The Portfolio Holder for Children,
Education and Families, Cllr Peter Fortune, attended the meeting to
respond to questions from the Committee. The Portfolio Holder
gave a brief introduction highlighting the following
issues:-
- It had been a very strange few months
since the Committee had last met.
- As the country moved out of the period of
lockdown resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic one of the key
focuses for Children’s Services was the mental health and
wellbeing of children across the Borough. The increased level of work on this has been
helped by the Council’s “Trailblazer” status
which has enabled multi-agency teams to be put around every school
in the Borough to ensure that a full range of services is
accessible.
- One of the biggest challenges for the
Department over the past six months had been ensuring that support
was provided to SEND families. As the
country went into lockdown and schools were required to close their
doors to the majority of pupils, the department had to develop
increasingly innovative ways of ensuring that outreach to families
continued.
- The Department was able to use funding to
provide some trips and short breaks to young people and their
families during the period of lockdown.
Over the summer an innovative approach was taken to meetings with
vulnerable families to ensure that any meetings were conducted in a
Covid-secure way whilst also ensure that outreach was available for
those families in need of support.
- It had been a busy summer for schools
with some interesting discussions around exam results. The Department had also supported schools with the
development of the back to school measures being put in place and
the response to any reports of Covid infection in
schools.
- The Portfolio Holder emphasised that as a
result of academy status, the majority of schools across the
Borough had a certain amount of autonomy and independence in terms
of the implementation of health measures advised by Public Health
England and the social distancing measures advised by Transport for
London. The role of the Local Authority
was one of “facilitating agency” and consequently the
Council had ensured that it continued to engage in discussions to
support the ongoing safe return to school.
Cllr Fortune then responded to questions
making the following comments:-
- The Portfolio Holder confirmed that he
was not aware of reports that schools had been told by some testing
centers that they were taking a “soft” approach to
referrals for testing. The Portfolio
Holder expressed sympathy for schools, noting that this was
traditionally the time of year when lots of coughs and colds
circulated. The Portfolio Holder
confirmed that he would be willing to highlight any issues with
Public Health and that schools were welcome to contact him if they
experience any issues.
- The Department was currently undertaking
a review of the last five months and digital learning formed part
of that review. The issue of disparity
pin terms of the quality of home learning provided was a national
issue. In the event of any further
lockdown restrictions affecting schools it would be important to
identify at an early stage those families that may require
additional support.
- During the period of school closures
those children for whom the Local Authority had corporate parenting
responsibilities were closely monitored and this would continue as
children returned to school.
- In relation to vulnerable children for
whom the Local Authority did not have corporate parenting
responsibilities, the Director of Children’s Services
confirmed that visits had continued to all children subject to a
Plan or open to Children’s Social Care. There would inevitably be complications around
children that were not known to Children’s Social Care,
however significant efforts had been made to expedite detailed
assessments for any new referrals. In
addition, Core Groups and Case Conferences had continued throughout
lockdown, albeit in a different, Covid-secure format. Efforts had also been made to ensure that
schools conducted welfare checks for any children in receipt of an
EHCP.
- It was inevitable that as school returned
there would be some cases of Covid infection. Mechanisms were in place to ensure adequate levels
of communication (including ward members of any issues in their
wards).
- The Local Authority was currently working
with head teachers and schools across the Borough to develop a
picture of the impact of the closure of schools. It would inevitably take time to develop the
picture however plans were already in place to ensure that all
children would have access to accelerated learning over the coming
months. The Government funding that had
been identified for accelerated learning had been allocated to
individual schools in Bromley.
The Committee thanked the Portfolio
Holder for the update and requested that its thanks to be passed to
all staff in the Department who had worked extraordinarily hard
over the last six months and had done a brilliant job in very
difficult circumstances.