Agenda item

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 children home from school.

·       At the end of the day, this was a decision for the parents to make, but the Authority could support the schools in terms of the messages given to parents to get to grips with that.

 

It was noted that the number of exclusions in Arfon was substantially higher than other parts of the county and it was enquired whether this was a general pattern or whether there was a small number of schools in Arfon pushing that figure up? It was noted that it would be beneficial to see the data per school to see what was behind this. In response, it was noted:-

·       That Arfon's population was much higher than Meirionnydd and Dwyfor combined and the percentage was looked at per thousand pupils.

·       That the Authority tracked 5 schools, 4 in Arfon and one in Meirionnydd.

 

Referring to an earlier observation in the discussion that parents' mindset towards sending children to school had changed since Covid, it was enquired whether this was also true within the schools. In response, it was noted:-

·       That there was certainly nervousness amongst school staff, which did not exist previously, in terms of the impact that sick children could have on them and the rest of the school community.

·       However, attendance was back on the top of individual schools' priorities list by now, with those schools celebrating high attendance and encouraging parents to send their children to school.

·       That the situation was much better by now with the percentage of attendance increasing, but it was not increasing as quickly as they had wished.

 

It was enquired whether attendance levels raised quicker in the primary sector or the secondary sector. In response, it was noted:-

·       That attendance levels in the primary sector were substantially higher than the secondary and were also quite stable.

·       A small increase was seen in the secondary sector compared to the previous year but it was acknowledged that there was more work to be done on this. The Department worked very closely with the schools to prioritise increasing attendance to the pre-Covid level, and higher than that.

·       To be able to increase the attendance percentage of the county, attention must be given to the bulk of school population which had an attendance percentage under 90%, instead of the individual cases that might be 30% or 40%, as those numbers were low and the individuals in question received support from welfare teams etc.

·       That the Head of Education had sent a letter to all parents in the county emphasising that attendance must be a priority. The responses received by parents were very mixed, but perhaps it highlighted the confusion amongst some parents regarding the importance of sending their children to school.  However, throughout, people understood that they must change gear in terms of attendance, otherwise the children would not thrive academically.

 

The fact that schools gathered quite thorough data in terms of absence tracking and used it to refine the implementation then needed to increase the attendance figure was welcomed. In response, it was noted that the use of data was good in schools.  However, it was believed that parents who contacted the school to say that their children were sick needed to be challenged more, as it was not possible to prosecute parents based on lack of attendance if that absence was authorised by the school, and this was the type of messages being put forward to the school by now.

 

It was noted that the findings of Mrs Caroline Rees, who was commissioned to conduct a detailed survey of the Inclusion Service, reflected Estyn's recommendation that there was a need for suitable locations for provision outside of school, and it was enquired whether there was an update regarding that. In response, it was noted:-

·       That Mrs Caroline Rees' report had helped the service to create a foundation in terms of the direction in the inclusion field and the behaviour support field, especially to the increasing number of children who were unable to cope, or who could not be included in mainstream schools.

·       That the basic principle in Gwynedd was that children should be included within the mainstream schools, but that it was a challenge to do so every time, especially as the children's behaviour intensified as the years went by.

·       That establishing a Project Board was an important step forward to get the opinion of schools' headteachers on the direction of the Inclusion Service over the next few years, as it was the headteachers who made decisions relating to excluding an individual. Therefore, it was essential that the headteachers were part of the solution to ensure that the provision outside of the school was fit for purpose.

·       That detailed work was achieved examining good practices in other counties etc., but as the financial situation in the Department was difficult, they looked at how better use of the funding that already existed could be made to create a model that provided better support for the same cost. This was challenging because caring for children with intense behavioural needs was costly, with the ratio of staff to child, for example, costing much more than if those children were in a mainstream school.

·       That the Department's wish was to see as little pupils as possible out of education and the provision for them was excellent and provided good value for money. That it was not possible to provide for hundreds of children exempt from education in Gwynedd as the county's geography meant that it was not possible to provide one centre in the middle for everyone.

 

The honesty of the report was welcomed, for example, referring to the need to change gear in terms of attendance. Referring to the table in paragraph 4.4 of the report, it was realised that there was an increase in the attendance of 56% of the targeted groups, and the Welfare Officers were thanked for their work. However, whether the increase in the attendance levels since the Estyn visit in June 2023 was sufficient was enquired.  Referring to the attendance per local authority, the fact that Gwynedd's figures had increased from 88.7% in 2022/23 to 89.1% in 2023/24 was welcomed, but it was noted that the figures of some other counties were higher, namely Wrexham (90.1%) and Monmouthshire (90%), and it was enquired whether there were any lessons to be learnt from those councils. In response, it was noted:-

·       That the increase in attendance levels in Gwynedd was insufficient, but it was clear that the vast majority of councils also had trouble achieving this. The Department intended to continue to look into this matter relentlessly, until the attendance figures had returned to where they should be.

·       That the Department's officers discussed with their colleagues across the region, and also held national discussions, and it was believed that Gwynedd worked on the right things.

·       As well as the national campaign that was on its way from the Government, there was also an intention to conduct a campaign locally to promote attendance on the Council's social media. Gareth the Orangutang was also asked to do work on promoting attendance with school children.

·       That the Department looked at whether there were any lessons to learn from other counties, but in some situations, other counties looked at Gwynedd as an example of good practice and considered what they could learn from us.

·       That the main weakness at present was the fact that the data on authority level arrived late and without being analysed to the level that we would have wished.  This put the Council on the back foot in terms of targeting specific groups of learners etc. However, the Department was working urgently to get to grips with this.

 

It was noted that Mrs Caroline Rees agreed with Estyn's recommendation that the Authority needed to work with school leaders to jointly draw up an effective inclusion strategy across the county. It was enquired how many discussions had been with the schools regarding that and whether anything had been achieved. In response, it was noted:-

·       That the headteachers worked with the Department from the start to bring a plan together and that they were also part of the visits to see good practice.

·       In terms of the inclusion challenges, that the work with other agencies and other departments within the Council was part of that.

·       They looked at solutions such as holding a workshop to look at what services also worked with young people outside of the school. This was not only a school solution but was something that also needed to be done on a wider scale in terms of the community.

 

It was enquired whether the Department encouraged headteachers to remind the staff to fill the register to avoid gaps in the data. In response, it was noted that this message had gone out to schools several times and that it would be sent out once again to remind the schools of the importance of registering children twice a day in a timely manner, in accordance with the legal requirement.

 

It was enquired whether the Department monitored if the school had managed to register every pupil in a timely manner. In response, it was noted:-

·       That the Department could monitor whether a school had registered children twice a day, but it was not possible to monitor if that had been done in a timely manner.

·       That it was the school's responsibility to ensure that children had been registered in a timely manner and the Management Team of any school, especially secondary schools, was expected to be aware if staff had not registered children on time and to address this.

 

It was enquired whether there were secondary schools that had not excluded at all in two years. It was also noted that it would be beneficial to see comparative figures of other counties. In response, it was noted:-

·       That comparison with other authorities was complex with a number of different factors feeding into this, and that there were even exemptions within individual authorities.

·       In Gwynedd, with 12 secondary schools and 2 all-through schools, there were 14 headteachers making decisions in terms of excluding children, and the Authority did not intervene in that decision unless necessary. 

·       That other authorities had a smaller number of schools, their inclusion provisions were possibly different too.

·       That a small county geographically, where everything was close to each other, could have provision in the middle that would include a number of the children before they reached the point of facing exclusion.

·       Gwynedd could have a higher number of exclusions, but a low number of pupils out of education, and other counties could have a low number of exclusions, but a substantially higher number than Gwynedd of year 11 children out of education within mainstream schools.

·       Despite all of this, the number of exclusions in Gwynedd was too high. It could be concluded that children's behaviour in Gwynedd was similar to children's behaviour in other counties, but it seemed from the figures that those other counties did not exclude as much as us, and that was the message conveyed to the schools very recently.

 

Referring to the observation previously in the discussion regarding tracking schools, the type of support and challenge given to those schools was enquired. In response, it was noted:-

·       That the support given to individuals with a high number of exclusions included looking at the barriers and tracking individuals who received a lot of exclusion periods to be able to support them.

·       Although the number of continuous exclusions were extremely high and required attention, only 10% of all exclusions had led to continuous exclusions during the period in question.

·       That the Authority had an agreement with the schools to try to do everything to avoid continuous exclusions.

·       That the Authority had provision outside of the school should it be required to move urgently in the case of an individual receiving continuous exclusion from one school facing continuous exclusion from another school.

·       That the Department was confident that they were completely aware which schools excluded the most, who were the pupils and where resources were required to support them, despite the associated financial challenges.

 

It was suggested that it would be beneficial to have an update in a year on the progress of the 5 schools in Gwynedd that were being tracked.

 

Concern was expressed that children dealt with drugs outside secondary school. It was enquired whether this was also a problem within the schools, and what was being done about it. In response, it was noted:-

·       That it was sad to report that there were individuals taking drugs into school, and there were exclusions associated with that. 

·       That they managed to attract additional funding to appoint 2 officers located within the Youth Justice Service, but who worked in partnership with the Education Department, to visit the schools and to work with individuals who have been excluded for bringing drugs into the school.

 

It was noted that it was a great comfort to see the Department giving consideration to the drug problem that was intensifying within our community.

 

RESOLVED

1.     To accept the report and note the observations.

2.     Request an update to the Committee on future progress.