The Commission has invited Councillors Dr Barnard, Executive Member for Children, Young People and Learning and Birch, Executive Member for Adult Services, Health and Housing to attend to discuss Education and schools related mental health.
The Commission is keen to understand how schools have responded to the health pandemic for example use of ICT for tuition, protection of teachers during lessons, student motivation, plans for future exams and the impact of the pandemic on students mental health and those of their families.
Members of the Commission have submitted the following questions:
· Schools are relying heavily on IT for tuition.
o Is there enough Internet capacity operating in our schools?
o Is the connection stable and reliable?
o Do all students have access to stable networks at home?
o Do all students have access to a suitable device to access the work set or virtual lessons at home?
o What support is given to households with siblings and not enough devices?
o Are our schools able to integrate their IT for easy access for teachers?
· Are the teachers adequately protected during lessons?
· Is motivation becoming a real problem for students as they are dependent on virtual lessons and individual working rather than teacher guidance?
· Mental health
o How is this pandemic affecting student’s mental health?
o School’s safeguarding policies are dependent on multi agencies for help when necessary. Are the agencies coping with this growing demand and if not, what are we doing about it?
o What about the impact on parents/carers who were (and will likely again) try to manage three roles – parent, teacher, worker?
· Exams
o Is there a plan for proper exams next year if we are still under a semi lockdown?
o Could the exams be held on a Saturday with extra separation of distance available?
o As our children were out of school for 4 months, may likely have further disruption this year, should 2021 exams go ahead?
· Budgets
o What funding is available for schools for extra processes that have been put in place to retain bubbles from September, for example extra cleaning, feeding children in their classrooms as opposed to the dining hall?
o Will there be any support for the loss of revenue from schools not being able to rent out their premises?
· How rigorous is the testing of older students and teachers and what plans are in place if anyone fails to protect the majority?
Minutes:
The Commission invited Councillors Dr Barnard, Executive Member for Children, Young People and Learning and Birch, Executive Member for Adult Services, Health and Housing to attend to discuss Education and schools related mental health.
The Commission was keen to understand how schools had responded to the health pandemic for example use of ICT for tuition, protection of teachers during lessons, student motivation, plans for future exams and the impact of the pandemic on students mental health and those of their families.
In response to the questions submitted in advance and arising from discussion it was noted that:
· governors and leadership teams of schools were recognised for the swift adaption of the provision of education and responding to daily challenges
· the Bracknell Forest school community had pulled together during the pandemic to share good practice and had adapted their home working strategies and approaches which ranged from virtual assemblies, digital lessons to paper workbooks to be printed at home
· James Sunderland, Bracknell’s Member for Parliament had arranged for a group of primary and secondary Headteachers to a virtual meeting to discuss the challenges that covid-19 has brought into schools with Robert Halfen the Chair of the Education Select Committee
· schools had responsibility for procuring their own internet and resources but the real issue had been where households in the borough did not have access to broadband so schools had supported families where they could with laptops and 4G devices but it was recognised that they did not have ability to do this straight away and it was not always possible for every child within a home to have a device
· strategies for accessing work had continued and made school work accessible to those pupils isolating
· online access had been given to Oakwood Academy so virtual resources were available but challenge was to match provision to individual schools
· explanation of support provided to schools to undertake risk assessment, policy development and provision of PPE to protect the whole school community
· across the borough (as per national experience) it was acknowledged that motivation of students and engagement with remote learning varied day to day and subject to subject, noticeable that there was a minority who did not engage at all. Schools had used virtual assemblies, introduced a sense of fun, virtual cooking classes and quizzes with creative activities to engage students.
· Department for Education letter described that the impact was more significant on those young people with existing needs or issues and further emerging evidence that in others that the experience had helped them build resilience.
· Youthline had undertaken increased amount of online counselling and have moved their services moved to Portman Close site which has been beneficial with bigger rooms enabling face to face appointments
· 15 extra children were now being home educated and support was being provided to those families.
· Kooth services were available for young people to use mobile phones to engage with their peer groups in a safe environment
· There had been an increase in referrals of young people to mental health services and work was ongoing to address the low number of young people being discharged from health practitioners
· Clinical Commissioning Group partners had engaged with digital assessments where practitioners were able to do assessments online
· members present were encouraged to look at the Barnardo’s report at effect on young people’s health of covid 19 (https://www.barnardos.org.uk/sites/default/files/uploads/mental-health-covid19-in-our-own-words-report.pdf)
· concerns were shared about collating the right data to inform future strategies however it was highlighted that during the constantly changing pressures of responding to the pandemic there were no capacity to do this in our schools but that the government was doing this nationally
· concerns were raised about how students were treated in relation to exam results and whether the proposals for future exams would be able to respond to ongoing pandemic environment. It was agreed that whatever solution was settled on they would need to be fair and consistent.
· training would start in the spring term with mentors within schools to help promote mental health and the intention was to train the trainer to build capacity and make the programme sustainable
· the Department for Education was allowing for claims relating to the pandemic, but the narrow parameters meant that it was not guaranteed that everything would be covered e.g. additional cleaning costs, loss of income from letting facilities. The meeting was advised that Executive members were raising this at every opportunity.
· Both Executive members thanked all of their colleagues working in health and education working to deliver services to the Bracknell community
The Chair thanked the Executive Members for their attendance.