Agenda item

CHILDREN MISSING EDUCATION WITNESS SESSION

Minutes:

The Committee had been provided with written evidence in advance of the meeting that included a report giving an overview of children missing in education in Bromley and a briefing note on court action pursued by the Local Authority concerning children missing education.  A written submission was also received from the Bromley Youth Council providing their views on why young people may not be attending school.

 

The Chairman was pleased to welcome Ms Jenny MacDonald, Senior Education Welfare Officer, Ms Linda King, Youth Support Programme Manager (Universal) and Ms Stella Marshall, NEET Support Programme Officer to the meeting.

 

Jenny MacDonald, Senior Education Welfare Officer

 

The Senior Education Welfare Officer advised Members that there were a number of reasons for children missing education, including families frequently changing addresses.  There were currently 300 Bromley families in temporary accommodation, many of whom were housed out-of-Borough, and work was being undertaken to develop a dual registration scheme with schools in the area where families were housed to support children in maintaining their education.

 

In response to a question from a Member about a tragic case in another local authority where a mother had hidden her deceased child for over a decade, the Senior Education Welfare Officer reported that there was no single database system that brought together information from all key partners to track children from birth to school age.  An IT system that provided this safeguarding functionality had been decommissioned by the Government in 2010, and the Member underlined the need to develop a similar information sharing system for Bromley.  Once a child had entered formal education there were systems in place to monitor their activity and a new requirement had been introduced from 1st September 2016 for all schools to work more closely with the Local Authority in tracking pupils as they moved schools, including where families were moving overseas.  Additional discretionary powers had also been provided to the Local Authority to require the same information from schools about standard transition points, such as when a pupil left school at the end of their final year.

 

In considering attendance at school, the Senior Education Welfare Officer confirmed that schools were expected to notify the Local Authority of any child that failed to attend school for ten consecutive days who they were unable to trace.  Schools were also required to notify the Local Authority on a termly basis where a pupil had attendance of 90% or below, including authorised leave.  The Local Authority took action when needed to ensure that parents were held to account around their children’s regular attendance at school, and had previously issued penalty notices for non-attendance where schools reported that unauthorised leave had been taken.  The Education Welfare Service worked to support improved attendance at schools in the Borough; however academy schools could choose to buy in their own independent educational welfare provider and were not required by law to make referrals to the Local Authority where concerns were identified.  Some parents who had been subject to court action by the Local Authority with regards to their child’s attendance had subsequently chosen to electively home educate their child.  This had been challenged by the Local Authority in Court for some cases on the grounds that there was no evidence that suitable education was being provided.

 

The Virtual Head Teacher closely monitored the school attendance of all children looked after.  There were currently four children looked after who were missing from education which was due to recent changes to their placements and the need to identify specialist education provision, and one-to-one tuition was provided to all children looked after missing from education for up to 15 hours per week.

 

Ms Linda King, Youth Support Programme Manager (Universal)

 

The Youth Support Programme Manager (Universal) advised Members that all young people were classified as being NEET where they were not in education, employment or training up to the end of the academic year in which they turned 18 years, including young parents. 

 

The NEET Support Programme worked with young people on a one-to-one basis to identify an appropriate route into education, employment or training; however, the Participation Formula used by the Department for Education to identify NEET status did not take young people’s personal circumstances into account and young people accessing short courses or in part and full-time employment where the accredited training requirement was not met were classified as being NEET.

 

Young people were provided with a range of targeted services to support them in moving into education, employment and training including access to the Bromley Youth Employment Scheme, Bromley Education Business Partnership and work experience opportunities.  Where appropriate, young people were also given the opportunity to participate in a mentoring arrangement.

 

Ms Stella Marshall, NEET Support Programme Officer

 

The NEET Support Programme Officer advised Members that the participation status of ‘Not Known’ within the NEET statistics applied to young people who had been recorded as being within the Borough in academic year in which they turned 17 and 18 years old, but whose current whereabouts were unknown.  The NEET Support Programme worked with partners to locate these young people but could not remove them from Bromley’s NEET cohort until their new address had been confirmed, and there were 90 young people classified as ‘Not Known’ in Bromley in January 2017.  The ‘Not Known’ classification regarding EET status, was entirely different to children identified as being missing from home whose cases was taken forward as a priority by the multi-agency Atlas Team.

 

The Local Authority was performing in the top fifth of London Boroughs in supporting young people into education, employment and training and was in the top two-fifths for identifying the status of ‘Not Known’ young people, but as the NEET cohort grew smaller it would be more difficult to deliver this continual reduction.

 

The Chairman thanked Ms Jenny McDonald, Ms Linda King and Ms Stella Marshall for their excellent contribution to the Children Missing Education witness session.

 

RESOLVED that the witness session be noted.

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