Agenda item

The Committee considered the report of the Corporate Director of Children and Young People’s Services that highlighted the ongoing inclusion work that had been carried out during the 2020/21 academic year, the impact on reducing exclusions, the ongoing work moving forward and the continuing pressure on The Woodlands (PRU) to continue to meet the needs of pupils who had been permanently excluded (for copy of report, see file of minutes).

The Head of Education and Skills advised members that information on exclusions and suspensions was available nationally bit some of the information included in the presentation was not validated.

The Pupil Casework Officer was in attendance to present the report and deliver the presentation that provided members with details of permanent exclusion by year group and comparisons for all secondary schools; suspension comparison; the establishment of four task and finishing groups and their intended impact; protocols and documents developed and circulated to all schools with effect from September 2021; details of the fair access protocol and alternative provision quality assurance protocol (for copy of presentation, see file of minutes).

The Pupil Casework Officer advised members of the work of the Primary and Secondary Behaviour Inclusion Panels that operated across the county as geographical sub-groups and included academies and maintained schools. While it was the decision of some academies not to be part of the panel arrangements, they still followed the same guidance. Members were advised that there was a transition focussed panel who supported pupils in their transition from primary school to secondary school.

Councillor Kennedy referred to behaviour in schools and asked if schools that had their own behaviour inclusion workers, had a reduced number exclusions. She stated that funding for these workers had now been withdrawn but some schools had then funded them themselves and asked if they found within the schools that funded their own behaviour workers the exclusions were lower. She also asked if some figures could be incorporated into the report around managed moves as this was used rather than exclusion.

The Head of Education and Skills referred to the managed moves and indicated that that they had developed their thinking around this and one of the issues they were worried about was pupil mobility and the number of pupils who make multiple moves. He explained that if 100 plus pupils were to make five or more moves it was likely they may achieve less than two grades lower than their peers. All of those moves may have been made in primary and they were trying to reduce the number of permanent exclusions and they had engineered more managed moves. The key objective of this was to manage the process to support young people in their school and to keep them in their local environments and local schools.

In terms of behaviour workers, it was confirmed the funding had reduced but a lot came down to the approaches of schools to behaviour and the positive approaches to rewards. They had created professional networks where teachers in schools and senior leadership teams were not just talking about children who came before those panels but were talking about what they could put into place and raise the expectations and the best providers were sharing information that created an expectation and were challenging some of the schools.

The Pupil Caseworker referred to managed moves and they had a robust system around manged moves and there was a reduction. Over the years there had been clearer decision making if it was the right move for the student. There had been a reduction in the number of managed moves and very few of those students go on to be permanently excluded. There were cases where some children have moved back to their old school.

Councillor Townsend asked if future reports could include a glossary of acronyms. She then referred to the two looked after children in the care of the local authority excluded in the same academy trust and stated they were the first looked after children to be excluded from education in the last seven years. She asked if it was more difficult to work with academies to keep young people in school and what could be done to ensure that looked after children were not disadvantaged.

The Head of Education and Skills indicated that these were two exceptional cases, and the exclusions were nothing to do with the schools being academies. They knew that more schools would become academies and in the secondary sector 27 out of 31 schools were academies, they were on a regular footing with Durham Association of Secondary Heads (DASH), and were invited to all meetings and the elective engagement was stronger than it was before. When they were all maintained schools, they were not collaborative but in terms of engagement they were all strong. He then referred to the Timpson report and if this came back there would be real accountability.

Councillor Martin indicated that the best place for every young person was in mainstream education and that the vast majority of pupils just needed more support and assistance. Every child mattered and referred to the need of other young people in the classroom who may become affected by the behaviour of a disruptive young person. They needed to be mindful that young people needed support, but this did have negative effects on other children in the classroom and teachers, but a lot of time was spent supporting these disruptive young people and teachers need to support all children in the classroom. He asked how much consideration was given to teachers and other young people in the classroom.

The Head of Education and Skills responded that this was an important part of the schools working together and moderating their approaches. He referred to secondary Ofsted reports often talked about minor disruption in lessons and learning affecting the quality of outcomes and schools were conscious of this. This was an opportunity for schools to moderate and thought longer term system would pull all the schools together.

He indicated that Sedgefield Community College was one of the regional behaviour hubs that was recently funded to be specialists around classroom effectiveness and behaviour. It was a changing climate, and the key thing was bringing all the groups together as they had a teaching school hub that worked with Northeast Learning Trust (NELT), in the past not all schools worked with NELT. They had work to do to ensure that best practice was shared with schools.

Councillor Hunt indicated that it was a positive report and referred to short term exclusion that were significantly higher than permanent exclusions and asked it this due to intervention once pupils where on short term exclusion and why they were not intervening before it got to the exclusion stage.

The Pupil Casework Officer indicated that a lot of early intervention did take place and the short-term suspensions had been used as a tool. The guidance made it clear that the suspension was for the shortest period of time possible. These young people did not have many repeat exclusions, once they were suspended it did work and they did not go on to be excluded again.

Councillor Walton referred to the number of suspensions that had reduced significantly but was concerned that this may be due to children not in school due to COVID. She asked if officers were expecting the figures to rise or if the figures were a true representation.

The Head of Education and Skills responded that the figures were a true representation of the work that they had done. He indicated that suspension was difficult as some schools used suspensions more than others. Sometimes when there was a change in leadership in a school, they would see temporary spikes in suspensions. He commented that some children were not back to school, and it was a big job to get all children back into school.

Councillor Waldock referred to permanent exclusions and 50 plus days suspension within a certain period then it became a permanent exclusion and asked what proportion of exclusions were under this criterion.

The Pupil Casework Officer confirmed that it was 45 days, and he was not aware of any children excluded under this criterion for the last 10 years.

The Chair referred to the continued pressures on the Woodlands and asked what the panel could do to alleviate this pressure.

The Head of Education and Skills indicated that the panel were taking some pressure off the Woodlands as the numbers were being reduced. They did have pupils who were at risk, and they used their experience and knowledge to work with young people to make sure it does not happen. The Head of the Woodlands was part of the panel set up and was often invited to meet Headteachers. The Woodlands was currently set around nine sites, so they had challenges and the quality of the accommodation on some of the sites was a challenge. They were looking at opportunities to enhance the world for those children and improve the quality of the environment for children and staff.

The Chair thanked the officers for their presentation.

Resolved: That the contents of the report be noted.