Agenda item

Report CEF20037

The report provided the regular update on the performance of the Virtual School for children in care and children previously in care currently adopted or cared for under a Special Guardianship Order.

The Head Teacher of the Bromley Virtual Scholl introduced the report explaining that she had taken up post at the end of August 2020.  Within the report there were some strong highlights including personal education planning, strong educational outcomes for children looked after including good GCSE outcomes and other vocational qualifications, and pleasing post-16 work with 22 care leavers accessing higher education.

In relation to the response to Covid and the impact of the first lockdown, the Committee heard that it had been a challenging time as the usual attendance data from schools had not been available.  Consequently, the Team worked very hard, making weekly phone calls to check wellbeing and to ensure that young people had the support and IT equipment that they needed and that where necessary schools were challenged and foster carers were supported in relation to home learning.

In the Autumn Term attendance monitoring resumed and data was checked every day.  Where a child was off school due to isolating the Team contacted the foster carer to ensure that the necessary equipment and learning was in place for the period of isolation.  In the Autumn Term there were 69 pupils with at least one day’s absence.  In these circumstances a lot of one to one online tuition was to put in place to ensure that the children looked after were not disadvantaged.  This term, where appropriate looked after children needed to be considered for a place at school.  Risk assessments were undertaken to ensure that the right decisions were taken in each individual case.  In the first week of lockdown 25% of children looked after were in school and this had now increased to 55%.

The Committee noted the difficult circumstances for all young people currently accessing higher education, noting the even greater challenges faced by children looked after.  Members heard that the Service was currently monitoring and tracking closely those young people in higher education.  It had been a very difficult time for them and there were certainly issues around isolation with online learning and limited opportunities to socialise with peers.  Where necessary support had been provided.

The Committee noted that children and young people could move schools for a variety of reasons and whilst the Service sought to ensure continuity, especially in the GCSE and A-Level years, sometimes changes in schools were unavoidable.  Often disruption was caused when a foster carer gave notice on a placement or where there were particular issues with a young person themselves.  There were a range of complexities around where children and young people were placed and where it was not possible to maintain continuity of education provision the Service worked with young people to ensure that the transition was as smooth as possible.  Members noted that coming out of the Covid pandemic there were likely to be some fragile placements.

RESOLVED That the report be noted.