Items
No. |
Item |
42. |
Apologies for Absence
Additional documents:
Minutes:
There were no apologies for absence.
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43. |
Declaration of Substitute Members
Additional documents:
Minutes:
There were no declarations of substitute
members.
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44. |
Declarations of Interest
Additional documents:
Minutes:
There were no declarations of interest.
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45. |
Minutes of the previous meeting PDF 91 KB
Additional documents:
Minutes:
Members sought a correction to the minutes,
for it to state that officers had confirmed that the PRU was to be
incorporated into the committee’s work programme.
RESOLVED:
That subject to the amendment above, the
minutes of the meeting held on 22nd October be confirmed
as an accurate record of proceedings and the Chair be authorised to
sign them.
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46. |
Chair's Report
Additional documents:
Minutes:
The Chair outlined that a programme of evidence gathering sessions as part of
the committee’s review into persistent absence in secondary
school would continue into the new year.
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47. |
Public Questions
Additional documents:
Minutes:
Public Questions were received and answered during the
discussion of the relevant agenda item(s).
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48. |
Joint Protocol on Section 17 Families PDF 120 KB
Additional documents:
Minutes:
The Director of Housing Operations was in
attendance to present the protocol and take questions, in addition
to the Executive Member for Children, Young People & Families
and officers from the Children & Young People service. In the
discussion, the following points were raised:
- The Joint Protocol on Section 17 Families had
been developed between the Homes & Neighbourhoods and Children
& Young People directorates. The protocol was put to the Homes
and Communities Scrutiny Committee for comment and was endorsed at
their meeting of 14th October 2024 and had now come to
this committee for comment and endorsement.
- There were currently 1568 homeless
households in temporary accommodation, the highest ever amount. 889
of them had children, equivalent to 57% of all homeless families in
temporary accommodation have children.
- In addition, 1404 children were
living in temporary accommodation that Islington provides and 640
children were within the borough. Islington was probably the
highest in London in terms of the percentage that were still living
in the borough and the third lowest in London in terms of the
number of children living in temporary accommodation. It was
sometimes necessary to place children and their families outside of
the borough due to factors such as escaping domestic abuse, but
moving families to remote locations was not routine. It was
currently policy to move families to within a ninety-minute commute
of the borough and most families living outside the borough were
within neighbouring London boroughs such as Waltham Forest,
Haringey and Enfield.
- The protocol had been drafted in
partnership with Children’s Services. There had been wide
consultation including with partner agencies and a cross-party
parliamentary group on temporary accommodation.
- The Chartered Institute on Housing
had recommended Islington’s approach as best practice to
other local authorities
- The protocol sought to place
homeless families with children as the focus and ensure an
empathetic, holistic approach to meeting their needs.
- A commitment had been made to not
use bed and breakfasts to house homeless households unless it was a
critical emergency.
- Islington was the first local
authority to mandate providers to have cots available for
children.
- Officers stated that there was free
WiFi was available in all Islington council properties and officers
were seeking to extend this to other properties, including in the
private rented sector outside of the borough.
- Officers stated that there were more
homeless families with children than there were available council
or housing association properties and no affordable options for
them within the private rented sector. This, compounded with rents
increasing on average by 15%, indicated the severity of the housing
crisis.
- In response to members questions
regarding information sharing when families moved to neighbouring
borough, specifically for those on Child In Need plans, officers
advised that a Section 17 CIN assessment was often done in
collaboration with all parties, such as education, housing, and
health and social care etc, and the Council wad under legal
obligation to notify the incoming local authority of the family and
ensure the family’s information travelled with them. Officers
...
view the full minutes text for item 48.
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49. |
Special Guardianship Update PDF 93 KB
Additional documents:
Minutes:
The Chair clarified that this item was bought to committee
at their request, following feedback members had received from
special guardians about levels of support available to them. The
Chair stated that the consideration of this item this evening was
to determine whether it required further oversight as part of the
committee’s work programme, but
that due to time constraints, intended to adjourn this item to a
future meeting of the committee.
RESOLVED
That this item is adjourned to a future meeting of the
committee.
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50. |
Attendance Codes - Verbal Update (No Papers)
Additional documents:
Minutes:
The Chair opened the item by stating that it had been
bought to committee in light of the work
being conducted by officers regarding the new codes and was an
update of the work undertaken to date to inform schools.
- Officers stated that statutory guidance had been
received in September 2024 which included a revised set of
attendance codes. Of the 34 codes, 12 were new.
- Officers stated that the updated codes provided
greater flexibility in recording attendance and allowed schools to
differentiate authorised and unauthorised absences more
effectively.
- Officers stated that many codes now had sub types
allowing for more accurate coding.
- In the category for when students were attending a
place other than school, but statistically present the only new
code was the K code and all others remained unchanged.
- The B code had been retitled to specifically
include reference to attending other approved supervised activity.
Officers stated this was because of historical misuse nationally,
wherein some schools were assigning students work to complete at
home without supervision.
- Officers stated there were three new codes in the
leave of absence category, including C1 which was for pupils
participating in regulated performance or regulated employment
abroad. Previously this would have just been coded C. J1 was a sub
code for the purposes for attending interview for employment or
another education institution. The C2 code was for a part time or
reduced timetable of some description.
- The T code had been generalised to now refer to parents travelling for
occupational purposes.
- Officers stated there were also new codes for
pupils unable to attend for unavoidable causes, with seven
underneath the Q code, replacing the single Y code.
- Officers stated that nationally there had been
research on listening and learning from parents in the attendance
crisis, from which a key finding was that there had been a
relationship breakdown between schools and families, primarily
attributed to the accuracy of school attendance data at end of the
school year. Officers stated that while Islington should
endeavour to ensure there was greater
accuracy in the recording of attendance, it was not the fault of
schools, who were following the DfE guidance.
- Officers stated as an example, that schools would
previously have to code a student absent for the entire morning,
when a student may have only missed an hour of school, but that it
was now at schools’ discretion for pupils to be marked
present from when they arrive at school and override the codes.
This primarily affected those with early morning appointments who
would have previously been marked absent for the morning for
missing registration, as opposed to those that had mid-morning or
mid-afternoon appointments and would be counted as present.
Officers further stated that being marked as present affected a
pupil’s attendance rate, regardless of whether the absence
was authorised, but it could be that children with regular CAMHS
appointments were accessing appointments that may facilitate their
education to begin with, adding to the strain in relations between
families and schools. ...
view the full minutes text for item 50.
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51. |
School Organisation Verbal Update (No Papers)
Additional documents:
Minutes:
Officers delivered a verbal update on the School
Organisation plan. In the update and discussion, the following
points were raised:
- Officers stated that
the Council was in the consultation period on proposals regarding
the future of two of the borough’s primary schools as part of
Phase Three of the School Organisation plan. These were Highbury
Quadrant Primary School and St Jude’s & St Paul’s
Primary School. As of this meeting there had been approximately 150
representations for Highbury Quadrant and approximately 100 for St
Jude’s & St Paul’s. Following the consultation
there would be a report capturing the data, which would then help
to shape the recommendations that the Executive will decide upon in
February 2025.
- Officers stated that
Phase Three had a focus on reducing surplus places across the
school estate and that London faced serious challenges in education
space as a result of lower birth rates, falling rolls and the
housing crisis. Officers stated that data from the Greater London
Authority (GLA) indicated that inner London would continue to face
significant challenges on school place surpluses, a reverse on
previous generations where there had not been enough school
places.
- Officers stated that
there was an average of 20% surplus places in primary estate and
the pressures were moving into the secondary estate, and that on
average each surplus place equated to approximately £6,000 of
funding being lost, as DfE funding was on a per-child basis.
Officers stated that they would have to consider whether schools
could then afford the resources to ensure that students’
school experiences were as positive as possible.
- Members noted that
they appreciated the clarity in which the consultations explained
how the schools were chosen for this phase.
- In response to
members questions regarding whether there was more proposals for
Phase Three, officers confirmed that only this proposal was the
only initiative earmarked for decision.
- In response to
questions about lessons learned from Phases One and Two,
specifically on communication, the Executive Member stated that
many lessons had been taken onboard, and that given no school had
been closed in the borough for over twenty years, was a learning
curve for all involved, and feedback had informed an even more
collaborative and inclusive approach to this phase.
- Officers stated that
while there had been changes in the Department for Education (DfE)
and regarding SEND, no additional funding had been granted for
schools overall. Officers reiterated that in the outcome that
schools are closed, the funding follows the child to their new
education provision, including specialist provisions.
- Members
stated that previous phases had been a traumatic process which
notably affected headteachers, governors and staff as well as
families and asked as to what was being done to further support
them and include them within the process. In response, the
Executive Member stated that proposals within each phase of the
School Organisation plan were a last resort following months of
informal engagement to find a solution to avoid this process, and
that it was not the Council’s goal to ...
view the full minutes text for item 51.
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52. |
Quarter 1 Performance Report PDF 259 KB
Additional documents:
Minutes:
Officers presented the
Quarter One performance report to members. In the discussion, the
following points were raised:
- Members noted that Islington had significant
numbers of students in elective home education in addition to
having a high rate of persistent absence and sought a breakdown of
the reasons behind why families were choosing to electively home
educate and the EOTAS (Education other than at School) figure for
Islington as had been requested previously. Members further stated
that while the COVID-19 Pandemic had been attributable to the rise
in EHE numbers previously, that there were other factors to
consider such as children being undiagnosed or families not having
found a suitable school for the child’s needs.
- Officers confirmed that while the local authority
had to respect parent choice on elective home education but that
were safeguarding issues were present, would intervene and that a
child on a protection plan would need local authority consent to be
electively home educated. Officers further stated that they had to
work within the policy framework set out by the government but that
there had been policy shifts including discussions of an electively
home educated register, and that if members would like further
information that it should be added to the forward
plan.
- In response to members questions regarding whether
the phonics initiative was tallied with the SATs results, officers
advised that when the full School Results were published, they
would break down the data as many ways as possible as per
members’ request.
- Members noted an oversight in which the youth
provision only referred to that at Rose Bowl Youth Hub, which
officers acknowledged.
- In response to members questions about how
Islington would replace single-word judgements and communicate how
well the borough’s schools were performing, officers stated
that there was a regular programme of
engagement with school leaders to identify a consistent and common
approach, and would be working with them
to find a local solution.
- In response to public questions concerning how the
committee would engage with groups that had disproportionately high
absence rates, the Chair advised that evidence gathering sessions
were scheduled as part of the committee’s review into
persistent absence in secondary schools.
- Officers thanked the public for their engagement
with the work of SEND Parliament and Parent Carer
Forum.
ACTION
Officers to provide a breakdown on Electively Home Educated
students, and the overall EOTAs figures for Islington.
ACTION:
Officers to provide data on school visits to/from Libraries
for the next quarterly report.
RESOLVED
That the report is noted.
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53. |
Work Programme 2024-25 PDF 84 KB
Additional documents:
Minutes:
The Chair informed members and officers that an item
on Alternative Provision was to be bought to the committee’s
meeting of 24th February. This was originally scheduled
to be a standalone meeting, but had been postponed for members to
agree on the data that they would like to see in
advance.
RESOLVED:
That the 2024-25 Work Programme
be noted.
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