Agenda item

Cabinet Member – Councillor Beca Brown

 

To submit a report on the above.

To accept the report and to note the observations.

 

 

The Assistant Head: Special Educational Needs and Inclusion and the Education Department Inclusion Manager were welcomed to the meeting in addition for this item.

 

The report of the Cabinet Member for Education was presented providing information on attendance levels and exclusions across Gwynedd schools, including an outline of the main reasons for absences and exclusions.  Committee members were asked to consider whether any other aspect of attendance and exclusions needed to be scrutinised, along with the impact of the provision offered to encourage improvement in the attendance and behaviour of Gwynedd pupils.

 

The Cabinet Member provided the context, the Inclusion Manager detailed the content of the report and then the members were given the opportunity to ask questions and offer observations.

 

It was asked what accounted for the fact that behaviour and attendance problems following the COVID-19 pandemic continued, as you would have expected the children to become re-accustomed to going to school as time progressed, and for the figures to decrease.  In response, it was noted that:

 

·         Several of the exclusions related to violence against peers and members of school staff. 

·         There was also a significant increase in drug use, with many children now carrying drugs into school to sell, or for their own use.  It was noted that there was a case at the moment where the Service was very concerned about one pupil in Year 6.

·         Everyone expected the first year following the pandemic to be challenging, but unfortunately, things had deteriorated since then.

 

It was asked whether children with additional learning needs were more likely to be affected by this, and if so, to what extent.  In response, it was noted that:

 

·         Data was collected monthly, with an officer recording each exclusion and noting whether they were children with additional needs, whether they had an individual development plan and whether they were children who received free school meals.

·         There was no definite pattern of children in these categories, and some of the children also came from backgrounds that we would not have expected to manifest as problematic within the schools.

 

It was asked whether there was evidence that efforts to improve attendance, by writing to parents and making threats, etc., led pupils to disengage from the system altogether.  In response, it was noted that:

 

·         The number of children who were de-registered had increased, and that, in itself, was a concern for the Service.

·         The Service had welfare officers who supported families.

·         The Authority fined or prosecuted parents only as a last resort as there was no desire to lead to a greater increase in the number of pupils being home educated.

·         The Service had a specific team within the Department that looked at home educating and checked settings and the progress and standard of the education the children received.

 

It was noted that Gwynedd's permanent exclusions figure for 2022/23, i.e. 48, was alarming and it was asked what exactly the Authority intended to do differently from what it had done in the past, and what it intended to put in place anew to ensure that this figure would fall by September 2024.  It was asked what the figures were in other counties similar to Gwynedd, such as Anglesey and Ceredigion, over the same period.  It was also asked if there was a school (without naming it) that almost never excluded, and what could be learned from that good practice, and also was there a school (again without naming it) that excluded more regularly than similar schools.  In response, it was noted that:

 

·         It was agreed that the figures were alarming and the schools were thanked for reporting so transparently and honestly on the number of permanent exclusions.

·         The Service was fully aware of the work that needed to be done, and it was intended to commission a piece of work over the next year by a former Estyn inspector, who specialised in inclusion, looking at the use of inclusion funding in schools.  This work would start in the next two months and would provide a framework on how to improve the service for the future.

·         The Department also had teams that supported schools in the primary and secondary sectors, in order to model positive behaviour and put strategies in place, etc. and it was intended to appoint additional officers to these teams within the next few months.

·         The Department had been successful in attracting a significant amount of funding from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (SPF) which would be used to offer programmes to schools in terms of specialist services relating to behaviour.  There was no guarantee that this would make a difference, but it would highlight the type of support that was needed.

·         Regarding figures for other counties, the ALN&I Service operated for Gwynedd and Anglesey, and the service also collaborated with its peers across the counties of the north, and it was clear that those counties too faced the same challenges.

·         The Service was concerned about the high levels of exclusions in five schools mainly in the Arfon area, and that the schools that rarely excluded were in the south of the county.

·         It could be misleading to look at the individual numbers of pupils that schools excluded and it was more accurate to look at that as a percentage of the school's population.

·         It was essential to look at reconciling the reasons for excluding pupils across the county, considering whether there was a difference in levels of tolerance among schools; what strategies did some schools use to prevent the type of behaviour from escalating into something that merited exclusion, and was there a specific period, reasons, behaviour or factors that were acceptable in one school, which would not be acceptable in another school.

·         Funding followed a child who transferred to another school as a result of an exclusion, or for whatever reason, so that the school admitting the child found it easier to provide for that child.

·         In view of the current situation, it was no surprise that Estyn had chosen inclusion as one specific area to look at in detail as part of its recent inspection of education services.

 

It was asked if the Admissions and Exclusions Panels still existed, and if so, why had there been no further contact with those lay members who had attended two days of intensive training in the field before the pandemic.  In response, it was noted that:

 

·         The Panels continued to exist, but few requests were received for independent hearings. 

·         That discussions had been held with the Legal Service regarding the need to train new and experienced governors in order to draw attention to their responsibility when a child is excluded.  In addition to discussions with the Assistant Resources Officer, who was responsible for co-ordinating training for governors, in order to re-visit the matter, a specific training package for new governors had been adapted so that it was appropriate and current.

·         It was appreciated to have people volunteer on the panel because it was extremely important that the voices of children and families were heard by a group of individuals who were completely independent of the school.

 

It was asked how likely the children excluded for a fixed period were of being excluded again, time and again.  In response, it was noted that:

 

·         The Service had a database that tracked every individual who was excluded.

·         In accordance with Welsh Government guidelines, an individual could be excluded for more than 15 days, or over a period during an academic year, and then a behaviour panel had to be held with the governing body, the parents and the individual in order to avoid progressing to a permanent exclusion.

 

It was noted that several studies clearly indicated that young people were one of the groups most affected by Covid, and it was felt that young people were being forgotten.  It was noted that leisure provision for young people outside of school, such as youth clubs, etc. had a very beneficial effect on the mental health of individuals, and it was asked if the Department, in conjunction with the Youth Service, considered this as a way of trying to tackle the problems.  In response, it was noted that it was agreed with the observation and that it was necessary to look at how the resource that the Council had within the Youth Service was used in order to take full advantage of it.

 

Referring to fixed-period exclusions that occur repeatedly to the same child, it was noted that it was evident that the strategies did not always work, and that children were sometimes identified with special needs in terms of behaviour and got an individual plan and were treated differently, and did not get further exclusions as a result.  It was asked if those numbers increased in the same way, and were they successful.  In response, it was noted that it was important to look at that too, and it was believed that headteachers were committed to doing so.

 

The fact that the funding followed a child who moved school due to an exclusion was welcomed, but in addition to the usual cost of educating the child, these children, very often, needed much more support, and it was asked whether putting a premium on the funding that was transferred to the schools that accepted children under these circumstances would be considered.  In response, it was noted that a sum of around £1.1m went to the secondary sector to assist with this type of issue, and although it was not suggested for a moment that the money was not being used properly, perhaps it was necessary carry out a piece of work to look at what exactly the schools were doing with this money.

 

It was noted that the solution to these problems did not lie with the Education Department and the Council alone and that we had to look at the picture as a whole in terms of the young person's home, community and health, especially in view of the major cuts the agencies that support families and the health sector had faced in recent years.  It was emphasised that all the agencies should sit around the table to ensure the best outcome for the young person, but because every department and every field received cuts, everyone was holding on tightly to their own purse strings.  It was noted that it was necessary to look at more than the bare figures and to look at what was the real reason that a young person displayed this type of behaviour.  There was a lot of work to be done, and a challenging time lay ahead of us, but through plans such as these, etc., it was greatly hoped that the figures would start to decrease, but there was a need for other agencies to be around the table too.

 

It was noted that only after everything else had failed was the difficult and painful decision taken to exclude a pupil permanently and that the decision had to be for the benefit of the staff and other pupils, and also for the benefit of the pupil who was about to be excluded.

 

Referring to the reasons for excluding pupils, it was noted that the report and committee's discussion had placed the focus on those that were excluded, but that the rest of the class, who were affected by the 'persistent disruptive behaviour' had to be borne in mind too.  It was asked to what extent 'threatening and violent conducts' were on the increase, and to what extent 'persistent disruptive behaviour', which affected the majority of other pupils, was on the increase.  In response, it was noted that:

 

·         The reason behind each exclusion was recorded.

·         An increase in violence was seen, and there was also an increase in refusing to conform to school rules, disrupting the class regularly and being verbally abusive to staff and peers.

·         The use of e-cigarettes was also a big problem in schools.

·         Each school had its own behaviour policy, and the Authority could not influence those policies.

·         Some schools undertook internal exclusions, where a child who disrupted the class was moved to another class where a key person was available to conduct recovery discussions with them.

 

The members' appreciation was expressed of all the work carried out by the staff involved with vulnerable pupils who found it difficult to cope in school for whatever reasons.

 

RESOLVED to accept the report and to note the observations.