Issue - meetings

Cabinet Member – Councillor Beca Brown

To consider a report on the above.

DECISION

1. To accept the report and to note the observations received.
2. To request an update on progress to the Committee in the future.

The Head of Education and the officers were welcomed to the meeting. ⁠

Submitted - a report detailing the progress of the Education Department in response to recommendations from the Estyn Report on education services in Cyngor Gwynedd (June 2023) in relation to pupils' behaviour and attendance in the county's schools.

The Head of Education gave a brief summary of the content of the report, noting that they had intended to report to the committee later on the progress in response to Estyn's third recommendation in relation to moving forward on the Department's strategic priorities.

Members were given an opportunity to ask questions and offer observations. ⁠ 

Referring to paragraph 4.3 of the report, it was enquired whether the Welsh Government's Attendance Grant to target attendance improvements for specific individuals within schools was likely to continue. In response, it was noted:-

·       In terms of the Welsh Government's grants, no assurance had been given further than one year at a time.  However, as the discussions nationally with the Government highlighted that this was a national problem and that it was a national priority to get children into school, it was very unlikely that this grant would come to an end in a year.

·       Despite this, the Department was required to prepare for the possibility that the grant could come to an end, and the main discussions regarding this focused on the team's capacity and how schools responded to lack of attendance.

·       It was not possible to address the lack of attendance on the current scale with a team of 10 welfare officers, and that everyone was required to work as one to explain to the schools what their duties were to ensure that the Welfare Team could then work with a specific cohort of children whose attendance were lower than a specific threshold.

The main reason for the low attendance levels in schools was enquired. In response, it was noted:-

·       That illness was mainly reported by schools. Following the lockdown period, parents tended to keep children home from school with minor illnesses such as a cold or a headache, and it was very difficult for the Authority and the schools to challenge that.

·       The policy was revised to be able to highlight the steps that schools could take to respond to illness, especially in connection to continuous, extended or regular absences, and through the monitoring arrangement, it could be possible to identify patterns and send a welfare officer in to discuss with the parents if needed.

It was suggested that it would be useful for guidelines to be available to help parents come to a decision regarding when to keep their children at home and when to send them to school. In response, it was noted:-

·       That parents' mindset regarding when to keep their children home from school had changed since Covid, and there was more awareness by now of the possibility of spreading diseases.

·       More people worked from home since Covid and it was therefore easier for some parents to keep their  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6