UPDATE NO 379 22 November 2019

AD Education Network – next meeting Friday 24 January 2020. Please note the change of date.

The next meeting of the AD Education Network will be on Friday 24th January 2020 – 10.30-12.30. The following dates have also been fixed: 

• 6 March 2020 – Joint meeting with SEND Network with a focus on the inclusion and achievement of vulnerable learners at SEN support
• 5 June 2020                
• 25 September 2020

For more details of this meeting and the AD Education Network activity please click here or contact Chris Owen (details below)

Memorandum of Cooperation – Conference Call 26 November

Thanks to those authorities who have identified representatives to take part in the review (Bracknell Forest, Brighton and Hove, Hampshire, Kent, Oxfordshire, Portsmouth, West Sussex). If your authority is not listed and you would like to take part contact Mark Evans (details below). 

A conference call is being arranged for 26 November 2019 12.00-13.00 to progress the work. The call will be chaired by Sarah Hammond (AD Kent).

The agenda for the conference call includes:

• Developing a survey of current agency rates across the region (effectively updating the benchmarking we did when we launched the MoC).
• Work to investigate the appetite for some more regional performance measures and management is relation to agency staffing
• Developing a new proposal around the governance of the MoC (with particular reference to authorities who need temporary exemptions or decide to leave) 
• Sector research on how MoCs have developed in other regions
• Considering the need for authorities to recommit to the MoC

Ofsted’s social care questionnaires 2019

What children and young people told Ofsted – Ofsted uses questionnaires to capture views about social care settings, including children’s homes, boarding schools and living with foster carers and adopters. The questionnaires Ofsted sent out in 2019 differed from the one they sent out the previous year.

They reviewed the questions asked last year and made some changes. Ofsted use the responses, along with other information they have, such as previous inspection findings or any concerns, to decide when to inspect and what to focus on when we do.

The landing page for the report and supporting data can be found here

The annual report is here

The children’s data is here

The adult’s data is here 

Complex LAC Project – Hold the date Friday 17 January 2020

The Complex LAC Project is reaching an important stage and we will be holding an event in Central London on Friday 17 January 2020. There will be two parts to the day: 

Part 1 9.30-13.30 – DCS and Chief Financial Officers session – We would like to invite a representative group of Directors and Senior Finance Officers to join with the Complex LAC steering group (which includes chief executives from provider umbrella organisations ICHA and NAFP) to a meeting to explore the business case and potential options for more collaborative commissioning across the region. The meeting will explore opportunities for how we could gain better value for the £200+million spent annually purchasing and providing the most expensive looked after children placements.

If you would like to attend this session please contact Mark Evans (details below).

Part 2 14.00-17.00 – Premiere of the South East Looked After Children Film – As part of the Complex LAC Project we have worked in partnership with The Care Leaders to co-produce a film in which 19 young people from 5 SE authorities have been working together to highlight the perspectives of children who have experienced care. Collectively they have planned, interviewed and directed films to provide those who provide care with motivational media that highlight their experience with a view to identifying how we can improve placements and support for young people. This part of the day is open to Lead Members for Children’s Services, Directors of Children’s Services, Senior Leaders for Looked After Children’s Services, Foster Carers, Residential Workers, Commissioners and others who are committed to improving services for young people.  Ticketing will be via the Eventbrite platform.

If you would like more information ahead of the Eventbrite notification please contact Mark Evans (details below).

DCMS consultation on LA role to provide statutory youth services closes 1 December

DCMS consultation on LA role to provide statutory youth services closes 23.45 1 December 2019

The call for evidence and other materials are available here.

National Youth Agency commentary can be found here

The government is revising the guidance relating to Section 507B of the Education and Inspections Act, which sets government expectations of (upper tier) local authorities when they are securing services and activities for young people, and want evidence from young people, local authorities, youth sector organisations and other interested parties before the closing date of 23:45 on 1 December 2019.

You can find out more and submit evidence by clicking here

ADCS 2019 Elective Home Education Survey published

The ADCS recently surveyed local authorities in England for the fourth consecutive year to gather a snapshot of the cohort of children and young people that are being electively home educated (EHE).

Over 85% of local authorities (132 LAs) responded to the survey, the highest ever response rate, using data from the first school census day of the current academic year, Thursday 3 October 2019

The analysis suggests that somewhere in the region of 78,800 children and young people were home educated at some point during the academic year 2018/19, up from 2017/18. ADCS continue to see year-on-year increases in the known EHE cohort by an average of 20% since 2013.

The full report is here    The press release is here

AD Safeguarding Network – next meeting 6 December 2019

Friday 6 December – Joint Meeting with the East Of England Region –It would be helpful if you could respond advising if you are planning to attend or not. We already have 6 confirmed attendees and 4 further apologies.  

The meeting is with our equivalent group from the East of England.

To date we have agreed the following agenda items:

• NAAS (National Assessment and Accreditation System)
• East of England – what makes their MoC work?

If you have other topics you would like to discuss, please let Mark Evans (details below) know.

Community Based Safeguarding Model – NSPCC Evaluation

The NSPCC had published an evaluation of Together for Childhood, an evidence-informed approach that brings local partners and families together to make communities safer places for children. The initiative is in place in four areas: Plymouth and Stoke-on-Trent, where the focus is on preventing sexual abuse; and Grimsby and Glasgow, where the focus is on preventing abuse in families facing adversity.

Key learning points include:

• the importance of developing a shared vision
• developing effective local governance and partnerships
• the importance of community engagement
• developing and delivering NSPCC programmes adapted to the local context; and
• being realistic about the time and resource required

The full report is here

Learning from Safeguarding Early Adopter Programme – a report from NCB

The National Children’s Bureau (NCB) has published a report giving an overview of learning from the Safeguarding Early Adopter Programme, a cross-government initiative which brought together 17 projects in England to develop approaches to the new multi-agency arrangements for safeguarding children introduced by the 2017 Children and Social Work Act.

Findings include:

• the changes to the statutory framework presents opportunities for partners to be innovative and facilitate improvements in their local safeguarding arrangements;
• attention should be paid to ensuring leaders in local authorities, police and health come together in equal partnership
• attention should be paid to how partners engage other relevant agencies and practitioners including those in education organisations and the voluntary and community sector.

The full report is here

6 recent DfE publications

1. Children in Need and Children Subject to Child Protection Plans Statistics

2. Character Education Guidance

3. Updated LAIT (local authority interactive tool)

4. Fostering in England 1 April 2018 to 31 March 2019

5. Childcare and Early Year Providers 2019 survey

6. Guidance on school and college security, plus support materials and checklists

Children and young people’s mental health: prevention evidence

Public Health England has published a summary report and outputs from a review of evidence for universal approaches to improving children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing.

This series of reports summarises the evidence for the effectiveness of universal approaches to improving children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing.

Useful tools include descriptions of promising interventions (Appendix 5) and cross reference to interventions also identified in the Early Intervention Foundation Guidebook (Appendix 7).

The documents are intended for strategic and operational leads, working on children and young people’s mental health. This includes:

• local commissioners
• public health teams
• child and adolescent mental health service (CAMHS) providers
• clinicians
• leads in educational settings
• those leading children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing Local Transformation Plans (LTPs)
• voluntary, community and social enterprise sector leads and researchers

The report of the findings of a Special Interest Group summarises the approach, findings and recommendations.

Further Education Pathways – securing a successful and healthy life after education

A new report from the Education Policy Institute (EPI), commissioned by the Health Foundation, examines the life outcomes of students studying vocational qualifications.

The research considers the majority of young people who do not pursue a ‘traditional’ A level-Bachelor’s degree route after completing secondary school.  

An increasing proportion of young people now opt for vocational equivalents to A levels, continued GCSE study, and apprenticeships. Despite this, these students are often overlooked in public debates.

This detailed study assesses the opportunities, skills and outcomes of this majority student group, before considering how the provision of vocational qualifications can be improved, in order to enhance life chances.

The full report is here.

Challenging School Exclusions – a report by Justice

Justice has published the report of its de Friend Working Party “Challenging School Exclusions“. It suggests there are serious weaknesses: schhools’ lack of understanding of the law; poor communications; rubber-stamping of heads’ decisons; inadequate Independent Review Panels; innaccessible guidance and alienating jargon.

Recommendations include: mandatory training; new role of Independent Reviewer; appeals body in the first tier tribunal; better guidance; the voice of the pupil.