The Children and Young People Scrutiny Panel meeting scheduled for 27 January 2025 will include a presentation from Place2Be¹ West London, a discussion on school site visits that have taken place, and a general item on the deep dive review and next steps for the panel.

The meeting is also scheduled to include time for reflection following visits to three schools in the borough. The notes for the meeting say that:

The panel agreed that site visits, accompanied by School Attendance Officers, will be important in understanding what common experiences primary schools across the Borough have with engagement and attendance.

The document describing these visits says that the panel wished to investigate any common themes in the experiences of:

Bedfont Primary School, Bedfont

Cranford Primary School, Cranford

Cavendish Primary School, Feltham

The meeting will also include a presentation from Place2Be, a charity which provides mental health support in schools.

The notes from the last meeting of the Children and Young People Scrutiny Panel on 4 November 2024 are also included in the agenda for this meeting. The previous meeting received a presentation about school attendance and engagement from Steven Forbes, the Executive Director of Children's and Adults’ Services, on behalf of Phillip Walker, the Director of Lifelong Learning, Skills and Employment. The presentation discussed reasons for low school attendance in Hounslow, the legal framework that surrounds school attendance, and the council's approach to improving attendance.

The report pack contains data on school attendance, noting the following:

Attendance in Hounslow is slightly below the London and England averages.

The most common reason for unauthorised absences is unauthorised holiday.

... pupils receiving free school meals (FSM) have lower attendance rates than their peers who are not in receipt of FSM.

The report also notes that the School Attendance Support Service at Hounslow has:

moved to a ‘support first’ model... This model involves an approach that requires the team to exhaust all possible approaches for supporting the parent/guardian of the relevant child, before penalising then legally and/or financially.