Introduction

Education & Learning sits within Bracknell Forest Council’s People Directorate and aims to ensure that children, young people and adults achieve the best possible outcomes for their lives through education, advice and guidance, promoting lifelong learning and securing access to support and, where necessary, specialist placements.

The strategic direction and work of service areas within Education & Learning are underpinned by the Learning Improvement Strategy, which sets out clearly how we will all work together to make a real, positive and lasting difference for all children and young people in Bracknell Forest.

The strategy is centred around seven themes:

· Access Inspirational Leadership

· Get the Best Start in Life

· Access a High - Quality School Place

· A bespoke Curriculum for our children

· Thrive in Learning and not be ‘left behind’

· Be proud to Succeed

· Develop Skills and Raise Aspirations at Post 16

The strategy was co-produced with school leaders and governors setting out the key roles and responsibilities for all which are tightly focused on the key areas which we believe will ‘unlock opportunities’ for all children and young people in Bracknell Forest.

2019 - 2022 Priorities

There is an acknowledgment of the need to further raise expectations through improving the following priorities:

· Diminishing the Difference for Disadvantaged Pupils

· Ensuring more pupils attend good or better schools

· Continuing to raise outcomes at all stages so that they are above the national for all pupils.

The purpose of equalities monitoring is to ensure that the council is providing a fair and equitable service to all residents. This report looks at the work of each service area within Education & Learning, considering access to service, outcomes of data analysis where appropriate, how services have ensured due regard to the three key equality aims, as well as how key equality and diversity issues highlighted are being addressed.

Early Years’ Service

The Early Years’ Service consists of some distinct areas which cover a range of services for children aged 0-14 years, their families and Early Years and Childcare providers.

The Childcare Act enables a framework for service delivery under three key areas:

The service offers both universal and targeted services to early years providers, children and families and contributes to a number of Council priorities including:

· Economic resilience by ensuring there is sufficient early years and childcare for working families and those in training.

· Education and Skills by ensuring there are sufficient high quality early years places available, supporting children’s communication and language and increasing the percentage achieving good levels of development by age 5, early identification and intervention for those with special educational needs and disabilities.

· Caring for you and your family by offering access to family information and signposting to sources of support as required.

· Communities by assessing childcare sufficiency by ward and encouraging access by all eligible children within their local community.

Outcomes

The Covid 10 pandemic has had an impact on 2, 3 and 4 year olds accessing the free entitlements.

The data from the DfE Data matrix below shows a decrease of 2 % for 3 and 4 year olds and 7% for 2 year olds. Although for both age groups Bracknell Forest was above the England average

data showing number of children getting free early education

data showing number of children getting funded early education

A marketing and communications plan is being developed to communicate the benefits of accessing the entitlements and encouraging take up.

Equality Duty

During the reporting period the work of the service has focused on support for early years providers, children and families and the impact of Covid-19. Initially this support was undertaken virtually via regular phone calls, emails and TEAMs meeting opportunities.

All Early Years settings must have regard for the Statutory Guidance for the Early Years Foundation Stage (Early years foundation stage (EYFS) statutory framework - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Within this framework providers must:

Ø follow their legal responsibilities under the Equality Act 2010 including the fair and equal treatment of practitioners regardless of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation.

Ø offer equality of opportunity and anti-discriminatory practice, ensuring that every child is included and supported

Early Years settings are open and accessible to all children and families within the age range they are registered for. They have high expectations of children and adapt the curriculum and offer to meet the needs of those attending.

During the pandemic EY providers were diligent in offering support to those families unable to access services a variety of home learning opportunities were delivered e.g.

Ø WhatsApp/zoom calls to families

Ø Stories recorded and shared on YouTube for families

Ø Resources delivered to family homes to enable children and families to engage in learning activities

The Family Information and Early Years teams sourced and secured alternative childcare for critical worker families where their usual arrangements were not able to meet need.

There was more robust partnership working with Children’s Social Care (CSC) to encourage vulnerable children to access their entitlement and consideration to other sources of support as required. Support was also sourced for families known to CSC who required support within the home during this time.

Due to suspension of face to face services, some children (and their families) at risk of communication and language delay were supported virtually, this enabled progress to be monitored and tracked.

The Child Development Centre (supporting children aged 0-5 years with disabilities and their families) opened as soon as possible to offer support for vulnerable families who either could not or did not feel able to access usual services, in particular the safe, secure garden was able to be booked so families had a safe outdoor space to access.

Conclusion

Work will continue to promote the benefit of accessing early years entitlements with all local residents, postcards explaining the variety of entitlements have been designed and are currently being translated.

We will be working with colleagues within Community Engagement to support promotion of the entitlements and the benefit of engaging with the offer.

Training and monitoring of children’s outcomes will continue and support and advice will be offered to support recovery.

Standards & Effectiveness

The Standards & Effectiveness Service consists of a team of Standards & Effectiveness Partners (STEP’s) who work closely with schools not only to ensure fulfilment of the council’s statutory duties in promoting high standards but to work in partnership with schools to identify ways to improve outcomes, share best practice and contribute to system led improvement. The roles and responsibilities of the service contribute to all seven areas within the Learning Improvement Strategy.

Access to Service

All maintained schools have access to a universal offer of school improvement support services.

Schools of concern, including those in an Ofsted category, receive additional support tailored to their needs, planned and agreed with the local authority and the school.

Schools and settings have the option of purchasing additional support to meet their own specific needs and priorities through a Service Level Agreement.

Outcomes

Due to the Covid 19 pandemic statutory assessments across the primary phase and the summer 2020 GCSE, AS and A Level exam series were cancelled in summer 2020, with the DfE confirming that there would be no publication of any performance data at national, regional or local level at any phase of education.

Service Delivery & The Equality Duty

The work of the Standards & Effectiveness Team across the reporting period focused on supporting schools with the impact of the Covid 19 pandemic and the periods of partial school closure, remote education provision and full return to school for all pupils.

Whilst dialogue with school leaders included planned provision for all children and young people across this period, there was a particular focus on provision to support vulnerable children and young people.

The DfE definition of vulnerable children and young people included those who:

· were assessed as being in need under section 17 of the Children Act 1989, including children and young people who had a child in need plan, a child protection plan or who were a looked-after child

· had an education, health and care (EHC) plan or

· had been identified as otherwise vulnerable by educational providers or local authorities.

Weekly contact with schools across spring and summer 2020 and monitoring of school attendance of vulnerable pupils led to the identification of priority schools where joint meetings between school leaders, Standards and Effectiveness, Children’s Social Care and Safeguarding teams resulted in increased on-site attendance of this cohort across 15 schools. This sharp focus was maintained across Spring 2021 during the second national lockdown resulting in attendance figures which were above the national picture for priority pupils.

Regarding the full return to school of all pupils in March 2021, school leaders worked in partnership with parents to ensure a smooth transition with attendance across both primary and secondary schools in Bracknell Forest being above the national average.

The work of the Standards and Effectiveness Team across the spring term focused on evaluating curriculum coverage across the period of remote education provision and in partnership with school leaders identifying how gaps in learning for cohorts and groups would be addressed through subsequent adaptations to the curriculum. This again included how the curriculum would need to be tailored to support key groups including vulnerable children and young people and disadvantaged pupils.

While not a protected characteristic as set out in the Equalities Act 2010, poverty can impact on equality of opportunity, and disadvantaged pupils continue to be a high priority group for the Standards and Effectiveness Team.

Disadvantaged pupils are those pupils in receipt of the pupil premium grant, either because they have been registered as eligible for free school meals at any point in the last six years, or because they are looked-after, or have been previously looked-after, by the Local Authority.

Research by the DfE has indicated that throughout this period pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds experienced greater learning losses than their affluent peers as a direct result of the pandemic. Latest analysis shows that by the summer term, the gap in learning loss between disadvantaged pupils and their more affluent peers in reading was around 0.4months for primary aged pupils and around 1.6 months for secondary aged pupils. The gap in mathematics for primary aged pupils was around half a month.

Whilst analysis of outcomes for disadvantaged pupils across Bracknell Forest throughout the pandemic has not been possible, it is clear from professional dialogue with leaders and teachers that the pandemic has exacerbated the situation in which pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds achieve lower progress and outcomes than their peers and consequently improving outcomes for this group will remain a core priority.

Taking into account issues arising as a result of the pandemic Standards and Effectiveness priorities for 21/22 include:

· Continuing to raise expectations across the borough for all including high attaining pupils as well as our most vulnerable, particularly disadvantaged learners.

· Ensuring all schools in Bracknell Forest are inclusive to all pupils.

· Ensuring any gaps in learning as a result of Covid 19 are addressed through 'Catch Up' and curriculum design in schools

· Maintaining a sharp focus on the implementation of a coherent, broad and rich curriculum which enables all pupils to achieve well.

As noted above the Standards and Effectiveness Team works in close partnership with school leaders to analyse data relating to key pupil groups, and to support them in evaluating the effectiveness of their provision in meeting the needs of all pupils.

In addition to this core aspect of the team’s work, support is provided on a traded basis to improve equality of opportunity for disadvantaged pupils. This work has included guidance for school leaders and governors relating to specific funding streams to support vulnerable and specifically disadvantaged pupils, including the Catch up and Recovery Premium and the National Tuition Programme. Termly network meetings for school leaders have focused on best practice and current research and thinking pertaining to the needs of disadvantaged pupils and lost learning. This has included supporting leaders to understand who their vulnerable children and young people may be, the importance of social, emotional, mental health, the impact of reading and oracy to support re-integration to school, as well as effective teaching and assessment in both remote and covid secure classrooms for disadvantaged pupils. Leaders have also been signposted to National approaches such as NELI, key research and support documentation from the EEF, as well as important aspects to consider in relation to their Pupil Premium Strategies. Reminding leaders what really works for diminishing differences for disadvantaged pupils has been a golden thread throughout all that has been put in place, with the aim of improving outcomes for these pupils. The Standards and Effectiveness Team also works with school governors to ensure that leaders are held to account for the outcomes of these pupils.

Schools have a duty to foster good relations between those pupils who share a protected characteristic and those who do not. Partnership working between the Standards and Effectiveness Team and school leaders has continued to focus on the quality of education, and in particular, the effectiveness of the school curriculum. It must be acknowledged however that the capacity of school leaders to drive curriculum development has been impacted by the Covid 19 pandemic. Thus ensuring that the curriculum is fully inclusive: that pupils have equality of access to the curriculum, as well as ensuring that all pupils see themselves reflected within it remain key areas of focus. In addition to this, schools are required to provide for the personal development of all pupils, including through the promotion of equality of opportunity, and the deepening of pupils’ understanding of the fundamental British values of mutual respect and tolerance.

Conclusion

The delivery of training and professional development for schools provided by the service will continue to incorporate focused sessions to address the underperformance of key groups. Ongoing analysis of pupil progress and the evaluation of provision and practice will inform the work of STEPs in addressing individual school priorities. The team will continue to work in close partnership with school leaders to ensure that all pupils have access to a broad, balanced and ambitious curriculum.

Children’s Support Services

Children’s Support Services works with children & young people who either have SEN and Disabilities over the 0 – 25 age range, are of school age and in need of additional support (SEND Support) or are a child looked after and in the care of Bracknell Forest Council. The Service contributes to achieving the council’s priority to ‘Thrive in Learning and not be left behind’. The service consists of:

· Virtual School

· SEN Team

· Educational Psychology Service

· Safeguarding & Inclusion Team

· Support for Learning

The service adopts a co-production model of working with parents and carers and works in partnership with a range of statutory and voluntary organisations to achieve improved outcomes for the children & young people we support and their families.

Access to Service

All maintained schools have access to a universal offer from children’s support services.

Children with more complex needs in mainstream school, receive additional support tailored to their needs, planned, and agreed with the local authority and the school through the assessment and EHCP process.

The Service works closely with schools, particularly SENDCos, Designated Teachers and Designated Safeguarding Leads to support them in ensuring they have access to resource and support needed to effectively meet the needs of children and young people.

Schools and settings have the option of purchasing additional support to meet their own specific needs and priorities through a Service Level Agreement.

Outcomes

Weekly contact with schools across spring and summer 2020 and monitoring of school attendance of vulnerable pupils led to the identification of priority schools where joint meetings between school leaders, Standards and Effectiveness, Children’s Social Care and Safeguarding and support service teams resulted in increased on-site attendance. This sharp focus was maintained across Spring 2021 during the second national lockdown resulting in attendance figures which were above the national picture for priority pupils.

Service Delivery and the Equality Duty

The Local Authority have been working to ensure that all children and young people have the same opportunities and services as everybody else. In the local offer it sets out that most school age learners can and should be educated with others their age in their local community school which is properly equipped and fit for purpose. It reflects the need to develop and reconfigure the Authority’s support and provision to ensure that it:

· involves children, young people and parents or carers in the decision-making process

· supports the development of more inclusive practice in mainstream schools

· is good quality and offers good value for money.

· has capacity for prevention as well as providing for those young people with the most complex/significant needs.

· Uses evidence to inform decisions and has a robust quality assurance process to hold ourselves to account.

· is flexible and responsive to needs, with minimum levels of bureaucracy

· where possible, resources are equitably distributed according to need within a locality of schools.

· focuses on maximising independence in preparation for adulthood.

Work began towards the end of the academic year and has been adopted through the SEND improvement board and is in line with the direction of travel by national government, aimed at:

· building capacity in mainstream schools to ensure staff have the confidence, expertise, and access to specialist support.

· ensuring that processes are put in place for schools, services, and the authority in the allocation of specialist provision as well as the evaluation of the effectiveness of the provision to ensure that young people with special educational needs and disability have their needs met, make effective progress, and achieve the best possible outcomes

· maximising the use of resources at the appropriate levels (schools and specialist provision), ensuring the appropriate range of specialised services are in place with built in flexibility to meet the changing needs of the school population.

· co-producing services and provision with a range of stakeholders including parents/carers, children and young people, health, education, social care colleagues as well as the voluntary sector.

The service has been working with the wider services to develop the skills and confidence of settings, and in doing so facilitate an early identification and intervention offer to ensure the needs of children and young people with SEND are met as early as possible. In particular, the improvement programme has had a specific focus whereby the current specialised professionals supporting schools and families, work around schools and families within three localities in Bracknell – Forest. It has been developing its knowledge base of the performance of its SEND learners including attendance and exclusions and is developing with the wider services approaches to supporting those schools with the greatest needs.

The services also recognised that the administration and timeliness of assessments, the process for ensuring children with complex needs are reviewed, the allocation of specialist resources and review of specialist resources needed to be undertaken in a timelier manner.

Significant structural work began in the academic year to improve the administration of assessments, including the quality and timeliness, as well as the way the service reviews children with the most complex SEND needs. The allocation of the link professional for all new requests for support, either through a SEND support plan or an assessment, is being developed to provide the much-needed continuity for schools and families.

The re-design for the SEN administration team is in its final stages to ensure EHCPs for families with complex needs are effectively and efficiently issued and reviewed. The significant work that has taken place is now at the final stages, with the timeline for the implementation of the new structure to be completed by the end of January. This will close the significant reliance the service has placed on interims whilst undergoing a service re-structure and the significant impact the interim teams have had in relation to performance and stability.

An upgrade to Capita, the case management system for EHCPs, will significantly support the improvement in the workflow management, reporting and communication for families and professionals, in particular the development of pupil data to help inform the quality of provision. Portals will also become available for professionals and parents to access directly and document storage will ensure all information relating to a child or young person with SEND are easily accessible.

Conclusion

The delivery of bespoke training and professional development for schools across the three localities within the borough will continue to incorporate focused sessions to develop the workforce and address the underperformance of key groups. Ongoing analysis of SEND pupil data and the evaluation of provision, will inform the work of the children’s support services and working closing with the Standards & Effectiveness team, will support schools in identifying priorities. The team will continue to work in close partnership with school leaders and the wider integrated services to ensure that all pupils have access to a broad, balanced, and ambitious curriculum.

Community Learning

Introduction to Service Area

Bracknell Forest Council’s adult education service is managed by Community and Continuing Education. It includes a programme designed to:

· Support people to move into, or closer to, employment or volunteering

· Improve skills, including English, maths and IT

· Support people’s physical and mental well-being

· Support strong communities

To enhance the breadth of engagement with adults who may not have otherwise previously participated in adult education, the service sub-contracts to two community organisations and partners with others, including schools, Children’s Centres and libraries.

NOTE: data within this year is impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic which saw in-class activities cease during the academic year, apart from a small amount of provision that we were able to deliver online.

Access

Table 13: Adult Learners by Sex (April 2020 - March 2021)

Gender of Adult Learners 2020/21 compared with Bracknell Forest adult population
	Adult Learners	%	Bracknell Forest Adult population* %	Variance
Female	713	80%	49%	+30%
Male	177	20%	51%	-30%
Total	890

*ONS Mid-2016 estimates

The split between female and male learners using our service is in line with adult learning across the country. This ratio has remained broadly similar over several years even though the gender split across Bracknell Forest, South East and the UK is 49% female to 51% male. However, in 2020-21, the number and percentage of male learners decreased 3% from the previous year.

Table 14: Adult Learners by Age band (April 2020 - March 2021)

Age band of Adult Learners 2020/21
	Adult Learners	%	Bracknell Forest Adult population* %	Variance
19-24	38	4%	7.9%	-4.9%
25-39	267	30%	28%	+2%
40-59	446	50%	38.9%	+11.1%
60 plus	136	15%	25.2%	-10.2%
Unknown	3	0.3%
Total	890

*ONS Mid-2016 estimates

A focus on supporting people to improve work and employability skills means the largest group of learners engaged are in the 25–59 age group. A decrease in the percentage of learners coming from family learning in 2020/21 has resulted in a decreased number of learners in the 25-39 group.

Table 15: Adult Learners by Ethnicity (April 2020 - March 2021)

Ethnicity of Adult Learners 2020/21 compared with Bracknell Forest Population
	Adult Learners	%	Total Bracknell Forest population* %	Variance
Asian/Asian British	40	4%	4.7%	-0.7%
Black/Black British	27	3%	1.8%	+1.2%
Mixed	21	3%	1.3%	+1.7%
White	728	82%	91.5%	-9.5%
Other ethnic group	37	4%	0.4%	+3.6%
Unknown	37	4%
Total	890

*National Population Census 27 March 2011

The ethnicity of adult learners is broadly in line with the local Bracknell Forest population. However, a variance can be seen with the ‘White’ and ‘Other ethnic group’ learners. This is a continued trend from the last couple of years, where the service is engaging with a larger proportion of learners in the ‘other ethnic group’ category, although its proportion is less this year.

Table 16: Adult Learners by Disability (April 2020 - March 2021)

Adult Learners by Disability (self declaration)
	2020/21		2019/20
	Adult Learners	%	Adult Learners	%
Has a learning difficulty / disability	110	12	404	13
Does not have a learning difficulty / disability	635	71	2,513	79
Not declared	145	16	274	8
Total	890		3,191

The data suggests that the service reaches a significant percentage of the Bracknell Forest population who have declared a learning difficulty or disability. Similar to 19/20, there is a significant proportion of people who make no declaration, which has also increased but the percentage who are declaring a disability remains broadly the same. Work to tackle this, including work with one sub-contractor was interrupted by the on-going effects of the Covid-19 pandemic which caused national lockdowns and the reduction in face-to-face delivery.

Outcomes

Achievement rates for people enrolling in adult learning courses are measured by them successfully meeting course objectives. For recognised qualifications, such as English, Maths, Customer Service, Food Safety, Health & Safety and Emergency First Aid at Work, achievement criteria is set by the relevant awarding body.

Table 17: Levels of achievement by Sex

Adult Learners - % of people enrolled who achieved their goals
	Enrolments	% Achieved
All	1,214	96.74
Female	965	96.65
Male	249	97.16

Table 18: Levels of achievement by Age band

	Enrolments	% Achieved
All	1,214	96.74
19-24	57	100
25-39	346	96.74
40-59	600	96.46
60 plus	208	97.58
Unknown	3	33.33

Table 19: Levels of achievement by Ethnicity

	Enrolments	% Achieved
All	1,214	96.73
Asian	63	98.41
Black	29	81.61
Mixed	30	100
Other	44	95.45
White	1,007	97.08
Unknown	41	95.11

Table 20: Levels of achievement by Disability

	Enrolments	% Achieved
All	1,124	96.74
Has a learning difficulty / disability	190	98.95
Does not have a learning diff. / dis.	838	96.98
Not declared	186	93.53

The overall achievement rate has decreased from the previous 99% to circa 96% which is still a strong figure but not the usual high historical percentage. The most significant decrease in achievement can be seen in the Black Ethnicity group where they achieve at a lower level than all other groups. There is still an achievement gap of between learners declaring a learning difficulty or disability and those declaring they don’t have a learning disability or difficulty however this year the higher achievement is with those with a declared learning difficulty or disability which contradicts previous years.

School Property Places & Admissions

The School Property Places & Admissions Team provides the School Asset Management Plan which includes all maintained school sites and buildings and administers the School Admissions process whereby parents apply for a school place for their children in schools. The Service contributes to achieving the Council’s priority ‘Access a High Quality School Place.

Access to Service

Key issues

- Disabled Access to maintained school sites and buildings

- The accessibility of the School Admissions process

Who is and isn’t using the service?

- All pupils, parents and staff in maintained schools access our school buildings.

- All parents/carers use the School Admissions system to secure a school place for their children.

Data

The Council monitors the physical accessibility of its maintained school buildings in the School Asset Management Plan. As part of this each maintained school is subject of an access audit to identify issues with physical access into and around the site and buildings. The access audits provide estimated costs for any identified compliance works and prioritise the identified need as follows:

o Priority 1 Severe barrier or hazard for disabled people

o Priority 2 To provide a service or facility under the Equality Act

o Priority 3 To eliminate a problem or provide a service/facility

o Priority 4 Management solutions to access issues

A summary of identified need for disabled access works from the access audits of maintained schools is set out on the table below:

Prioritised Identified Need for Disabled Access from Access Audits

table with data showing need for disabled access from access audits

There is currently £2.4m of physical access work identified at maintained schools of which £0.38m is priority 1.

The Council maintains CAD floor and site plan drawings of maintained school sites and buildings which provide the frame of reference for the access audits. These plans are periodically updated following completion of significant building works or physical alterations at each school.

Equality Duty

Under the Equality Act the Council has a legal duty to ensure that disabled pupils, staff, and adults can access our school sites and buildings.

This is achieved in two ways, firstly by ensuring that any physical alterations to school buildings comply with disabled access requirements through the Building Control process. In this way school buildings become more accessible over time as compliant current standards become enhancements to the existing accommodation.

Secondly the council has prioritised funding for disabled access works required for individual disabled children, young people, and adults in its schools. Under the School Asset Management Plan schools can flag up where individual pupils, staff or visitors have specific physical access needs with the building which allows the Council to implement physical alterations as required to meet the individual’s needs. It is these works which become a first call for funding on the Councils annual School Planned Works Programme.

In terms of outcomes for disabled people, recent past examples of these access works have included:

o Installation of a lift

o Provision of ramped access

o Fitting automatic door opening devices

Given the wide spectrum of disability the needs of an individual may differ greatly from another which is why this individual-centric approach has been adopted.

The School Admissions process encompasses all children and young people in Bracknell Forest schools. This process is highly regulated and needs to be effectively communicated and accessible to people of all backgrounds.

The School Admissions process takes account of equality issues by:

o Ensuring that the BFC annual guides for both Primary and Secondary Education are available in foreign language versions including Nepalese, on request.

o Ensuring that all the School Admission pages on BFC website are available as spoken word documents using Read Speaker.

o Providing a telephone service for applicants who may have difficulty understanding the written word to help them to apply for a school place.

o And in addition, the School Admissions also meet with some applicants face to face (subject to Covid) either in the Council Offices or at Children’s Centres to help them with their application/s.

Conclusion

The council monitors the accessibility of its school sites and buildings by way of access audits, and most are accessible to disabled people. Construction works to our schools are implemented in accordance with the requirements for disabled access set out in Building Regulations, and in this way, accessibility is enhanced every time that new construction works are undertaken. In addition, where individuals have issues with physical access there is an established response procedure that that makes funding available to implement any physical alterations that may be necessary straight away.

The school admissions process has been made accessible to everyone including minority groups, by making sure that applicants have the written procedures in their own language and/or have access to the School Admissions Team staff on a one to one basis if necessary to assist and advise them in making an application.