Venue: Remotely via Teams
Contact: Michelle Roberts, Scrutny Officer
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Disclosure of Personal and Prejudicial Interests. Minutes: None |
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Prohibition of Whipped Votes and Declaration of Party Whips Minutes: None |
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Minutes of Previous Meeting PDF 311 KB Minutes: Minutes of the meeting on the 24 June 2021 were accepted. |
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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. Minutes: No public questions were received. |
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Behaviour Strategy, how associated delegated spend to schools is being used PDF 189 KB Head Teacher’s from two secondary schools in Swansea have been invited to outline how they have used this allocation: Gareth Rees from Pontarddulais and Helen Burgum from Bishop Gore. Minutes: The Panel invited two Headteacher’s from different Secondary Schools in different parts of Swansea to discuss how they are using the monies they have been delegated as part of the behaviour strategy. They wanted to find out how schools are using these monies to reduce referrals to Education Other Than At Schools Services, to re-introduce pupils back into schools after attending such services and other behaviour related issues. Helen Burgum the Headteacher at Bishop Gore Secondary School and Gareth Rees the Headteacher and Rachel Thomas the Assistant Headteacher at Pontarddulais Secondary School attended the Panel meeting. They both made a Powerpoint presentation on key questions sent to them by the Panel prior to the meeting, namely: 1.
How
are you using your delegated spend, associated with the behaviour strategy, to
reduce exclusions and referrals to EOTAS? 2.
Can
you give us some examples of where this has benefited pupils in your schools? 3.
How has the disruption to education caused by the pandemic affected your
work in this area and what has been the impact on pupils? And how do you hope
that things will change in future?’ 4.
How well is it helping you to reintegrate pupils back into mainstream after being
in EOTAS? 5.
How
do you feel the overall behaviour strategy in working to the benefit pupils
currently? 6.
In
your opinion, could this be improved? Pontarddulais
Secondary School outlined: ·
Context
of the school including: 846 pupils on role, overall 17.5% eFSM pupils, 23%
pupils with Additional Learning Needs ·
Team
Around the Child team is where much of the work in relation to behaviour
issues, and where the delegated funding from the behaviour strategy is
used. This more widely includes for
example pastoral support, ALN, Careers Wales, school nurse etc. ·
Key
to this and addressing behaviour and reductions in referral to Education Other
Than At School Services is TY Dysgu, at unit that supports pupils who struggle
with behaviour in the mainstream provision.
Funding from delegated spend goes towards funding 3 teachers and a
co-ordinator for this provision. ·
Training
has been provided for teachers on the Thrive Strategy, this an approach that
helps teachers develop pupils social and emotional skills. ·
This
work has massively reduced exclusions, EOTAS referrals and has increased pupil
confidence around the school. ·
Some
of the initiatives/activities include for example Bulldog Boxing, Transform
days, Paw-fact Baxter Project ·
The
pandemic affected our work in this area as follows: outdoor visits, use of
External providers, rise in fixed term exclusions – re-establishing boundaries,
over the last half term a marked improvement in behaviour around the
school. Pupils have adapted remarkably
well, however there are have been pressures on staffing and costs to work
around issues faced ·
We are integrating pupils back into
mainstream after being in EOTAS using a hybrid approach/bespoke timetables
- mix of Ty Dysgu and mainstream provision.
Each pupil has a designated key member of staff. ·
In
our opinion provision could this be improved by continued Cynnydd funding
(highlighted at SCCASH meeting), funding of pre 14-16 to prevent EOTAS
referrals and to train more staff in the Thrive approach Bishop Gore
Secondary School outlined: ·
Context
of the school including 11-18 inclusive, with large diverse catchment. ·
Using
delegated spend, associated with the behaviour strategy, to reduce exclusions
and referrals to EOTAS using Our ‘Nurture Provision’
(B-Hi5) and ‘Wrap-around support package’ (Pitstop) at KS3 and our ‘Transition
to Adulthood Provisions’ (Mi-Pod and ELEV8) at KS4 strive to provide supportive learning environments that are stimulating and
challenging, where pupils are encouraged, praised
and nurtured in order to develop self-awareness and discipline. ·
The
aim of the provision is to enable pupils, to work holistically with partners
both inside and outside the school and to provide a curriculum that is
appropriate to meet the physical, emotional, developmental, social and
spiritual needs of the individual Impact has been improved attendance,
prevention of permanent exclusions, reduction in EOTAS placements, 100% pass in
L2 SWEET since introduced and 100% pass in L2 Achieve since introduced ·
Just
some examples of where this has benefited pupils in your school include:
successful reintegration from EOTAS provision, reduced risk/prevention of EOTAS
referral, reduced risk/prevention of permanent exclusion, reintegration for
school refusers and those experiencing school anxiety ·
The
disruption to education caused by the pandemic affected the work and pupils:
Negative
impact on some pupil’s mental health and wellbeing and some pupils have
experienced additional trauma.
Some
vulnerable pupils have experienced crisis/bereavement and lost
employment/financial worries.
Pupils
daily routines where disrupted. Lack of tolerance towards others.
Vulnerable
pupils did not participate in blended learning opportunities
(unwilling/reluctant/too anxious to engage in online learning)
Pupils
identified with additional needs including SEBD were unable to access the
support usually received in the school setting.
Support
services were not able to conduct direct face to face work and so families
declined support and refused to engage remotely.
Many
school refusers/persistent absentees have refused to return to school, we are
working with EWO.
The
current risk assessments and operational guidelines are preventing pupils from
accessing support. The current safety measures prevent/restrict many activities
that address the needs of those pupils experiencing social, emotional and
behavioural difficulties. The tools that staff use to engage and motivate
pupils are far reduced. ·
How
do you feel the overall behaviour strategy is working to the benefit pupils
currently? Without it we would have a significant number of pupils that we
would have not engaged with or been able to support in a flexible way to meet
their needs given the changing situation. ·
Improvement
to behaviour strategy could be made by the strategies and approaches need to be
flexible to meet the changing needs of the pupils. This means upskilling staff
to ensure they have training such as ELSA, CBT etc. This is costly but we need
the agility to respond swiftly.
We
need also need to develop programmes around mental health, tolerance and
contextualised safeguarding. Initiatives such as the Cynnydd Learning Coaches
help and support our pupils to look at pathways and self-regulation. These
roles are grant funded and the money is coming to an end for many of these
types of projects.
We
already subsidise our provision and we need to ensure that roles and provision
are sustainable to enable planning to take place to continue to meet the needs
of for learners given the very specific tissues that are now emerging as a
result of the pandemic. The Panel: ·
wished
to thank the schools on behalf of the pupils. They felt it was impressive to
hear about the initiatives and good practice in introducing positive
behaviours. ·
recognise
that each school has its own challenges and that the bespoke response to
schools to this was the right way to address this but the panel were keen to
find out how all the good practice being learnt is being shared. The Panel heard that there are a number of
mechanisms by which good practice is being shared formally and these also
result in informal sharing between schools and educators. For example SCCASH,
depositories of practice on online platforms, regionally and locally, Estyn
also highlights areas of excellent practice that can be accessed through its
website. |
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Verbal Feedback from ERW Scrutiny Councillor Group 28 June 2021 PDF 9 KB Cllr Lyndon Jones Additional documents: Minutes: The Convener of the Panel Cllr Lyndon Jones, updated Members on his recent attendance at the Regional ERW Scrutiny Councillor Group meeting on the 28 June 2021. The informed the Panel of some of what was discussed including: · ERW will end on 31 August 2021 and the new South West Wales Education Partnership will begin on the 1 September 2021 · It will have a smaller footprint of Pembrokeshire, Carmarthenshire and Swansea but that it may be possible for other local authorities to buy in services from the new partnership · Concerns raised about cost of winding down of ERW and about costs of setting up the new partnership and who will contribute to these. · Also issues like rules of engagement and veto need to be agreed · A letter has recently been sent to the Chair of the ERW Joint Committee giving the views of the Scrutiny Councillor Group. A response has been requested to that before the end of ERW. This response will be reported to the Swansea’s Educations Scrutiny Panel and will also be agendered for the Scrutiny Programme Committee for information. The Director of Education updated the Panel on progress that had been made since the ERW Councillor Group on the 28 June, including: · Shadow South West Wales Education Partnership Joint Committee has met, in a closed meeting. · Concerns raised by the Scrutiny Councillor Group were discussed in this meeting. They agreed that work needed to be done to wind down ERW. · Powys did not want to leave ERW but agreement has been made in principle that services of the new Partnership will be available to other local authorities. · New legal agreement will go to each local authorities Cabinet/Council. · It was recognised that ERW would not wind down fully by 31 August, there will be a period of transition required. The new legal agreement will take us there. · Before we move on from current partnership we need to understand the contingent liabilities of the ERW existing partners. Current agreement states that leaving local authorities have 100% liabilities in the first and second years and then it’s a sliding scale from there. The staffing structure will determine cost for existing parties. · The staffing structure for the new partnership has been reduce in proportion to new body with a scaling down of approximately 40%. · The Governance structure will appear in the new legal agreement. This is currently in draft and needs to be finalised but has matured into a decent document. It does include some of the issues raised by the Scrutiny Councillor Group on the 28 June and these have been put into that draft. There is still work to be done and it is planned that the draft legal agreement will go to each Local Authority in the autumn. · The new Partnership will have a clear business plan that states the priorities moving forward. It is important that this delivery plan is understood as a key part of the partnership and for regional scrutiny to hold that to account. · Observer status will be offered to a member of the new regional scrutiny body to attend the new partnership Joint Committee as requested by the Scrutiny Group. |
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Work Programme 2021/2022 PDF 109 KB Minutes: The work programme was received. |
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