regional and sub-regional and national level activity, looking at learning from the latest research, which Candy's alluded to, so no one's perfect, I'm not saying we have all the answers here, but we do have some good systems and processes in place, we do have a plan, we do have a process over the coming weeks and months, and we'll allow for the drill down with those schools where maybe they are outliers of where the numbers are a concern, and where there is a need for escalation of risks as well, so we welcome the challenge and the oversight that this committee brings, 'cause I think it is an important issue for the local area, and the call to arms with a focus on attendance is something that's serious, so it's something that naturally isn't seen as a borough, as a place we're concerned about, so this is a welcome conversation, it's an appropriate conversation, and I'm sure to be continued, given the contacts.
• Ben?
• Yes, just following on from what Paul's just said, I'd quite like to give quite a concrete example of how partnership working across schools can be effective in an area that we're gonna really focus on moving forward. Last year, the pastoral deputies in the secondary schools as part of the pastoral deputy senior network, we had a very robust conversation, and it was robust and impactful, because we had every school around the table, and we were talking about elected home education, and those pastoral deputies were the senior leaders in the school that lead on attendance and exclusions, and EHE, and EHE nationally is often seen as a soft target for off-roling, so pressure can be brought to bear on parents and to electively home educate, and we had that conversation around the table, and it was something we're gonna continue this year. There was a commitment across all schools, what does elected home education look like in Islington, and how can we, as a collective of schools, be certain that our neighbor down the road is abiding by the same rules, and that team of senior leaders are really keen for consistency across the 10 schools, and I think what we're moving away from by working in partnership, are schools working in silos and doing things maybe in different ways, and looking at a common approach across all schools that helps us achieve the outcomes that we're looking for, so we are still in the foothills, certainly with the elective home education agenda, we all know that attendance, there is no silver bullet for attendance, it's the aggregate of marginal gains, but it is that partnership working culture that I think's gonna help really move things forward, so yes, the journey started, but still, along with the gap.
• Can I just ask members just to keep questions a bit brief, 'cause I--
• Thank you, Chair, I'd just like to pick up on a point that's been made previously about, which I agree with, that handing out of fines is quite a draconian measure, so I just wanted to get the understanding whether the number of fines given out by East Linton Council, is it going up or going down, and also, does actually giving out fines have a sustained effect, a positive sustained effect on attendance?
• Shall I answer that one? I think our numbers are relatively stable, which would suggest, it's neither helping us improve or making things worse, but the vast majority of that was about 400 fines that we issued in the last 12 months. 90% were for holidays, holidays in term time, and that doesn't mean 400 parents, because you'd issue a fine to each parent for each child, so if it's a, if it was a-- (muffled speaking) (muffled speaking) (muffled speaking) (muffled speaking)
• Thank you, Sharon. To follow up on that, I think you mentioned a previous report that's been recently published, which termed the framing of lost learning. I think it's something quite important to recognize that learning also takes place on holiday, and I think it's quite important talking about if children do go away on holiday, are there learning opportunities which could be had, and not necessarily moving down the draconian penalizing route, so just keeping that option open and available, and hopefully investing in it.
• Thank you, and I suppose-- (muffled speaking)
• Councillor Ogunrui?
• That Councillor Armstrong just asked a question that had--
• Councillor Armstrong actually asked the question that I had, and yeah, going on holiday, I need to add that if you go and take the kids on holiday during school term, then that's cause for penalty, I think, I believe, even though they're going to learn something from going on holiday, I don't think parents should take kids off school.
• Councillor Ogunrui?
• Yeah, I think we have also to keep an eye about the legislation here, DFE rules is clear. Parents, if you take your child during a school term, there's a consequence, this is not about we, as it's linked on, it's about DFE. That means we have also to follow what the law says.
• Point of, yeah, go ahead.
• Sorry, just going to have a point of clarification, and I don't want to spend too much time on this, it was just to flag something up. My understanding was that this is a discretion at the head teacher in terms of what is authorized on holiday or not authorized.
• I think that goes back-- - Was the last change.
• Yeah, I was going to say, I think that goes back to the changes and with the new codes, and yeah, they're tackling the attendance. Councillor Pandal?
• I don't know if you'll be able to answer this question, but it's just a bit of a query for me. And it goes back to what Councillor Cinco Ano was talking about, in terms of when there's absences or when children disappear, what communication is there with parents? Obviously, there's lots of reasons why this happens, and I was just wondering if you've looked into, 'cause I know it's happening because it's happening to a lot of residents that I'm supporting. A lot of hate crime has obviously spiked up quite a lot throughout the summer. And when a parent is going through something like this, obviously it affects the children. And then sometimes it can happen at school where you can call it a form of bullying, but I think hate is not bullying. And where a child may come to school and say something, and then that parent, maybe you may think it's radicalization, and then that parent will have to go through the prevent program. I'm wondering if a child has said something that is a form of hate, will that child's parents, will they go on the prevent program as well? So I know it's to do with absences, but it's just, there's obviously various reasons these things happen, but I just want to know what is the data, if there is any data, and how do you separate bullying from hate, and is it reported?
• I think just before you come in, Candy, again, was it 12 new codes? And I think just looking at the unauthorized, and it could be anything, and there's no granular data. I'm just off of Saika's point, I'm just wondering if bullying is a code, and obviously within that, is hate crime kind of a code to why a child might not be attending school, is that part of the new codes? And I kind of know that in terms of whether hate crime and bullying is reported, it is down to the school culture, where if they do then record that, 'cause I know as a governor, we're reported as one incident or two, but I think to kind of monitor whether schools and how they do that can be challenging. But it would be good to know if bullying or hate crime is part of one of the codes into why children might not be going to school.
• Isn't, no, not specifically, or even unexplicitly. So that's a straightforward answer to that one, but obviously we would be expecting schools to be recording and intervening, and certainly not, you know, de-escalating always, and support is always the first step in any situation that the schools deal with, you would only escalate if you were seriously concerned about danger to any child or family. But it's really difficult to answer, because each circumstance, each situation would be, you know, would be very different, and back to the consistency point as well, I guess, perhaps interpreted and responded to differently, so I appreciate its concern. But there isn't any way of recording that officially, certainly through absent state.
• Because I think in the future, I do feel that this is an issue, because we cannot deny hate is on the rise, and there has to be a separation between bullying and hate, there really has to be, because bullying is different from hate, and if we, in Islington, we advocate that this is a borough of sanctuary, but if our children are not feeling safe, and I've, you know, I'm supporting residents right now that are going through this, I know of a family that has taken her children out of school and is specifically gonna be homeschooling them, because the issue is not addressed. So in future planning, we need to have, we need to look into it and see what we can do to help students and families.
• Thanks, Councillor Pandora. Mary, did you still have a quick question?
• Oh, thank you. I had a question, 'cause I mean, the report is brilliant, and trying to read it through and gather everything, it was hard candy, I have to say, but it was very good. But there was one element when they were, I think it was to do with secondary children, and they identified, I think it was emotional, it was a emotional something, can't remember the rest of the letters. So some children are responding emotionally, and that's why they're not attending. And then some just don't like it, as you said. No way, school isn't interesting them. And I was interested, firstly, is there a kind of screener that you use to actually pick that out initially? And then also, because obviously the emotional one, which would touch a little bit on what you're talking about, 'cause it would be an emotional reaction as well. The support strategies that are in place, and then that would be useful to see that in the different schools. And on top of that, sorry, keeping it short, are we doing any incentives? So are they getting, I know children, whatever would be, we haven't got much money, but a reward rather than a discipline. People do respond to, we all do, even in shopping. We all do, it's a brain thing that they are gonna get about you to go to, you know, O2 or whatever, or a music, they can get a CD downplay, you know, whatever it is that would, I know, but you've gotta think about the children, really, that they would be motivated by that. So the incentives, and the last one was to do with, and it's gone out of my head, it's gone now, I think. My brain's gone with it. Yeah, so it was, so really, when we're looking at the scrutiny, it's making sure the data is correct. And then when we unpick the data, making sure that everyone is using really useful support systems that are tried and tested, that's it.
• You're absolutely right, maybe, that's the things to hold in mind. EPSA is a really interesting, I was talking to somebody earlier in the week, and I said, well, we used to call this score phobia, then we called it score avoidance, then we called it score refusal, now we call it EPSA. Actually, it's changed again. We don't call it EPSA anymore, we now call it, emotionally-based school non-attendance, so EPSNA now. So that changed overnight, and I think literally within the last couple of weeks. And it is a challenge, I think, for schools, for parents, certainly, and it's a sensitive and challenging thing to try to get to grips with, is this a child who is genuinely suffering from severe and disabling anxiety, to the point where not only can they not engage in school, very often, they can't engage with the world. We've certainly got children who don't venture out of their bedrooms, so there's that. And you have got children who just don't like school, and I think the danger is that those two groups get confused, and sometimes perhaps we're harder on some children who are genuinely suffering, and others, it can become an excuse, or a label. Camouflage is what's really going on. So those are some of the challenges that schools face, you know, folks have faced, and parents face every day. I think your point about incentives is really strong. It sanctions and rewards, and I think any school will have that within their system. The call to arms, which John and Michelin will be, will be coordinating, will be pulling our business partners from within the community, Arsenal Football Club, sadly, and so that we can really engage those partners in thinking about what practically we can do, perhaps bring some of the football players into schools to talk to them about the importance of attendance, stadium tours, things like that. So we're really thinking hard about what we could do from front, front, front, front, front, front.
• I am conscious of time, so I'm gonna move us on. And there are quite important information in the last, in the next few items, I do wanna kind of dedicate time to that as well, but can I just ask officers to keep the answers to short, so we can just get through everything, and probably one officer to respond to the questions just because of time. And I think I'll just close with this on just, I think the new codes is probably a good opportunity to segue into a scrutiny topic with the schools, and just say, I think following on Paul Mary's point, these are the new codes, we want schools to better record why students are absent, and I think a training where, you know, there's a kind of a collective response to how they record absences, I think starting that straight as this new DFE guidelines have come in will be really beneficial to this scrutiny topic as well. So schools don't feel like, you know, it's kind of an imposition. Can I note this item and move on to the next one? Can I ask members, sorry, to note this item? Okay, thank you. Candy, you're introducing the next item, so I think you're introducing all the items on today's agenda. It's you, oh, that's good.
• It's me now, I'm gonna get candy.
• I was gonna say, candy's a break. So, John, for the headline, provisional school results.
• All right, thank you. I'm conscious that there's an 18-slide presentation, which I'm sure you've all had time to read, so I'm not gonna go into huge detail here, other than to say, following on nicely, I think from the previous agenda item, that it's clear that school leaders across Islington, across our primary and our secondary schools, are focused on high-quality teaching and learning, focused on young people being happy in school and being successful in school, and ultimately, that's the nirvana for high attendance, which is front and central. So, I think this report outlines some very positive headline figures here across the provisional outcomes. I must stress, these are provisional, but never taking away the fact that there's always that drive to improve year on year moving forward. So, the headline figures, really, across our key stage two results, that the KPIs are above national figures and an improvement on every KPI from 2023. Key stage four shows similar improvement on 2023 in comparisons with national and our key stage five. I'll come to key stage five last with a caveat there, because we have one school that isn't included in the figures. But I think coming back to the quality of leadership across the council, we are looking at young people here. If I start with our key stage two, these are pupils who, when the pandemic hit, were just coming to the, were six years old, they were just coming to the end of their key stage one in primary schools and had a huge disruption. Likewise, the key stage four results, those young people that sat exams in the summer, started year seven at the height of COVID. So, again, hugely disruptive key stage three. And likewise, our key stage five young people were 13 years of age, just coming to the end of their key stage three in secondary. So all three cohorts have experienced huge, huge disruption. And I think in the vast majority of cases, we've got some very pleasing results there. So I shall open to questions.
• Thank you, Ben. Can I take questions for members? Can I note, oh, go on.
• Thank you, Chair. Two points, I think. First and foremost, I think last year, I mentioned that the results looked troubling, a significant improvement, obviously, on last year's results. And obviously, post the pandemic, things seem to be heading in the right direction, which is really encouraging. These are results more or less absolute. I think we do need to wait for the full set of results, especially with regards to progress. The English and AFSA key stage five plus five seems a remarkable jump. I would love for us to dwell deep in terms of what happened there and what was the focus and how that potentially could be replicated in other areas. And one thing that I'm, sorry, I noticed quite a few, but you can see my hands go up. Lastly, I was a bit perplexed. I think is the right word. So last year, we had one of our worst attendances in Islington ever. And we also got one of our best results ever. Can anyone answer that one?
• I think it's a great question. I think attendance is one of those areas where the young people that are not in school are clearly going to suffer because they're not getting the curriculum depth and breadth that they should be getting. I think there was a real focus across both our primary and our secondary schools following 2023's results. Certainly at secondary with the reverting back to pre-pandemic examinations, there was no court order given in terms of allowing for the pandemic. That certainly focused minds in schools. And there was a really deep drill down on what good practice looks like, what good teaching learning looks like. Well, you're absolutely right. I think those young people that weren't in school have suffered and we're celebrating a success here. But when you look at a combined figure at key stage two of 66.9%, 67%, that's all 23% of our young people across Islington didn't reach the expected standard in reading, writing and maths. So the argument would be that as we tackle attendance, as we tackle inclusion in our schools, as we start to really eat into those attendance figures and get more of our young people in school for more of the time, given that we have high quality teaching learning in our schools across Islington, then results will continue to improve. But I think it's testament to the hard work on the ground that school leaders, subject leaders and teachers in the classroom have put in across the year. And I think I'll come to key stage five now. You'll see in the report that we've got one school that we haven't been able to get the data for technical reasons. That one school had the highest outcomes across our key stage five and is accountable for our largest number of entries. So although you are looking at improvements at key stage five here, once we get the confirmed results across all our schools, there will be some significant improvements at key stage five and given where we were last year, in terms of those academic A level results, which were poor, there's been a real reversal.
• Can I just take Councillor Bosterman and then Paul you can come in.
• Thanks, Chair. Ben, I just, I don't know if it's maybe a comment, but I hope you can go into a question. I was just wondering 'cause we had really good SAT results, you know, when we had the years when you presented in the past. I'm just wondering, is there any way of us capturing students that have left Islington to be taught in other boroughs, you know, like to see their performance at the end? I don't know, I just, I thought it'd be really good to capture that data in, I don't know, in some way just to just make that comparison. 'Cause I've, going back to the home-educated cohort, it's just something that I think, I don't know, and this thought of what are schools missing and what makes parents and caregivers take their kids out of school. I don't know if that could be fed into our gathering of some sort, I just, it's just a light bulb kind of thing.
• Right, let me, okay, so are you asking for, at the end of key stage two, young people then go on a five-year journey in our secondary schools in Islington, what's the progress that they have made across that period compared to those young, those pupils that leave Islington and go out to other boroughs? What's the progress that they make? Okay, you're never happy, you are. What, I can certainly ask the question, Valerie, I can ask the data team, do we track, can we track Islington pupils in other boroughs? Which I think may well be problematic, but I'll ask the question. But coming back to the progress, and I'm glad you mentioned this, because it isn't in the report, because again, these are provisional figures, but early indicators are that the progress that pupils have made across key stage three and key stage four in Islington secondary schools is going to be around plus 0.5%. Now for me, that's really exciting, and I'll put that into clearer terms. The expectation is that a pupil will have a progress eight score of zero if they make the expected progress based on where they were at the end of year six to the GCSEs that they get at the end of year 11. Anything above that means that they have made above expected progress, so they've done better. A figure of plus one means that on average, a pupil has done a grade better across eight, effectively eight of their GCSEs, which is phenomenal. So anything in the positive, a head teacher, secondary head teacher will be delighted with. To be minus 0.03 last year, which we were, our progress eight figure of Islington was minus, so our pupils made just below what they really, progress that they should have made. To go from minus 0.03 to plus 0.05, which is a half a grade better, is fabulous, and is a real achievement. And when you look at the individual schools, some of, and not just the, and again we haven't, we haven't got the micro population data yet, so we can't drill down, but certainly with disadvantage, and the disadvantaged outcomes for progress are really phenomenal in the vast majority of our secondary schools. So the progress picture is really positive this year. The challenge is continuing that year on year.
• Thanks Ben, and just to come back, 'cause I remember when Anthony mentioned about, and I'm sorry to keep bringing up the C word, COVID, but about, (laughing) not that one, but the point of some schools having really good practice in terms of getting the literacy and the numeracy numbers up, and how they took in the funding, and I know it's a lot of pressure on our staff, but the fact that they took the owners to also support the children and young people is really important. So I'm just thinking that this is good, but again, look at, we have to drill down as you said, but I'm just wondering, and I don't like to sort of point out different schools and their practices, but I feel when we've got some schools obviously that were single-sex schools and now transitioning to mixed schools, but we also get to see the changes in terms of how that affects their learning as well, and what schools are doing to then, I guess, for us to learn and adopt it and then get better results.
• Yeah. - The consistency, I guess.
• I mean, very quickly, I think it comes back to that sharing of best practices that we talked about earlier. You know, we do know that with our early foundation stage schools, there were nine schools that are below 55% reaching those earlier learning goals, and we know with our phonics that we have seven schools that are below 65%, so we know the schools where there are areas for development, but we also know the schools at the other end that are 90% plus across those key performance indicators, and it's how do we share that best practice, and, you know, it might sound a bit like a broken record, but it comes back to the professional partners helping us identify where the best practice is, where the areas of development are, and through the networks and through facilitating school-to-school support, matching that best practice.
• Thank you, Ben. Paul, did you have something to add?
• Thank you, Chair, and just following on from Ben's comments, and I think it's important that we recognize this is, obviously it's a scrutiny committee, and it's important that we get that balance right with challenge and support. But Ben has alluded to, and the report makes very clear, there's been some fantastic progress in our schools against baseline, and I'm sure each and every one of the committee members would wish to recognize the progress made in Islington schools and settings made, and it's great that we have support from our partners from education, our partners in social care as well, our partners in the youth partner system, our partners in health. To get results like that, it's great that the outcomes are performance and education, but it's all of our partners wraparound support to work with vulnerable children, young people and families, it takes a whole ecosystem to support 30,000 children in our local schools to produce outcomes like that, so really good progress, and absolutely, it's great that we've gotta focus on how can we squeeze the lemon that bit more to get those better outcomes? And we've heard the focus on, well, imagine those children who are not in school if they were in school, how could the outcomes be then? So absolutely right, challenge, challenge, challenge to squeeze, to squeeze, to squeeze, 'cause genuinely, every Islington child matters, so it's in all of our interest to make sure that all of our children, young people are in school, are engaged, are in high-functioning, highly inclusive, well-performing schools that are delivering great outcomes, so yes, we know we've had progress against baseline, and we will recognize and celebrate that, but naturally, this year, the challenge will be to go even further, to go even faster, create an environment where our schools, our best-performing schools can support and challenge those schools not so well-performing, those schools where there are areas for development, what is it we could be doing more? But we've spoken about the networks, the partnership, the sector-led improvements, so our schools are good at doing that, the role of the local authorities is to be a supporting actor, the children are in the school, we support and challenge the school with the support of our partners across health and care and crime reduction and youth and so forth, but our schools are doing a great job and recognize that progress, where there's areas for improvement, we will challenge, and we will support, and that will be data-led.
• Thank you, thank you, Paul. Is there any further questions? Thank you, can I ask members to note this item? And we'll move on to the SEND framework transitions update. Just before I take questions, I think it would be good to get some case studies and some of the, for example, the transition points and how they've worked well, especially from post-education to employment, and just so, yeah, I think it'll be for the future meeting, I would find that really helpful, and I'm sure committee members would as well, but I'll open to questions on this item. No? Okay, moving on to the quarter four performance report. I understand, Candy, I've got, you'll be introducing the item, or is that? The court, sorry, no. Oh, it's John, sorry. The quarter four performance?
• Sorry, Chair. I was just thinking with the SEND transitions and framework update, and apologies if we didn't quite, I thought Candy did a slowing job responding to the question, and I know we, I think, put it forward, but there is something that probably, if we weren't clear in that paper, to challenge us back and we'll make sure we're clear, 'cause I think what we looked at was potentially something I think we put forward, and then we were looking at thinking, have we put the right thing down? And if it is transitions, there's a lot that we can go through with that paper, 'cause our young people do go through a lot of SEND transitions, and the framework update would probably work. So all I'm saying is that the no questions could be a reflection on us not making the report very clear. So I apologize in advance, but if you do need something, Chad, just do come back at us.
• Thank you, John. I know I do appreciate it. It would have been good to get more, 'cause I'm sure there's so much happening in terms of the update. So yeah, definitely, thank you.
• So in terms of quarter four report, and there's quite a bit in there, I won't go through page by page, et cetera, 'cause you'll have your own piece that you're gonna hone in on. We've looked at attendance data quite heavily. We've looked at the score results piece as well. But there are other areas as well. The point I wanted to just highlight were, of course, there is that Young East Linton are youth services data. And I'm sure you probably want to join me in just congratulating Curtis and his service, where they achieved that outstanding from the HMIP report and inspection that took place in May, and the report was published in August. Not the greatest time to publish a report when we're in the midst of everything. But what it did do was identify some of the strengths that you maybe will see in the performance data. But they judge it out of 36, and out of 36, East Linton scored 34, highest in London, third highest in the country. So I think there's much to be proud of. So when we do look at some of that data from the youth services, and many thanks for those of you who have written in and made comment. But I thought I'd just make that just on that point. The other point I was going to say as well, and in scrutiny you'll be the judge, but particularly children's social care element, and there's a number of metrics in there that I know scrutiny have asked for over time around referrals, re-referrals, and disproportionality that exists with some of that as well. But what I'd also just alert members to is that we're expecting an Oxford inspection at some point around children's social care. It's called an ILAC's report. And within some of the data that you see there, I want to say, well I won't say it, but there is a, I think section six, but it's clearly not going to be section six now, I'll say it like that. But please do feel free to challenge us on that, because we are ourselves going through that, that rehearsal, you know, we go through, we don't make an obsession, but it's an important part of the business that we undertake around outcomes, scrutiny, quality assurance, and we need to be mindful about the challenge that we give ourselves from you as members as well, and from ourselves, and from the learning across the system about getting ourselves ready for an inspection, which is crucial, we sit on outstanding at the moment, and there's much to be proud of in that, but again, it's about sustainability, doing the right things consistently. And we'd be expecting an inspection sort of between now and Christmas, is my sort of guess. So I'll pause, happy to take any questions on any of the data, I just thought I'd provide a bit of that narrative backdrop. Thanks, Chair.
• Thank you, John, and I do want to note congratulations on the Youth Justice Service and that outstanding. We were all, I think, speaking for half of the members and everyone, really, really proud of Islington and the team here, so I just do want to note that. Sorry, I've got so many questions, but I'm going to take questions from members first. Members have any questions? Councilor, yeah? Councilor Cinco-Ono?
• Suspensions. Could we look at page 88, please? Can I start? Okay, page 88, there's a graph here. It talks about different groups, and it talks about Islington suspensions in London and England as a whole. The results are quite alarming. Unbelievable, I mean, Black Caribbean, 37.91%, compared to England, 23.44%. Mixed White and Black Caribbean, 48.61%, compared to 35.22 and 25.36 in London. I think that there is a serious problem here, and we really need to address it, because clearly, it looks like a pattern. And the disproportionality between suspensions of certain children compared to others is unacceptable, and we need to look at this, and we need to look at the reasons why. And also, we have to understand that some parents from Black and ethnic minorities do not accept that their children have anything wrong with them. So we need to address these parents, and we need to talk to these parents and explain to these parents that their children are not rowdy, that there may be something wrong. They may be autistic, they may be ADHD. Parents are really afraid of getting diagnosis for their children, and if schools just constantly, persistently call these children just bad-behaved children, it doesn't work. We have to work on this, because these figures are alarming, and they're very concerning. So I want to know, as is LinkedIn, what are we going to do about it?
• Thank you, and I'll just add on to that. It was the suspensions or exclusions of SCN children, and I just wanted to know how strongly are we putting that message out to schools for those who are on ECHP plans and SCN, because I think that, you know, not that the other cohorts aren't just as important, but I think that really stood out for me, because we are doing, we did a massive piece of work around SCND, and I just wanted to see how that was translated into, you know, reducing exclusions as well, and also the points that Councillor Chincotona made. Paul?
• Thank you, Chair, and the data doesn't lie. It's an appropriate challenge, looking at the numbers. It doesn't make for good reading, and it's not an excuse to say that exclusions, regionally, nationally, are considerably up. The Secretary of State has been very, very clear of that, and looking at reforms to the national behavior task groups as well that are looking at this agenda, but localizing this with an Islington lens, it's something that we're very serious about. Obviously, there's a lag measure that those figures are over a year away, as it were, out of date, but because permanent exclusion figures are recorded on the lag measure by 12 months, but fundamentally, it is about how we challenge and support those schools where the exclusions are high. Now, since I've been here, I've been impressed by what I've seen in terms of the plans and proposals this year for monitoring schools and tracking those schools where exclusions are high, and having what we call call-in meetings. So we look at our risk assessment process, and we've spoken a lot today about attendance. We've spoken about elective home education. We've spoken about off-rolling. We've spoken about children missing education as well, and also now we're speaking about exclusion, and obviously this is all part of what I call the Education Inclusion Bundle. Now, we're very serious about this, and we will be having our half-term and strategic risk assessment processes where we review each and every school locally, and where there is a need for a targeted follow-up with any particular school that is an outlier with regards to exclusion concerns. Then we'll go through our processes, and we will obviously have conversations to work with the school. Is it a standards issue? Is it a performance issue? Is it an issue where we maybe need to look at training? Is it an issue where we maybe need to look at how well we use some of the other schools that are performing well? 'Cause not all of Islington's schools are excluding high, but we need to get an understanding of what's going on behind that. So absolutely, the challenge from our colleague is absolutely right, fair, and proper. Exclusion numbers are too high. I'm not gonna hide behind the excuse that it's on the increase regionally and nationally, but at Islington level, we have to do something about it, and we do have plans and processes in place, but it is an appropriate challenge given the context.
• Yeah, perhaps if I could add, what we do, obviously we drill down into the data. What we do know is that about 70% of our total suspensions are accounted for by three schools, and so we're banging into them hard. But obviously, and that's clearly, if they represent that huge proportion, then some of that disproportionality focuses on those institutions too. So we are having, again, those robust conversations with that particular organization, and then that's where the issue lies.
• Thank you. I had Councillor Bosman-Quashie, and then Councillor Pangdong.
• It's really promising to hear what you've just said, Paul, but for some of us that have been in this group, and including the chair, we've heard this over and over again and this is not a reflection on you, by the way. I guess it's more probably of a comment. I know we always look at our neighboring boroughs will go to Camden, I think Haringey, sometimes Hackney, but there are other schools outside. I use Barnet and put it on record 'cause I work in that borough and I've worked there over 10 years. There's something that we're doing, not us, sorry, the schools and the heads. I remember when I was on a committee once and having parents break down crying because they'd been down this road before, and it's about sometimes some schools use as a dumping ground. I think I can be quoted in the press for saying this. I think it's not always an academy thing or this thing, it's just obviously it's very, as you say, broad. But I just, I really worry about the students that are sent, that are not diagnosed, the kids that are from VME background specifically, and I don't wanna put anything on record here and say any names, but I think we really need to bring something back to the committee that's gonna be of substance that this cannot continue. And I kinda want Islington to be that beacon. Councilor Panda talked about this sanctuary and schools should be that sanctuary. So I'm just thinking, is there any chance of these three schools, and you obviously don't have to say now, but that they are doing sort of like an inclusion of keeping students in schools as opposed to, we mentioned it earlier, you know, missing school 'cause you're in the corridors or because you're crying or you're in the medical room. Yeah, I just, we need more here, and I think this report is quite damning, and we can't, I'm using that word purposefully because VME sent, it's really dire here, and we know what happens when our kids, you know, get treated by certain institutions. They'd end up then going down that pipe hole, jail, et cetera, and we don't want that happening. So I'm just gonna put that because I just shared that, so thank you.
• John?
• Yeah, thank you, Valerie. Yeah, absolutely, and this space does come backing around, doesn't it, but I think it's quite stark. When you do drill down to just 71% of that data is accountable to three schools, we've had to escalate the matter to the regional director. We also know that VRU are also very interested in that in not a very particularly helpful way, but you're absolutely right about the deviance and the diversions that take place within those schools. Two comments, really. One, what Ben has done since he's arrived has been to get those deputy heads, those vice principals into a room which never took place before. And that's fact, pre Sarah's time, secondary heads never met, which is staggering. So we've got them in the room. It's not the easiest bunch to corral, but what I would say is the deputy heads are in a room and they look at that data because there's something about the ownership of that data, but also calling out so that when you've got people there, you can see visibly where that data impacts. My other suggestion is that the realms and reach of scrutiny in other boroughs where I've been have invited some of those heads themselves to come and take that scrutiny and those questioning. They are part of the system, they are accountable. They're accountable to members, it's our residents and our young people that do go to school. Because that challenge that we put to the regional director was lamely put back to us. I think we've taken far more of the onus on that and accountability. Of course it's relationships, but also it's about responsibility and accountability and visibility of these young people, particularly when the numbers are so high. And some of these accountable leaders are national leaders in behavior, which is quite amazing really. So there are a couple of options there, but there is something about certain things. You're absolutely right, it's not acceptable whatsoever.
• Before I take in any more, just 'cause we're on this point and I don't wanna circle back to it. I know the data, I know before the names of the schools were published and from memory, I think Beacon High was a school that had quite high amounts of exclusions. And I know that recently they've changed their culture and I wanted to know what that data looks like. I assume it's reduced and whether again, good practice, it would be good to hear from them and how they've gone from high exclusion to low exclusion. I don't know what the data is now, but that's just an assumption.
• You're absolutely right, that's decreased and sustained and they are now an inclusion quality mark center of excellence. There's a great deal of really good work that's happened there to make that shift. So they're not a school that we're concerned about and were previously, so it's possible to shift. It's absolutely right to say.
• I think 'cause they've got that inclusion mark and I think it's one of very few schools. I think how can we then capitalize, not capitalize, but on that, there's an Islington Secondary School. I think we shouldn't kind of let that die down and kind of use that for the other schools, 'cause I'm really proud of how far they've come. Can I take Councillor Chincoteau now and then Paul, you can come in. Councillor Pandora. Okay.
• Sorry, Councillor Pandora, and thank you, Chair. Sorry, I know that a lot of you are thinking, oh my God, she has really spoken a lot today. This is a topic that is really of great importance to me. Going back to you, John, would it be possible if you could arrange a meeting with those three heads to come to scrutiny? Is that a possibility?
• So I, sorry, excuse me. I think what we do is that we have those meetings. I think what we would be able to say is that our members, there is a way about how we might do this. Let's make come from the Chair, formally requesting that scrutiny is democratic, it's open, and I think we should, there is something about accountability. We, of course, take and accept the challenge. We provide that, I know Ben, in particular, and his teamwork there, but there's something about, let's hear from some of the schools where some of that challenge might be. I'm not also just saying, let's point on the lower numbers, the question that Goldshin raised about Beacon. You know, you can have that sort of cross-section, which would be quite a healthy one. We've heard from officers, what about from schools? You know, the good, bad, and the ugly.
• Absolutely, yeah, I think we'll definitely take that back, 'cause I think on this topic, I was keen, on the attendance, I was keen to invite St. Aloysius, obviously, if they would come, 'cause I think that would be good to invite them, but I think on exclusion, echoing what John said, in that kind of context of, look, Beacon High is here, there are other schools who, you know, have high rates of exclusion. How can we have that conversation? And I think coming to scrutiny is probably a good idea. Paul, you wanted to add something?
• Thank you, Chair, and just following on from some of the comments, it's, look, it's evident that there's a clear strength of feeling here. There can be no denying our exclusion figures are not where we would want them to be. Any young person who's excluded from a school is a failing of the system. What could the system collectively have done to avoid such a child being put in a position where any headteacher has to consider excluding a child? No headteacher will ever, ever wish to have to consider excluding a child, so the system has failed. This conversation is not about apportioning blame of any single school or any single part of the system, so the challenge must be how can we collectively, how can we collectively as a system work together and work better to improve outcomes that children and young people are not placed in positions where their needs can't be met in a school, and where a school feels that they can no longer meet the needs of that child as well. So these are important challenges. We have an education board locally, so strategically in terms of governance of the education system locally, which consists of the input of officers. We have political representation and head teachers as well. I'm glad to hear that we have more heads on it as well this year, where we will actually look at the system and the work of exclusions is one of the top three priorities for the work of this board. So that shows the commitment and the seriousness of this agenda. If we are to invite colleagues to attend such a forum for a dialogue to get a deeper understanding of the drivers, the levers, what's behind exclusions, and as John has said, it's important that we look at what works well and what doesn't maybe work so well. Let's have a mature, balanced, rounded conversation. We've alluded to one school where there's an example of good practice that we can really shine a light on, but it'd be good just to get that balance right. So to be very clear, to remove the potential for any ambiguity, the work of the education board locally sees exclusions as a priority. And exclusion sometimes, I've worked in a lot of local areas, sometimes as an inspector, sometimes as a director, and in some local areas I've been in, exclusion numbers have been incredibly low. But sometimes that can mask many sins, because schools achieve exclusions by other means. We've heard earlier, off-rolling. Some schools in some local areas use off-rolling to avoid the need for exclusions. I've been in local areas where they were great to talk about. We've had zero exclusions for five, six, seven years. But the outcomes, how good are the outcomes for children? How good are the outcomes? So it's going beyond the data as well, which is important. Thank you, Chair.
• Thank you, Paul. Councillor Pandon and Mary.
• So mine's a little bit of a different topic. If we go back to page 71, I'm more interested, well, I'm interested in everything, but the FGM cases. It's quite close to my heart. And I, where it's, obviously I can understand that there hasn't been any children that they have, 'cause there's not been any social services contact. But it says 11 contacts for 10 children and seven were girls. So did we stop that FGM from happening? Or did we, was it an alarm that it was gonna happen? And I'd be interested to see what kind of work we're going to be doing in the schools to talk about this more. So I'm just interested in those seven girls. What did we do?
• Yeah. - Did we stop it or?
• Okay, hi. So as it says in the report, FGM is a very difficult offense to kind of detect and prosecute. I think in the kind of history of this crime, that's been one successful, as you know, we're not teaching you to suck eggs. We, it's not just with schools, it's actually with health as well. Raising awareness about how we engage with girls, mothers, how we elicit that information. We do have a specialist FGM, well she was anti-bullying and domestic violence practitioner that works across our schools, that works with schools and teachers and governors around identifying and looking at the factors and how we understand how we work with helping to identify FGM or the indicators of where we think that might be possible. So there is a specialist that works across Islington that deals with that and we also offer training as well across the safeguarding partnership. We have done some auditing in the past 'cause it's such a small number. I think the last auditing was two years ago and it was really looking around how are we working with health, education, right across the piece. I don't have the specifics about those seven children but we could bring some information if that's helpful 'cause it's such a small number but it's a challenge that local authorities across the country sadly are struggling with and it's an area that's of huge importance to us as well, myself personally as well to kind of continue to raise awareness on this factor 'cause it is that kind of underground safeguarding violation of girls that's really difficult to detect but it is very much high on our agenda to continue to kind of educate as broadly as we can 'cause it isn't just a kind of a, it isn't really sort of fine, it's quite a broad and sophisticated crime that's gone undetected for years.
• Thank you for that but maybe later on another scrutiny if there's time, every time I would like to see the work evidenced as well, I know it's on your minority but it is harmful, it's child abuse and it's not spoken about enough and I think each parent needs to know about it, children need to know about, so if they're classmates, you know, even though it's tiny, it's still happening.
• It doesn't matter the size because one child violated is one too many, it's not necessarily, 'cause a contact is a referral, it's about how it's identified at the front door, it's where it's looked at following an assessment, so the assessment factor's one of those and it's usually around traditional harmful practices so it may not be called FGM because it may be very difficult to prove FGM but it will be looking at a much more broader sense of whether it's sexual abuse or harmful sexual behavior so that gets captured in an assessment so I just want to be clear that those seven are around the contacts but they could be picked up in a much broader analysis when we've actually had a chance to do an assessment and look at what the other factors that might be.
• So later on, could you kind of go through with me?
• Yeah, happy to, yeah.
• Not today, but I'll see.
• Yeah, we can do that.
• Thank you, thank you, Mary.
• Sorry, going back to page 88 which you were referring to, I remember we had someone coming from Birmingham years ago and he was an expert and he was giving us all the data to do with exclusions in Birmingham, the academies that were disproportionately excluding children, disproportionately, which meant that the Birmingham council then had to pick those children up and find alternative provision for them and that was costing them an absolute fortune but so to be fair, looking, I don't know what the three schools are. I don't want to start, what's the word? You know, there may be, we've always had the Islington culture within the schools where we haven't had that, the general Islington culture and I think if those other three schools are not necessarily from that culture, the fact that Beacon High has performed well and is now, has kind of turned things around, that has come through from all of your hard work, getting the groups together and the head teachers and all of that. So if we invite them, I'm very worried that we're not doing some sort of victimizing the heads who are under enormous pressure but if they're not exposed to Islington good practice and all of that, I'm not saying that they aren't or are but I don't want it, I don't want it to feel that it's sort of like holding people because they're doing a hard job being a head teacher in any capacity. I'm not justifying this, I think this has to be looked at and we are, we did look at it in the last few years. This isn't the first time it's been brought up but I'm not being soft but I just do think let's do it in a very kind way because they must have been, they've all been meeting up with all the others so it's not just Beacon High, there were two others weren't there so they've been meeting as well. So how the narrative is and how it's phrased is kind of crucial I think, sorry. Benj, do you wanna respond?
• Yes, just also want to add that again, it's early days but the scrapping of the single headline offset grades, I think the current system, I think most head teachers would agree that it's pretty much high stakes for schools and as it was described, low information for parents. The movement towards a scorecard where you are judging across four areas more equitably may well mean that that pressure on outcomes, which let's face it, does drive, that tends to drive that overall off-state judgment, once you remove that pressure and you are looking at four areas across a school, that we might in fact see a shift of culture and practice but again, I think it's early days.
• Councillor Convery and then Councillor Armstrong.
• I was just gonna say, I'm the local authority governor at Beacon High and I have to say that the turnaround to the school is really remarkable. I remember in roundabout 2017-18, Beacon had an exclusion rate that was about 44% and it's now dropped to certainly below 10%. I'm a safeguard governor, I look through the reports on exclusions, including permanence. I mean, the crucial factor is, yeah, it's a school that's now very much come under the umbrella of the Islington culture that Mary describes and I, but also, you know, it's about the drive and leadership and example of a really great head teacher. That's, you know, head teachers are absolutely key in driving these cultures through the school.
• Thank you. That was the data was after how much it's gone down. Councillor Armstrong.
• Thank you, Chair. Just maybe a little bit more about the culture that we're talking about. I know in the previous years there's been a lot of work looking at trauma-informed practice and getting that to expand through the schools, a state or a school system in Islington. Have all of the secondary schools in Islington have undergone trauma-informed practice? Is that something that is ongoing and being sustained? And then I think if we are inviting the head teachers of these schools, I think it'd be good to invite and maybe it was an offer to invite someone from the Islington Education Board as well, just to give us the context of Islington education as well. I think that would be quite useful.
• Thank you. Councillor Conroy.
• Thanks, Chair. Are there plans, any plans at all to prioritize adequate funding for special needs education? 'Cause it says here that schools often lack resources to provide adequate support for students with behavioral issues. And this includes insufficient pastoral support and limited funding for special education needs. So are there plans to increase funding?
• I've got big plans but I've got no money unfortunately. (laughing)
• Just off that, are there schools, specific schools or certain schools that have a high number of SCN children and is that the same school that has the high number of SCN school exclusions and are they just not coping very well because of resources and lack of staff? What do you want us to know?
• SCN is a massive challenge nationally. For those who are aware, there's a six billion pound funding gap in the SEND space and policy are a national. Now 141 out of 151 local forest is nationally overspent in SEND. Secretary of State is looking at potential policy reform in the SEND system. The demand for more education, health and care plans is driven by our schools who are asking the local authority to assess, so partners across education, health and care assess and issue plans and that's going up significantly and not just in Islington but generally across London and across the country. The demand for more specialist provision places in schools, special schools and the use of the independent non-maintained sector is going up exponentially as well. The need for the local authority to invest more in training and development and CPD for schools and professionals working schools but also with families through the work of the parent care forum and associated forums is increasing as well. So SEND is a real high challenge area. So yes, many of our schools may well have budgets stretched as a result at a time of diminishing resources as are the local authority as well and the local authority in a position where we're looking at potentially, we could be looking at a significant budget gap over the coming years as well in the SEND space. So this is a whole system that's really creaking. It's really creaking and it's something that nationally, regionally and locally, we will all have to take a serious look at. Is this a system that can be afforded or can the policies change to make it a system that's more equitable, is transparent, is fair, is equitable, is data led and more responsive to local needs. Sometimes having access to an education health and care plan is not the golden ticket. Some local areas, they issue plans, more plans than Hackney. I mean, sorry, I have to remember what bar I'm in at the moment. It doesn't come from Hackney. Sometimes they issue more plans, doesn't equate to better outcomes. What we've heard earlier from my colleague further down is the outcomes in our schools and settings are improving this year, so that's really good. So it's about good outcomes. But a simple answer to your simple question, is there more resources available? We have strategic intent. We have the work of a SEND, an alternative provision board, which would be great if we can get more political colleagues on it as well if they wish to have a deeper understanding of the way our SEND systems and processes work and the outcomes and where the investment goes. But it's not just the local authority agenda regarding SEND. It's across education, health, and care. So you'll be more than welcome to join the board, I'm sure, if you wish to do so. But we do make best use of what resources we have available for the entire system.
• Thank you. Just on Councillor Armstrong's part, sorry, about is trauma-informed practice being applied in the context of--
• So yes, it is. It's not in every school. 36 of our schools are now fully trained. I think about another five are in the process of, and we will hone in on those. Small number now of schools who've not engaged, maybe because they haven't had the capacity or more concerning if they've not had the interest, but the vast majority, yes. And we're keeping delivering the program. One of the things that Ben didn't mention in terms of the new scorecard, however, which I think gives us some hope, is that a fifth category will be introduced, which is the inclusiveness. Oh, that's the proposal, anyway. So inclusivity is gonna be a fifth category within the Ofsted framework. Obviously, we hope that that's what's being consulted on, and we sincerely hope that that's true. So things like trauma-informed, the questions will be asked about what training have you done, looking at the data in much more detail, and valuing that that was equally to attainment and other data. So that certainly gives us a bit of hope if that is agreed.
• Did you have a follow-up?
• Thanks, just for clarification. The three schools which are responsible for 70% of suspensions, trauma-informed trained.
• Interesting.
• I think one of them is a two, not.
• So Councillor O'Connor, did you have a follow-up question?
• No. - No, okay. So I'll just take a final question if there's no further ones from Councillor Osman-Quashie.
• Thanks, Chair. And Paul mentioned about the golden ticket. I wanna talk about this borough being innovative and your team's done great work. So I'm just wondering in terms, I guess it goes back to this trauma-informed practice, is there any way we can get some comms on that and highlight how amazing that it's been rolled out and they've taken part in this training program of some sort? I think sometimes we don't celebrate our heads and I guess it goes back to Mary's point. I think we need to celebrate our heads and all staff, but then it kind of brings them along with us. And then just to talk about, Paul mentioned about policies and programs and waiting for the current Labour government to obviously roll out these points of words and semantics, et cetera. But I was just wondering if we could think of something in-house, we've done it in the past. I can't think, the list is very long, we'll have to go and backtrack, but we've done things in the past where we've brought in programs that have helped children to be more, I guess, anti-racist. So we've rolled out black history within our curriculum in certain schools. I've seen it at Moreland School and St. Peter's and St. Paul's and the list is endless. So I'm just wondering, is there anything that we can do in-house to, I guess, highlight or support how children and young people are more engaged in terms of, that's my point now, of learning, that's my point, that's my point, that's my point.
• I think there are a couple of points in there as well. One being about young people engaged, young people being change makers, young people being very in touch with the world in which they live in, as well as being in school, the teaching, the learning, the curriculum. The first point that you made, Valerie, which was about the good work that goes on in schools and how do we get that across? We sometimes get quite rightly fixated on some of the challenges in the system. But I do know that Captain Gongo is planning and Paul is following this up before half-term engagement piece with residents. So doing that, that will be online because we can really captivate and get quite a number on that platform. And it would be around informing residents but getting their voice, getting their feedback, but also being able to share, not talking at them for a long period, but just sharing some of the good news stories that there are. What we do want is that Islington residents to send their children to Islington schools where we want them to grow and to thrive. And we know that with 98% of our schools being good or outstanding, that it's not perfect, but it's most certainly a good place. So how do we amplify, how do we volumize exactly that point? I'd also say that what schools are very good at doing is where they look at their curriculum construct, they then do also look at how they provide some of that additionality through some of the things that are topical, newsworthy. We do know that they're acutely aware of the world around them, what goes on in the world, the sense of justice, injustice, and they want to be part of democratically being able to provide that. I'm thinking about Democratic Week as well coming up in October. And again, they're being involved about that, our young people in case are also involved in that. So there is a richness that comes alongside that direct curricular offer of which they do pick that up. I think we provide some of that signposting where it's appropriate, but there's much more for schools to glean, capture, and use as some of those resources. I hope I've answered your question, Valera, as well.
• Thanks, John. And I remembered my point now, sorry about that. Sometimes it's because it's late. I was talking about, I think it was mentioned about our vulnerable students that there's a policy that's gonna be rolled out in terms of support in school for emotional and behavioral difficulties, you know? And I was wondering, is there anything that we've seen other borrowers doing already that is in-house that we could maybe share? So like practitioners, for example, going back to Barnett, I know that a setting have close relationships with psychiatrists and stuff like that, that they work and they come into the school maybe twice a week and they sometimes volunteer. I'm just wondering, is there anything we can do to support our children before we wait for the government to kind of roll out these so we can actually also look at reducing why children are not coming in school if they need that support in school 'cause they can't get doctor's appointment or their parents or whatever it is that is complex happening in their home lives?
• If I could pick one up, Chair. It's a really good point, Valerie. I think the, and just following on from John's point about talking to residents, I think a key challenge, and certainly as an ex-secondary head, it was always a challenge building relationships with parents that were very used to being, feeling part of the primary school culture. So they'd be collecting their children from the school gate. They'd be active engagement with their, you know, year four, five, six teacher. It was a daily interaction. And then something happens at key stage three when those young, those people then go to secondary school. And that parental engagement tends to fall away. Yes, you have your parents' evenings. Yes, you have open evenings. But the amount of contact that parents have with secondary schools is reduced dramatically from primary to secondary. So the challenge, I think, is those more vulnerable parents that do see schools as very austere, buildings, places, they may not have had a particularly strong school experience themselves, will see, can often see schools as very threatening places. So getting families, getting parents to cross the threshold and come into schools and have those conversations about what they're vulnerable about and what they're nervous about and what their anxieties are, are key strategies that secondary schools that have been very successful in raising attendance do very well. And I think that'll go to the heart of what we'll be looking to do moving forward.
• Thank you, Ben. Just in terms of, I think I've got a few questions on the placement stability report. I think, you know, the one that stood out to me was the one child that's moved six months, you know, six moves. And the four child that's moved five times. And I know that, you know, just my short experience of sitting on the fostering panel, that there are so many different reasons for that. One being housing, one being not proper matches. And I know that this report is quite detailed, but it would be good to kind of, 'cause it's such a small number, 36, to kind of see what those reasons are individually as case studies. I don't know if that would identify the families, but 'cause it's just so stark and it is quite heartbreaking for me to think about that child that's moved six times in the space of 12 months. You know, it's not something I wanna just kind of, just because it's one child, minimize. And I guess it kind of leads to my question in terms of just some of the feedback that I did get from foster carers. It being where it does say some of them was due to complex challenges between the foster carer and the child. And one of the feedback that stood out to me was that there weren't specialist foster carers, so they didn't have the training or the financial support. And I was just wondering, out of those 36 with the multiple moves and those who, the children who had complex needs, were the foster carers, specialist foster carers? And did that play a role in maybe of the breakdown of that placement? So that's my first question. And I think my second question was, and how big of a role does housing play in the moves? Or is it just the lack of foster carers? Do you have that kind of data in terms of generalizing what some of the issues might be?
• In terms of foster carers, I mean, I think, you know, as a former member of the Fostering Panel, you're probably aware of the placement sufficiency across the country. When we say specialist foster carers, I guess that's quite a broad definition in terms of what people's expectations are, what that looks like. Foster carers are you, me, you know, people who want to offer their home to a child. And some come with certain skill sets. And so if you're trying to match children as accurately as you can with the right carers, on paper, it may look a certain way, but actually, you don't really know how it's going to be until those children are placed. Carers will be approved, trained to kind of be prepared to kind of take on certain children. But actually, it's that kind of wraparound support. I think the question really is about how effective was the support to that carer, to those carers for those children, because although that carer could be quite skilled in meeting those children's needs, there could be other factors in terms of whether it's out of borough, where was the school, what was the wraparound support, was the child able to get to school. So there's so many different factors. It might be easier to, you know, do a kind of a summary of the case studies without revealing too much information to kind of give you that because it's so varied. There are specialists, foster carers, but I'm always reluctant to kind of really sort of hang my views on that because it's quite variable and it's very much dependent on so many other factors as well as being an experienced carer. It's also about what support you're having for that particular child or those children. And so I think it's probably better to kind of drill down and give you that more accurate information than to kind of just rely on my kind of experience and understanding of what fostering offers because it is quite varied and it kind of links with a lot of what you've heard today around exclusions and complexity and SEND and SCH. Those children sometimes aren't able to stay with their families and so when they come into foster care, those problems don't just don't evaporate. They kind of come with, they travel with the child and the same kind of things happen with the carers. And so that's why it's really important around how are we supporting carers? What's the wraparound? What's the new school or the new health services? What do they understand about the children? So there's lots of those factors that kind of make it very, very challenging, but those children that are coming in are coming in with much more complexity than ever. And we don't necessarily always have the level of resilience that carers need to kind of deal with that trauma that these children carry with them.
• Thank you and I guess if some of them don't go to school as much, that's just like a--
• Additional stress on the household.
• Just an additional stress on that household and probably are just the least of their worries when they've got all this going on. And I think that's why it was important for the committee to kind of have a focus group with a virtual school, with those children, because it is much more complex than probably for the other students. And I would want to kind of get that, hear from them as well and some of those issues.
• So what was the other question that you had?
• The question was, 'cause I know housing's a major factor, but is it the main factor in terms of, in specifically to the amount of placement need? Is it inadequate housing because of the larger sibling groups? Or is it just kind of just isolated reasons for each case? Is that kind of a general--
• I wouldn't say that housing is the, obviously, we try to keep siblings together. And actually, I think recent auditing showed that larger sibling groups, we've been a bit more successful about keeping those groups together. It's usually the kind of the ages and times that children within a sibling group that may come into care where there's separation. I don't necessarily think that housing is the kind of pressing issue 'cause we wouldn't be placing children with carers that don't have the room to look after them. It just wouldn't really make sense. But obviously, in terms of us being able to maximize our sort of pool of carers, if we could offer housing, and that could be kind of an attraction and they could take more children, then that would kind of certainly help with our choice and selection, because it's really important that the information that we have about children is matched to the carers, so those carers have the capacity to look after those children. But as that pool narrows, there's less carers to kind of pick from. And so some carers are really having to step up to try and meet those children's needs. And we want to keep children local so they don't have to change schools. And most of the properties outside of the borough are bigger, places like Waltham Forest and Enfield. There's a lot more kind of larger properties there where people are fostering. So there's those kind of factors that come into play, but I don't think it's fair to just say housing is the issue for the sort of placement stability, 'cause we wouldn't necessarily place children in environments where there's not enough room, not with foster carers.
• Thank you. Councillor Pandon.
• I have a question for you on page 95 about homeschooling.
• Sorry about the homeschooling?
• Oh, electively home education, yeah.
• It's home educated. And it concerns me that the number has gone up. And it also concerns me that the reason why parents are doing this is 'cause they're dissatisfied with the school environment. But also I want us to keep an open mind because I know a number of parents that are homeschooling their children, their children are thriving. Or where it says in your report that children educated at home might miss out on social interactions that occur naturally in school environment. I don't know if you're aware of this. There's a whole community of homeschoolers out there and they have activities and they mix with other children. They're linking up with other inside the borough, outside of the borough. So there's a whole community of them. They've got WhatsApp groups. But obviously I feel that school is the best place, but we need to have an open mind. But I want to know why are they so dissatisfied? The parents that I am supporting at the moment through my work in my day job, parents are feeling that obviously the SEN, the SEND is not being addressed. And their children, sometimes they're disruptive. And these are children who are only six, seven years old. And they are not being able to go to school for the full day. They're only allowed to go to school from nine to 12 'cause there's not enough resources in the school to provide for them. But then the parents are savvy. Parents know that when there's a child that has an extra need, there's extra money. So parents are saying, so if the school's getting so much money for each child and then it's more money for a child that's got an additional need, what are they doing? So that's the feedback that I've been getting from some parents. But I would like to generally know how we're gonna address this, but with an open mind.
• Paul, I'm sorry.
• Well, in terms of electively home-educated children, in terms of safeguarding, there's a very small number of children that are open. I think we recently did some research. There's about 18 children currently who are on sort of child protection plans or child in need plans. That's a small cohort. And those children, if they're open in my service, they usually have other sort of factors. But generally, I don't think we judge all electively home education as a negative because there's, I can't remember the numbers, there's over 300 electively home-educated children in the borough. And not all those children need a social care intervention. And so it's about parental choice and they don't have to send your child to school. You need to ensure your children are educated. So I'd like to think there is that kind of open mind. I think where electively home education is an option that a parent feels they're forced to take because they're not happy with the offer, that's a different discussion, that's a different question that we need to kind of approach 'cause it is, if the parental choice, how wide is that choice? How much do they, if you know better, you do better. If you know what's out there, what different ways of educating your children, whether in a school or out of a school, but where children need to be in school because of those other factors, education being one, but also around whether there are parental factors or issues, that's very different. But I think we have provisions within our education service to kind of make those checks to ensure if children are electively educated at home and it isn't sufficient and appropriate that they're escalated so that we can at least intervene as a service and try and offer a service and support that, whether that's encouraging and helping parents be able to feel confident in the schools that are available and that they will be heard and supported with their children. I think my colleague Paul's already talked about kind of golden ticket and having a SEND. This is an area where a lot of parents who have children with complex needs and they know that school need resources and financial support in order to kind of reach that threshold. Is there a bit of communication and work that we need to do around how else we can kind of access resources for children? We need to make sure that the right children are assessed and the right children that need the support get the support 'cause it's such a precious resource. It's kind of taken a life, one could argue of itself, where people feel that if I have this label or this confirmation that my child has these needs, I will get X, Y, and Z, when it actually gets absorbed into the school because there's not just one child in that school who needs that extra support. So I think there is that kind of understanding that the elective near home education is quite a broad area. It's not just a negative issue. It can be quite positive, but we deal with the vulnerable children and I think that's what our Ofsted inspectors want to know how are we identifying the most vulnerable in the borough because that's obviously they're the children who are at risk of the greater harm. So we look at the vulnerability and then we work our way through 'cause if parents have the resources and they can go on trips to the Epping Forest and do wonderful things in the borough, that's great, but what about the ones who are stuck in the flat with no balcony and damp and all the rest of it and their children are there all day? That's where it's our responsibility to ensure that we are intervening and safeguarding those children.
• Thank you. Thank you so much. If there are no further questions. Yes, go on.
• Sorry, just on this point, I wanted to know the figures for EOTAs students. For EOTAs students, which is separate to elective home education, isn't it?
• Is there a specific area related to EOTAs to see you talking about elective home education, children missing education exclusions, learners on reduced time, which policy area within the education inclusion EOTAs framework are you alluding to specifically?
• I don't know. I'm a parent governor representative. I know that EOTAs comes up a lot. It's separate to elective home education. So it's not included in the 312 electively home educated students. So I guess as a general overall, how many young people in Islington are on an EOTAs package covering everything you've just mentioned?
• If it's education otherwise and at school and if it's something that the committee would like to look at with a specific focus on education otherwise and at school, I'm sure officers can look into that 'cause it's quite a broad area. It is a broad area. Education inclusion is a broad policy area from children attending pupil referral units, children attending alternative provision, children attending a range of measures. So it then depends specifically which part of the EOTAs policy framework you wish to focus on. But if the committee is, if this is something that they wish to commission a piece of work on the forward plan to look at, then I'm sure officers can work towards preparing for that.
• In the next performance report, if we could get the number of those so separate to the home elected students.
• The home elected students are already in the report.
• Yeah, it's separate to that. Oh, is it included in the home elected or is it?
• Elected home education, there's 312 children on the register to refer to in the report for elected home education.
• No, no, I understand that. But I think what Suzie's point was, was that, yeah, so that figure, that data.
• The quantum of--
• No, no, just having it separate. Having it separate, 'cause it's not included in the home elected pupils, it's a separate, it's separate students, separate pupils who aren't home elected, might be in provision, alternative provision, or is it?
• I think if you said there's so many different categories, then show us all the categories and we can see what we need to focus on. That would be helpful.
• Just the figure. - We can do that for a future report. - Yeah, so for the next performance report, just to get that breakdown. I think that's quite, you know. (man speaking faintly) Yeah, yeah, that's all. Yeah, so if there's no further questions, can I note the quarter four performance report? Yeah, and now I'll move on to the final item, which is the work program. Can members agree to note the work program for 2024, 2025?
• No teacher. - Thank you. If there are no urgent matters, I'd like to thank you, everyone, for attending. Our next meeting is the 22nd of October. Goodnight, thank you. [BLANK_AUDIO]