Agenda item

Safeguarding Education Annual Report

Debbie Smith presented the Safeguard Education Annual Report for the academic year 2015-16.

Debbie commented that there were three primary schools of concern with regard to the number of fixed period exclusions. The LSCB was facilitating a current audit on the six primary school children who had received permanent exclusions.

A Local Authority officer attended all Governors Disciplinary Committees (GDC) for permanent exclusions, and wherever possible for fixed period exclusions. There had not been any Independent Review Panels in the academic year 2015-16, but one was scheduled for an academy school who had decided not to have Local Authority representation.

There had been a total of 45 students referred to the Fair Access Panel, which had resulted in 40 managed moves and 35 reviews. There were no concerns around support for Looked After Children.

The Safeguarding Visits to schools had been reshaped to form a one day visit to schools to assess the critical safeguarding areas informed by the annual S.11 audit process.

Resulting from discussion, the following points were noted:

• The Board welcomed the review of S11/175 processes and the engagement of Designated safeguarding leads is very high

• All fixed term exclusion pupils were encouraged to engage with the appropriate services, and all exclusions were cross referenced with the Youth Offending Early Intervention Service.
• It was suggested that a break down of the FAP school data could be included in the report. (Action: Debbie Smith)
• The Board agreed that behavioural units (previously proposed)  were not the appropriate resource for excluded pupils, and that strategies should be implemented to encourage mainstream schooling. 

Elective Home Education Annual Report

Ian Dixon presented the Elective Home Education (EHE) Annual Report for the academic year 2015-16.

Ian commented that as there was no legislative right to check on families who choose  home education,. Parents were encouraged to engage with the Local Authority, and where possible, visits were conducted. Families were not obligated to give a reason for EHE, and in Bracknell Forest there were an increasing number of families home educating.

In response to questions, the following points were noted:

• Children who had never attended school did not attend school would only be entered to the wider system if they registered at a GP surgery or presented to another partner.
• There were currently 63 children known to be home educated within Bracknell Forest, of which 73% were engaging with the Local Authority and 27% were not. Very little was known about the children whose families were not engaged with the Local Authority.
• One factor for parents choosing to home educate was families not being allocated their preferred secondary school place.
• It was not thought that academisation in itself was connected to the rise in home schooling, as numbers were rising before schools began to turn to academies.
• It was recognised that families arriving in borough and home educating were more at risk of being unknown than those whose children were born in the borough.
• If a family failed to make a school application for an infant school place, this would be treated as an attendance issue until confirmed that the family had chosen to home educate.
• Alex Walters commented that this is a national issue which has been raised many times over the last few years since the Badman report with DfE but there continued to be no response. Alex resolved to raise the home education and capacity challenge of officers to follow up with EHE families at a pan-Berkshire chairs meeting to consider collective response and Alex commented that this was an issue being discussed at the National Association of Independent LSCB Chairs.. (Action: Alex Walters)

Children Missing Education (CME)
Ian Dixon presented the Children Missing Education Annual Report for the academic year 2015/16.

Ian reported that the challenge by the LSCB to previous concerns resulted in a review of all children identified as CME but that no current safeguarding concerns had been identified for that cohort of children. CME processes and the interface with missing children have improved as a result -the referral process for CME began with schools making an enquiry to the Local Authority, which would be investigated by the CME team who often found the child at this point. In the absence of any other concerns, if after 30 days the child had not been found, a referral would be made to the MASH. Any child with a current or historic social care referral would be referred immediately to Children’s Social Care once identified as CME.

The CME Placement Panel was a multi-agency panel which met monthly to assess CME cases. Lillian Dickinson (CSE lead) acted as link social worker and sat on both the CME Placement Panel and SEMRAC. Ian commented on inconsistent attendance at Panel meetings from Health colleagues, and it was responded that Health attendance should only be required on a case by case basis. It was suggested that the Terms of Reference be updated to reflect this. (Action: Ian Dixon)Following from discussion, the following points were noted:

• The point at which the CSE screening tool would be used was not yet explicit, but where used may advise acceleration of cases to SEMRAC.(Action: Ian Dixon)
• Detection of signs of FGM or forced marriage was dependent on schools. If an EHE pupil was subject to FGM or forced marriage, it would be very difficult to detect. It was also recognised that there was no legislation to stop children on Child Protection plans also being EHE and non-compliant with the Local Authority.
• Alex Walters agreed to raise the issue of limited Local Authority powers over CME and EHE children with Edward Timpson, Minister for Children, as a concern of the Board. (Action: Alex Walters)
• For children at risk of forced marriage who became CME, an immediate referral would be made to the MASH.
• The Local Authority maintained a statutory list of CMEs, and an additional non-statutory list of children vulnerable to CME.