North Somerset Education Excellence Partnership Board & School Standards Board Meeting Monday 6th November 2017 Haywood Village Academy, Weston-super-Mare 8.00am – 12.00pm Present: Steve Davis Northleaze Primary School & Chair of PHANS Philippa Clark Ravenswood Special School & Chair of SENS Susan Elliott Worle Village Primary School & Representing HANS John Wells Clevedon Learning Trust Zoe Elder Clevedon Teaching School Alliance Penny Boardman Inspirational Futures Trust Tony Searle Hans Price Academy & Cabot Learning Federation Isobel George North Somerset Teaching School Alliance Simon Marriott Kaleidoscope Multi Academy Trust Gary Lewis Lighthouse Schools Partnership Adam Matthews Extend Learning Academy Network Sharon Roberts St Peter’s Teaching School Sheila Smith Director of People & Communities, NSC (Chair) Louise Malik Head of Education Transformation, NSC Gail Webb Challenge Partner, NSC Wendy Packer Vulnerable Learners’ Service Leader & Virtual School Head, NSC Sally Varley Service Leader – Strategic Planning & Governance, NSC Present for Schools Standards Board Only: Alison Fletcher Director, CLF Institute Observing: Kathleen McGillycuddy Broadoak Academy Dionne Elliott Nailsea Academy In Attendance: Becky Farler Minute-taker Part 1 – Education Excellence Partnership Board Item 1 – Apologies and Introductions (Sheila Smith) SS welcomed everyone to the meeting, and attendees introduced themselves. Apologies: Eifion Price – Assistant Director Children’s Support & Safeguarding, NSC Kerri McArdle – The Beach Teaching School Alliance 1 Steve Taylor – CEO, Cabot Learning Federation Did Not Attend: Neville Coles – Priory Learning Trust Helen Fenn – Diocese of Bath & Wells Philip Bowditch – Bath & Wells MAT Colleen Collett – The Roman Catholic Diocese of Clifton Delyth Lloyd Evans - GANS Item 2 – Declarations of Interest (Sheila Smith) GW declared an interest in Agenda Item 11 Item 3 – Minutes from the previous meeting and Notification of AOB (Sheila Smith) On page 7 the minutes should be amended to record that the Governing Body has been involved in responding to parental complaints. SS advised new EEPB members that meetings do not usually cover the amount of information that was discussed at the last meeting. Notification of Any Other Business LM would like to remind colleagues that the Fair Funding Consultation was issued last week and it runs until 24th November 2017. A briefing session is scheduled for later this week at Hans Price Academy. All details are in Noticeboard. Item 4 – Feedback from Heads Liaison 20/10/17 (Louise Malik) A number of the issues discussed at the Heads Liaison Meeting are on the Agenda for today, for example the Early Help system, Ofsted feedback and the Specialist Provision Review. WP will take forward identified actions regarding evidence for EHCP’s. PC commented that Secondary representation at the HLM seems to have been lost. A SHINS meeting is due to take place this week Action - LM. Item 5 – Ofsted Inspection Feedback (Sheila Smith) The outcome of the Local Authority’s inspection was that the overall judgement was Requires Improvement. There were 12 recommendations and the Local Authority will respond to all of the actions raised during the inspection. The Heads Liaison Group has asked for the action plan to be shared and this will be done through Noticeboard Action - LM. The most pressing issues relate to the NSSCB so an action plan is in place. The arrangements will change in the near future and the LSCB will not have any further reviews in its current format. The three lead agencies, i.e. LA, Health and Police, will be considering possible new arrangements from 2018 and there will be consultation on the options. PC advised that the Heads Liaison Group also discussed whether there is a need for the Local Authority to review its Safeguarding Policy given that the Safeguarding Board has 2 been rated Inadequate. Ofsted have suggested that schools need to satisfy themselves that advice they are given is correct. SS clarified that there was no suggestion at all in the Ofsted Report that the Council’s policies and procedures are not robust. She asked EEPB members if they have any concerns. PC commented that some schools were concerned about how long it took for the model safeguarding policy to be approved by the Board. SS expressed surprise about this because the issue has not been raised by any of the Heads’ Reps at other meetings. She suggested that perhaps the membership of some of these groups needs to be reviewed. PC advised that the concerns had been reported to the Safeguarding Officers, and she feels that the lines of communication need to be made clearer for schools. SS advised that she will put an article in Noticeboard. Action – SS. Item 6 – Specialist Provision Review (Wendy Packer) WP advised that she does not have a lot to add to what has been written in the Paper circulated to the EEPB. The recommendations will be presented to DLT and SSF in December, and the EEPB will also be asked for their input. The Authority is keen to ensure that evidence collecting and interviews are robust so that the current situation and projections are very clear. The Authority knows that there is some good provision currently, but there are also gaps that need to be addressed. Mike Newman’s team has been involved with the data collection and Gail Smith has been looking at SEND and Helen Caldwell at AP. They have been talking to stakeholders about areas of strength and weakness to identify gaps and obtain a full overview. This will then be collated to support the development of firm recommendations. The analysis has not revealed any surprises. WP asked whether the EEPB had any questions and there were none. WP confirmed that the Out of School Panel is struggling to place children at the moment. There have been 25 permanent exclusions since September which is an unprecedented amount. Many of the children do not have EHCP’s which means that they cannot be placed in special provision, the PRU is full and there are no other options locally. There needs to be a focus on early intervention and a proactive approach to finding provision for these children and WP asked for schools engagement in this. AM asked whether more work needs to be done to get the message out to schools about starting the EHCP process early and WP agreed. AM suggested that an article could be included in Noticeboard. WP recognised that schools have historically worked very hard to keep children, so their behaviour escalates a long way down the line before an EHCP is applied for. Moving forward schools need to start the EHCP process early even if they are holding on to the child, and liaison about any managed moves also needs to start as early as possible if this is identified as a possibility. SR commented that this applies to Early Years settings as well as schools Action - WP Item 7 – Admissions and Fair Access Protocol (Sally Varley and Wendy Packer) The Fair Access Protocol was circulated and SV led the discussion. She advised that the biggest issue is to agree the definitions of the key factors, e.g. what is challenging behaviour and what is a reasonable timescale etc. The Protocol is for North Somerset, but there are some issues with children who are out of school because of discussions within other admissions departments in other local authorities so the Admissions team has written a general Protocol for the process. For normal in-year admissions, some schools will use the North Somerset Protocol and others will use their own school’s procedure. If a school is the most local school for a child, that school will be asked to take them. There is a flow chart detailing the process 3 for offering places. A school should look to take a child even if they know the family and have concerns. If a child does not meet the fair access protocol and the school has recently taken other challenging children the school must inform the Local Authority. The Authority also needs to know if a school is involved with any managed moves. A school is able to look at having a child on a temporary basis through a managed move to see if they manage any better at a new school, but it is not committed to keeping the child if the placement is not successful. There seems to be a concern within schools that if they do not have the resources and capacity to manage a child they still have to keep them if they have agreed to try a managed move, and this is not the case. GL commented that if a school has a child who is, for example, going through the EHCP process, the impact of taking another challenging child could be too much to manage. It is important for the timing to be right so that there is a balance. SV agreed that time factors are important but there are two issues – the time that a school needs and also the time that a child could be out of school while options for them are considered. SV advised that the Local Authority needs to know when a school has a child with challenging behaviours because Admissions are not always aware of this. GL asked for clarification about whether the Out of School Panel is now the Fair Access Panel as well. WP advised that a number of reports have recently been submitted to the Out of School Panel, so they have been discussed, but for others WP and SV have met separately to consider them. The process does need to be made clearer for schools. Action WP/SV SV commented that schools are sometimes completing Fair Access forms when it is not a Fair Access request and she confirmed that schools cannot refuse a place unless it is under Fair Access.