Agenda item

The Committee considered the report of the Corporate Director of Children and Young People’s Services that provided Members with an overview of Elective Home Education in County Durham. The report also covered the national and local context and policy, published data and collaborative working (for copy of report, see file of Minutes).

The Access to Education / Vulnerable Groups Lead Officer was in attendance to present the report and deliver a presentation that focused on the background; elective home education; local context; proactivity; intervention; information technology strand and impact (for copy of presentation, see file of minutes).

When comparing the number of children in the county who were educated at home this was 1% of the county’s school age population and was lower than national figures.

Nationally numbers of children being educated at home had increased following the pandemic and this was reflected across county Durham too. Last year there was a rise of 18.9% nationally and it was 18% in county Durham.

Members were advised that the service met with parents to offer support. 12% of the cohort access local 14-16 college provisions part of the week to undertake English, maths and a vocational subject.

The service provide annual data trends to Head Teachers as part of a wider inclusion dashboard. There were also national links to share good practice and Operational and Strategic Panels

Contact was made with parents to offer support through various groups such as the equalities education team service who supported gypsy, roma, traveller ethnic groups given this group are overrepresented within the wider cohort and arere likely to have already been known to families prior a decision to electively home educate. Bespoke help was offered where required and requested.

Regular reviews took place and the service ensured that the child’s voice was heard by officers speaking with the child. Progression workers provided support to young people in years 10 and 11and had contacts in colleges, training providers and apprenticeships.

Strategic Support Panel considered information geographically, by year group and reasons for elective home education. Those arrangements were deemed as best practice.

Members were advised that in the recent Ofsted inspection the services systems, strategies, response and safeguarding arrangements were reported to be well managed.

Councillor Scurfield referred to the system that captures the reasons for elective home education and asked what were the key themes and what actions were being taken if the reasons were what was happening in the school.

The Access to Education / Vulnerable Groups Lead Officer responded that the main reasons were parental preference following COVID and wished to continue with home education. She continued that children’s mental health including anxiety were also reasons parents cited. Piece of Mind teams were funded by the NHS and worked closely with schools, colleges and wider partners around mental health and wellbeing. They treat mild to moderate mental health issues and had three teams across the county. There is a specialist nurse who purely works with those children who arere electively home educated.

With regard to the reasons for home education, if this were due to the school practice if they did feel that there was any issue, they were proactive and would discuss this with the school. She commented that there had been sixty movers into the local authority who had decided to home educate, so they knew the trends and were proactive addressing these issues.

The Head of Education and Skills reassured Members that the data was shared across the schools and panels and found Panel members shared information and challenged each other around the data. The service would go direct to a Chief Executive of a Trust of a Headteacher if there were any concerns and would do this before they went to Ofsted or the Department for Education.

Mrs Gunn indicated that one of the key issues for her was looking at the underlying reason was more important and added mental health issues were usually due to another reason. She referred to the word ‘chosen’ and asked if parents were really choosing home education as they do not have a choice and asked at what point did dialogue with parents commence.

The Access to Education / Vulnerable Groups Lead Officer responded that the service initially receive reported reasons from schools and when meeting with parents they dig deeper around the reasons and triage full information at that stage. In terms of the word ‘choice’ this is national framework language around home education. She continued that the first dialogue would be within the first week or two weeks of the parent deciding to electively home educate their child. The guidance suggested that contact with parents was required once a year, but the service were in continuous dialogue with parents with a three-monthly review and had a named point of contact for the parent if they had any issues.

The Head of Education and Skills indicated that they decided to invest in this four years ago and offer more support than other local authorities.

Mrs Gunn indicated that a week or two into the process was too late.

The Access to Education / Vulnerable Groups Lead Officer responded that not all parents take them up on the offer of the meeting and indicated that contact was made with parents as quickly as possible, and usually make contact the next day to arrange that welcome meeting, however the meeting itself may not take place until a later date, and this is often led by when is convenient for the parent.

In response to a question from Councillor Varty the Access to Education / Vulnerable Groups Lead Officer advised the service was able to provide independent support to families to help with completing forms and accompanying them to meetings.

Resolved: That the overall position and direction of travel in relation to elective home education, and the collaborative help and support of a wide range of professionals to support families be noted.