Venue: Remotely via Teams
Contact: Michelle Roberts, Scrutiny Officer
No. | Item |
---|---|
Disclosure of Personal and Prejudicial Interests. Minutes: None |
|
Prohibition of Whipped Votes and Declaration of Party Whips Minutes: None |
|
Letters and Minutes PDF 199 KB Additional documents:
Minutes: The Panel received the letter and minutes from the Panel meeting on the 22 October 2020. |
|
Public Questions Questions must be submitted in writing, no later than noon
on the working day prior to the meeting. Questions must relate to items on the
agenda. Questions will be dealt with in a 10 minute period. Minutes: No public questions have been received. |
|
Waun Wen Primary School PDF 444 KB Meet with the Headteacher and Chair of Governors. As part of the Panels watching brief on wellbeing in schools. Minutes: The Panel met with the Headteacher, Chair and Vice Chair of
Governors at Waun Wen Primary School, as part of their ongoing watching brief
on wellbeing in Schools. The School was
chosen because of the good practice it is showing in putting wellbeing at the
heart of the teaching. The Headteacher made a presentation, which included the following points: ·
Context
of the school including 57% Free School Meals, 47% English as Additional Language (27
languages) and 42% Additional Learning Needs (5 statements), high number of
pupils live in areas 1 or 2 of the Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation. ·
Many of the pupils at the school will have suffered from
Adverse Childhood Experiences also known as ACES. ·
One of the key issues faced at the school is speech, language
and communication needs. ·
The school endeavours to put the wellbeing of pupils at the
heart of all it does. ·
The school faced a number of challenges before Covid
including: baseline
scores very low, lack of vocabulary, difficulty using expressive language,
children who have suffered trauma, social services involvement with families,
children not able to regulate themselves, children not ready to learn. ·
Some of the ways the school addressed these problems included
use of training on
vocabulary acquisition (introduced specific vocabulary lessons), training on
trauma and ACES worked with Gwella Project, Empathy Lab Project (developed
vocabulary to express feelings). ·
From lockdown and beyond some of the thing the school did
included telephoning families, deliveries of food for FSM pupils, ran a food
bank in staff room for parents, acquired Easter eggs for all pupils, delivered
playdough and workbooks to all pupils. ·
They wanted to encourage wellbeing as pupils returned to school
in the autumn so put together a short film showing how the school will work and
look through Covid to ease pupils in before they attended. ·
They are trying to ensure physical and mental wellbeing by
ensuring regular exercise and appropriate support in the classroom, including
for example yoga. ·
The Support by Governors was outlined including regular phone
calls with chair and vice chair, email support, agreed with changes to policy
and curriculum, vice chair meets regularly with ALNCO. ·
The
support from the local authority during lockdown was outlined, some of this
included: courses
arranged by local authority, letters to parents from interim director, support
from health and safety officer, Headteacher said it felt like a team was
supporting the school…that the authority is behind you and will back you, also
good support for wellbeing of heads and staff. ·
The Headteacher said that Health and Safety Advice and the
support from Test, Trace and Protect superb in guiding them through any Covid
issues. Cabinet
Member for School Improvement, Learning and Skills said that the school context
is very challenging but that the senior management team at the school have
addressed what needs to be done to get pupils in a position to be able to
learn. She said it was inspiring to see,
when supported, how pupils can become more resilient and able to learn. The
Director of Education said she was proud of Waun Wen Primary School in normal
times but in these Covid times, they have gone way beyond that. The
Panel thanked the Headteacher, the Chair and Vice Chair of Governors at the
school for attending the Panel and for outlining some of the inspiring work
they are doing with pupils at the school in such challenging circumstances. |
|
Elective Home Education PDF 9 KB Cllr Jen Raynor Cabinet Member Education Improvement, Learning and Skills, Helen Morgan Rees (Interim Director of Education) and Kate Phillips (Head of School Support Team, Achievement and Partnership Service) Minutes: The Scrutiny Work
Planning Conference in October referred this item to the Education Scrutiny
Panel because Councillors understand that the numbers of requests had increased
substantially resulting from the Covid situation. The Panel therefore invited the appropriate
Cabinet Member, the Director of Education and Head of Education Support to
discuss the issue. The Panel heard: ·
The LA is not responsible for the provision of EHE
or under any statutory obligation to support it. However, under section 436A of
the Education Act 1996, the LA has a duty to make
arrangements to identify children not receiving a suitable education. ·
There is no legal framework for the LA to regularly monitor provision of home education, the
Council are mindful of its wider duties of care, and we will contact parents to
discuss their ongoing home education provision. ·
If a child has a statement of special
educational needs the Additional Learning Needs Panel consider the request,
amend the statement accordingly and ensure the requirements of the statement
can be met. ·
Swansea position: We are aware of 234 families
who are EHE. This figure changes frequently.
We accept and respect the right of parents to choose EHE and our mindful
of our boundaries. We endeavour to work in a supporting manner to foster good
relationships with home educators. ·
People decide to de-register their children from
School and Educate at home for a wide variety of reasons but this has increased
since Covid with 88 requests being made. ·
Support and safeguards include a focus on
building positive relationships with EHE community, offer signposting, advice
and guidance. If there is a circumstance, which gives rise to concerns
education officers will need to consider whether to liaise with other relevant
services and agencies. School Attendance Orders can be used
as a last resort if there is a concern appropriate education is not being
provided. We prefer to work in partnership with home educators ·
Any pupil who has received their education at
home can apply to be readmitted to a maintained school
at any time. ·
Some parents have fearful about children
returning to school relating to Covid particularly where there are family
health concerns. A more flexible
approach to delaying removal from role, not penalising non-attendance and
providing reassurance on risk assessments has been offered ·
New statutory guidance from Welsh Government was
consultation upon in October 2019 but is currently on hold as to COVID 19
responses took priority Swansea is prepared to take on the requirements of the
statutory guidance if implemented. ·
Will continue to foster good working
relationships with the EHE community ·
A small amount of additional funding has been
provided by WG to councils to support EHE and considerations around how best to
allocate this are taking place The
Panel were reassured by the approach that the Council is taking to pupils being
electively home educated. They were
encouraged to hear that about the safeguards that have been
put in place given the current Welsh Government guidelines on this
matter. The Panel would like to see a register of pupils that are being
electively home educated put in place but recognise that this is in with the
reach of the Welsh Government. We look forward to that statutory guidance being published. |
|
Work Programme 2020/21 PDF 263 KB Minutes: The Work Programme was agreed. |
|