Agenda item

a)    Report of the Interim Corporate Director Children and Young People’s Services

b)    Presentation by Strategic Lead Special Educational Needs and Disabilities & Virtual Head    

The Committee considered the Joint Report of the Director of Transformation & Partnership and Interim Corporate Director of Children & Young People’s Services that provided Members with details of the educational attainment of looked after children (for copy of report, see file of minutes).

Members received a presentation from the Strategic Lead, Special Education Needs and Disabilities, Standards and Improvement, Virtual School Head that outlined the Headlines; SEND data for Key Stage 1, 2, 3 and 4; attendance and exclusion and areas for further development (for copy of slides, see file of minutes).

The Virtual Head explained that all looked after children were her pupils and her case managers acted as pushy parents with schools.  The Virtual Head advised members that at Key Stage 2 (KS2) looked after children in Durham performed better than any other KS2 children in Durham.  At KS4 30% of looked after children achieved five GCSEs A*-C and one girl had achieved a total of 11 GCSEs nine of which were A* including maths which was an outstanding achievement.  Members were informed that looked after girls out performed looked after boys but there were more looked after boys than girls.

Durham’s looked after children attend school regularly with an overall attendance of 98% and a persistence attendance of 3%.  Members were advised there were no permanent exclusions and 6% fixed term exclusions, but this was too high and work was being undertaken with schools to reduce this figure.

The Virtual Head advised that there were several areas for development which included writing for KS1 looked after children; grammar, punctuation and spelling for looked after children at KS2 and English and maths for KS4 looked after children.  Further development was needed in for transfer between phases including post 16 to raise aspirations.

Councillor T Smith congratulated the Virtual Head on the excellent results and queried whether the Virtual School be rolled out to Children in Need.

The Virtual Head responded that the remit of the Virtual School had been extended to include adopted children and Children In Need could possibly be included in the future and went on to advise members that currently results among adopted children were lower than looked after children but coming out of the care system and going into a stable family was stressful for children.

Councillor Hart asked if the Virtual Head provided pastoral support.

Officers responded that each case worker had 15 children and a school would contact them in the first instance. Inclusion workers all had a speciality i.e. music, Lego and writing.

Councillor Hart sought clarification if there was a designated teacher/governor for looked after children in every school and how foster carers can get the balance right as pushy parents. The Virtual Head responded that there was a designated person in each school who also received the relevant training. They also trained foster carers on the basics in education and what role they could take and if this was not done they would step in and ask the questions of the school. They had also invested a lot of resources in to support looked after children with reading through the letterbox programme; looked after children were also supported to attend after school clubs and summer clubs.

Councillor T Smith sought clarification if the Virtual School used tutors to help and support looked after children in readiness for GCSE and ‘A’ level examinations. The Virtual Head responded that they had access to specialist teachers but would buy in subject specialists to provide one to one support if needed.