>> HTH Room 104 – Council Chambers: good evening, everyone and welcome and welcome. Welcome to March children and young people scrutiny and commission this evening whether you’re here in the chamber. for Council meetings apply. I would like to remind members officers and all those present in the chamber.
The live stream Right. We’re going to move on to item one, which is apologies for absence. We’ve got apologies from counselor Lord at Scott and and Marie and do we have any others? And cancer young and cancer signs that are connecting online. I think later. Great.
Thank you very much item two. We’ve got no urgent items in the order of businesses as published. we’ve got I item three Declarations of Interest are members have any Interest? moving on now to our first substantive item for the evening and which is pupil absence and emotional based School
Avoidance. people absence and emotional-based school avoidance or Absa as you’ll see it referenced in the papers was put forward for scrutiny as part of the for the 2023-24 work program rates of school absence of increased significantly since the pandemic for all measures including authorized absence unauthorized
Absence persistent absence and severe absence Furthermore. There is growing concern of the number of children who may be avoiding school for reasons connected to emotional mental emotional mental health or well-being issues. What is termed emotional based School avoidance in this context the commission agreed to assess local policy and
Practice in addressing School absence and supporting children and their families where Epsom may be a factor most importantly we want to see if there is anything we can do to improve our local approach and supporting people’s families and schools. This is a complex policy area. So to support the
Scrutiny process members of the commission have held a number of informal Gathering meetings ahead of today’s meeting. We had an informal information gathering session with key staff and education mental health and Health Services and to focus group with nine parents whose children are or have experienced ebsa and were
Supported by the parents’ care of forum and Hackney independent carers Forum. I would like to thank all officers and parents who gave up their time and contributed to these sessions. They’ve been really informative and helped members to understand some of the key issues ahead of this meeting We’re going to start the number
Of short presentations from stakeholders to Highlights key aspects of the written of the written contributions, And then we will follow this up with a more interactive Q&A from our contributors and members of the commission. And so with that can we start with the local policy and practice? So that’s
Happening education cams and NHS, so we’ve got seven to 10 minutes. so that so can I have you have you already agreed between you who’s doing? What okay, in which case I will hand over to you. Oh. Okay, stop working now. Yes it is. Thank you very much councilor Conway
And we’ll be very short introduction and we are very happy to be here and thank you for inviting us to talk about the work that we’re doing across the partnership in Hackney around. attendance and I’m going to call it emotional based School non-attendance rather than School avoidance because the learning that
We’ve all nationally and in Hackney is encouraging us to use that phrase rather than avoidance because that we feel it’s a better explanation of the issues and factors that affect children who so generally in Hackney our attendance figures are good compared to the national average. However, that doesn’t
Make us complacent in the work that we We are very aware of that group of children. who are experiencing emotionally-based school on attendance and are working with those children families schools other services to try and support the and encourage their attendance at school. So they’re enjoying
Their learning and attaining in the way that we would like them to do. And will open for questions from there. Thank you very much. And we hand over to the commission then we’ve What sorry not sound and hear from other contributors and so next we’re going to hear from Dr. Leslie
French from the Anna Freud Center, please. Just checking you can hear me or I think you can so, I’m Leslie French from the Anna Freud I think very much for the invitation to be with you this evening on such an important issue. I’m a clinical psychologist by
Background and the Anna Freud as a mental health charity that does both training and research and also provide some Clinical Services and London and around the country. I’ve other set of slides by wave background if I could just take a few minutes to talk those three with you
Just set the scene and then I think I’m handing over to Tim. So can I just have the next slide please? So I think just by way of introduction. It’s very important that we just all understand the complexities of this topic. Even the term emotionally based School avoidance has really working to
Him andology and there’s a very live discussion going on. but even the appropriateness of that but I think what’s important is it takes the onus away from words like truancy School refuse to locate And both cycological state of the child and other issues that we know contribute to school absence. We also know
That early intervention is Paramount and that once these School avoiding behaviors become entrenched. They’re much much harder to impact or treat in any way and we also acknowledge at the end of for the just a huge difficulties. This issue could create for both home life school life and that critical
Relationship between schools and families, which could be put under massive pressure when a child is struggling with these difficulties next slide, please. And we talk about this as a set of behaviors. We don’t regret. What is a mental health diagnosis. It’s a range of behaviors some some stemming as
I said from cycle article factors, but often also very emotionally based issues next one, please. You just put them all up and that would be great. So as I said, this is not I’m a term that we use any more truancy. It’s not withdrawing and it’s not refuse or there
Are the we talk about barriers that are preventing children fully engaging in the school in this school life. Next time please. Although we have seen an escalation in numbers. We know that it’s not a new phenomenon. It’s not just to do with the pandemic Although obviously a large
Number of children around the country have not returned fully since the pandemic and there’s a kind of almost as a phenomenon in itself. And really we formulate this as is the roots being in some level of anxiety or fear. Those the kind of broad psychological formulation. We
>> Sarah Young (Cllr): just >> HTH Room 104 – Council Chambers: would use and it’s just very important to understand on an individual level the reasons for poor on one School attendance. And also and I know Tim will pick up on this we all know that children with neurodiversions or even
Represented in this cohort. There’s lots of reasons for that is and can be some very simple reasons around the overstimulation of some environments that all sorts of this not feeling And issues around learning. I just wanted to highlight that because this group is over represented in the overall figures.
And a couple Thank you. and these are just the this is some kind of exclusive list, but it’s just things to start watching out for that. We think I’d be beginning to be early signs of absence. Of course, some children will show some of and not all of these and
Somewhere to apply to some children, But as see on that list, there’s lots of reference of things like anxiety. No self esteem difficulties with peer relationships sometimes things going on at home, which makes a >> Sarah Young (Cllr): they look like >> HTH Room 104 – Council
Chambers: child anxious about leaving and sometimes the whole thing knocks onto each other your children can feel really quite physically sick about going and those are real symptoms for those children And sometimes we see a sort of pattern of sometimes just a late-ness starting and then with partial
Withdrawal during the school day which then can escalate so there’s just a number of kind of factors there to consider and they’re not they’re not exclusive as they won’t all children. Thanks, Tim. Okay, and then I just wanted to talk a little bit about the risk and resilience
Factors because these are things that are highly individual and can change over the course of time and meaning that some things may matter at more different stages than others and there are usually multiple factors relating to school family and the individual child themselves that can contribute to young people
Becoming more vulnerable. Developing ebsa. Thank you. next slide Mark Martin and it’s got stuck. Let us Frozen Okay, and then again just for your reference we’ve put in here a kind of some examples of the vulnerability facts we’re talking about and all of those three key domains. And as I
Said the we know that some children for example struggle with transition at different School points the sometimes the transition to set to secondary school or a different year group. It can be things going on on the family that in and of themselves don’t cause the school avoidance but can
Contribute to a child’s struggling and sometimes there are very specific difficulties at school in relation to maybe a subject bullying or real anxiety and perceived pressure around exams or difficulties with their own peers. So those are just some examples The next slide please. And we talked a lot on the literature about the
Strategies and approaches that can take and I would really want to emphasize there was not one treatment here that we can treat children that have got and school-based avoidance issues and what we’ve learned and some of the clinical way that we’ve been running you really have to work at a very highly
Individualized kind of package that involves family. all and obviously the young person and so it really depends on what sorts of behaviors the young person is exhibiting and there’s going to be remote there for most children more than one variable. So is it more that they’re avoiding that the
Social peer situation? Is that more because they want to spend time with other people or that they’re trying to avoid something that they’re finding very aversive at the school environment. I’m next slide, please. And these can be conceptualized as push and pull factors so that we call the
Sort of push factors things that can increase a child’s ability to attend school and thereby build up their resilience and the pull factors are the things that might be hampering them attending school and it’s just a way of kind of formulating or describing the interplay or the relationship between those
Factors. Next slide please. And again just for your reference some examples. These are General examples around what might be a push factor, you know in a transitions managed very well. There’s lots of support from both home and school about coming to schools staying at school and good awareness of
Things for the child about what might be what might be triggering things what really helps cope and build resilience and to think with them about the motivation about a future that the future life at school. And those are what we describe briefly as some of the push
Factors. next slide and the pull factors again. These are highly specific to the child, but they can include some issues going on at school. That’s kind of tricking triggered a kind of departure for some young people the school of irons just feel very very overwhelming. We’re going to
Sensory level the noise. lots and lots of volume on all levels things like that and for the young person, sometimes it might be just more valuing of school. It might be that they’ve had some poor experience of school and the past and and
Are they can’t they find it different kind of regulate themselves in the school environment, So there’s a whole range of factors here that can get in the way of good School attendance. Thanks. And again, as I said, there’s no one size fits all about an intervention and some of
These are really getting alongside the child and really trying to understand with them. what what their explanation or formulation of the issue is because we often say there’s about behaves and young people. It makes perfect sense to the young person, but it might not make sense to us. So we need
Lots of kind of validation and reassurance and to really listen well because in that content will be will be the the art or the trick about how we might be able to modify alter some things that might make all the difference to their young person. Next slide please. And
Finally my colleague over there did reference the national picture. So there’s just against some figures for you, but you can see that the this has risen and and although it’s not just to deal with the pandemic. I think the pandemic has had a very disastrous effect generally for many
Children and young people are all aspects functioning and I think we we are still seeing that now and even though the pandemic feels a long time ago to some of us a huge issue and to remind everybody was the first time schools closed since the second world war. So a huge
Adjustment to children and family and educational stuff lives. Thank you. Thank you so much for that and Dr. Leslie, really really appreciate your attendance this evening and so lastly we’re now going to hear from Tim from the happy independent forum. Hi. Thanks so much for inviting me to this meeting.
Very grateful for the interest that the council has shown in this area. It’s something that’s very close to my heart. My daughter experienced not as well school district is a term of we sometimes use in the age of 11 and any return to part-time culture 15. She went on to 61
College, but didn’t complete it. She’s loving creative talented child. And I’d like to dedicate this to her and all the other brilliant children who weren’t able to attend school. You will have read the survey so I’m not going to go through the findings of that. It was carried out for
Acne Independence parents and carers. I won’t go over it. I want to summarize some of the main points and looking at I suppose from a local level rather than the national level because obviously we have to be practical about what is possible within the national picture. And so I’ve tried to
Focus on some of those issues. I could have the next slide, please. So the first thing is to say that Absa or School distress is in neurodivergent issue. In the survey 95% of pairs were carers said their child had been diagnosed or they were seeking diagnosis for their child many
Children multiple diagnoses, but overwhelmingly autism was the main issue. This findings replicated by research elsewhere in larger skills studies. And why is this important? Well, it tells us that for these children not going to school is not about Skyping or truancy. It helps us understand that these children are generally deeply distressed
And then asks of asking education system. What is it that we can do to help them? continue the education I alleviating that distress and continuing their education. So at that point I’ve listed three points when the Hackney guidance to schools is updated. It would be we could add a section about
Absa School distress being a largely neurodiversion issue. It’ll be really helpful in terms of framing the issue and I think if we frame the issue then we can start going on the right sort of approach to help support the children. I think promote training in eurodivergence and
School which I know Hackney is deeply committed to but to add to that are always invite the involvement of parents young people who have had the experience so they can share their experiences to bring home. and contribute and then I support and promote the whole school approaches and mental
Health well-being and that’s easier said than done because I think it’s a deep cultural complex issue, but there’s several the Android Center has the five steps approach which is free and interactive in the NCB. You have their own approach to But this isn’t just about schools. Although that was a
Folks that survey. There are many stories about delays and accessing cams and interagency working, but also positive stories about the support that some children have received. our next slide I think this is the critical issue working in partnership with families. why it’s because you know if the relationship between child and
Family breaks down you might as well say goodbye to helping the child. It just will not work. You have to nurture that relationship and I think one of the big I think Fading is not just not here but in National research is around how tensions can create conflict between
School and parents and that’s that’s the end of the story with their child. so you can’t help a child unless the schools and parents work closely together, but when things go wrong with schools relationships collapse in our survey parents said they felt and this is in order judged
Ignored blamed unequal disempowered and not not listen to some parents are positive saying the school help I listening offering reduced timetable stopping detentions being generally supportive flexible and kind but far more parents when negative as they were positive again, This is a national picture more of a
Parent said, they noticed two and a half times as many symptoms as they said the school notice the more the most serious symptoms such as threatening to kill yourself. The less was likely it was less likely to be noticed by the school according to parents. On
Almost six times as many schools as Paris and carers noticed no problems at all. So if you asked is this child exhibiting any problems six times as many schools would say no as parents. Now this isn’t surprising because children will open up when they feel safe to home teachers classes of 30 odd
Pupils and can’t be expected to notice everything. But the point is that if parents aren’t believed listen to respected to his equals these very serious issues will go unnoticed. the title it you need as much information as possible from as many different angles as possible from all those involves
And that means equalizing the relationship between parents and school threatening prosecution does not help as praise. Yes is worth noting that no parents in the survey will prosecuted several things worth prosecution. another example, is that parents on average notice symptoms around two years before schools. Do this isn’t
From my research, but this is from other research working with parents as an essential part of early intervention. Um, and the other thing to notice is that the stress that this often has on parents. No, one of the stories is around. how parents of you know, nationally. I’m
Not saying exactly is how parents are lacks and you know complicit in the Charles apps and but actually what research says is how stressful it is when we had a you attended a meeting of parents and I think six out of nine parents. That’s why they give up a full-time
Job completely or work from home now, obviously that has knocked on stress in terms of income and all sorts of issues. So one large skill survey found that a child’s School refusing was the second most traumatic life event apparent could experience after death the first degree relative including a child or spouse.
So I just want to say that because I want to just the trauma and difficulties that families going through when they’re looking when they’re talking to schools. So what can be done? Set up a parent care as a group for children struggling at school. I think one thing that parent carers
Feel is isolation. They feel alone. They feel that no one else is experiencing this and the support that they can get from each other peaceful is incredibly powerful and to broker that through the school demonstrating at school. really values. the peer support the parents can supply would be a
Very powerful thing. and their examples of this and I know that Freud centered is quite a lot of this work and certainly in the family school that they run but also in other boroughs and other country, so that would be something that would like to see the other thing is
To co-produce. I know I know there’s going on in Hackney all the co-produce all materials and resources of children’s families and young people including guidance and training parents and carers will support this will give a commitment to helping achieve this next Slide. The next one is rethink the school environment. You’re
Diversion children often struggle with school environment Bright Lights school uniforms that feel uncomfortable remembering homework or equipment sitting still noise. All these things can have a support disproportionate impact on a child’s experience. Particularly Secondary School. they’re often children for whom transition from a single class
And primary to a large school as a shock flexibility and school rules can make a difference between a child attending enough attending school for some children appropriate specialist alternative education may be needed I think though most parents would want their child in mainstream education where that’s possible and creating
Inclusive education environment will make schools more welcoming for many other children as well. Another thing would be to carry as an environmental audits share best practice between schools again. There’s a huge range of practice in this from the parents that we spoke to some, you know from
The very from very good practice to parents who felt like and safe places time out cards flexible timetables and so on and I think the other thing I want to say is you know understand the precious schools are under attendance is a key issue. But it’s not the most
Important issue well-being is first and somebody’s children are deeply distressed and there well-being is more important and once you can support the well-being education second education is probably you know, I would say is best for most children at school, but it’s not for all children and school
Thirds. So when we’re thinking about attendance, I think that helps us inform us what where attendance lies in the kind of hierarchy of a Charles needs and finally just say, you know celebrate discuss of neurodiversity weeks normalize and allow children. think a better themselves because sometimes they feel a diagnosis
Is quite damning. So final slide, please just to recap it’s overwhelmingly and experience of neurodiversion children. One thing which isn’t in my survey, but something I’ve worked on in the past is the need of support support for school staff and you can’t have a whole school approach and mental health without supporting
School staff who are incredibly overworked and committed and need support as much as anyone. always involved children families and what if you do I think that is the most critical point? and that is where bad faith keeps in relationships break down and just attendance is a critical issue for
Children. We know that non attendance leads to impacts on children. But well-being fast education seconds School third. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you very much, Tim both for your presentations evening with also all of the work that you’ve put in to doing that survey. I think not just the
Survey but the session that we had with the parents is really helped to furnish our understanding of this this issue that I think we’d already know was a was a big Challenge and I think understanding what it means for families is is really important. It’s a really important part of the picture
And that we really need to understand. So now we’re going to move on to questions from the commission we’ve got with hopefully can approach things in a more thematic way. We’ve got quite a few questions that we’d like to get through. And so if I can ask members of the
Commission to identify and who it is that your question is directed at don’t expect you to know names but to say whether it’s happening educational and a Freud or for yeah, and then also if we can say to officers if you could identify who will be answering the question and
Stick to one person please so that we can try and get through as many questions and answers as possible, please. So starting with the autism support pathway, please do we have any questions from the commission? It’s not I can start. So one of the most striking issues from
The focus group with parents was the prevalence of autism and ADHD among children who are experiencing emotional based School avoidance in many cases. This was a late diagnosis even through parents’ suspected even though parents are suspected this diagnosis. Our officers confident that there is a clear and defined autism support
Pathway among local services from identification assessment through to support I’ll add another one and do Do we have questions? Councilizer. Did you have a question on autism support pathway? >> Anya Sizer (Cllr): Sorry, just looking to Audrey myself. Yes, please. Is that okay? >> HTH Room 104 – Council
Chambers: Yeah, that’s fine. >> Anya Sizer (Cllr): Um firstly also just to reiterate what counselor Conway said that was just such a helpful piece of work that everyone’s been involved with and we’re really grateful as a scrutiny commission for everything that you’ve inputted. It was just
Partly to flag up and then partly as a question. I’m a parent of a child with fasd and it’s very welcome to see the reference to autism and and not surprising at all. See the prevalence of autism within this area, but I was just wanting to flag up the work
That’s being done within the borough at the moment on FSD fetal alcohol Spectrum Disorder. There’s currently being a gap analysis around the management of our first day. So it was just to ask both the Anna Freud and Tim if they’ve had experience of fetal alcohol and the effects on esper as well.
But thank you very much for all you’ve done. >> HTH Room 104 – Council Chambers: Thank you very much for that councilor sizes so over to offices first, and then we’ll go to Dr. Leslie and Tim if we’ve got anything in response to cancer sizes question. Okay on the
Identification of autism would add that personally I come sorry what I’m always interim heads of sense. Sorry. forgot that and my substantive role is principal educational psychologist in Hackney, and I’ve been doing that job now for over 30 years and when I first started as an educational psychologist Our knowledge base
Was much smaller than it is now in terms of recognizing the types of behaviors. I think it’s really helpful of colleague from Anna Freud to talk about behaviors that we kind of put together to help us to identify autistic people. So back then in the last century
In terms of autism. We thought it was mainly boys. We thought they were mainly non-verbal had learning difficulties and had very what we call now stimming behaviors so flapping hands spinning, etc, etc. So it’s a very kind of stereotypical understanding of the kinds of behaviors the experiences of
Autistic children and people at that time. Now we’ve got much better or growing understanding I should say and I don’t know if anybody’s watched Chris packham’s inside our autistic Minds. That’s a really helpful way of understanding that kind of broader range of autistic people and particularly around girls and women our knowledge
Again has grown again in the last couple of years. So in terms of identification, we still have a point where some children Be easily identified as being autistic because they don’t fit the kinds of stereotypes that we have at the moment and often it is when things have gone too wrong and
That we then start thinking about is this another possible answer for some of the issues that we’ve seen. to support our understanding identification of autism. We have partnered with the autism education trust in Hackney. We’re in our second year of working with them. We’re working alongside co-producing the training
Materials with parents as is advice by the autism education trust and I’d like to think that Tim would add that that’s working very well at the moment as we expand that training across the schools in Hackney. with regard to fetal alcohol syndrome or just touch on that very quickly again. We’re in a
Very early stage nationally internationally of understanding the groups of behaviors that help us to identify children with those needs, but I think we can all agree that we’re considering them in that spectrum of neurodivergence, which has very many shades. Thank you very much for that Von. I just like
To ask a follow-up and it’s interesting for you to say that you know, we’ve come a long way in terms of being able to identify. What are the the well not just looking at the stereotypical The Stereotype of an autistic child. We may have had decades previously, but
What’s integral to this is whether the parents and the schools the staff and the schools know this because we may have the confidence that we’ve got that knowledge and expertise where it needs to be with the professionals. who are specialists in these areas, but what came through from the
Parents was a distinct sort of sense of alarm about the lack of awareness and within our schools, which is particularly challenging thinking that we’ve got a lot of young teachers as well that you think that this is an integral part of the teacher education to to be able
To spot what we know is something that is is very very common and that a lot of children with autism will be in mainstream settings and So yeah, I just wondered if if we’re confident that there is sufficient awareness among local schools and other educational settings of autism
And ADHD and which may help to lead to earlier identification and if there is an Autism training offer to Local Schools or other educational settings, sorry, I think we’ve got to follow up and we’ve got two people angling for it to answer that question here. So And I
Think the the other aspect of this in cancer Conway’s original question was really about support for yeah for autistic children, I think also in their families is as well. Really? Yeah, so I think I mean, what’s what’s the offer in that and you know, and how does that
Intersect this issue? Thank you. Yeah, and I think that’s the complicated piece of working in terms of support Pathways, but there’s various pieces of work going on across the system. So, of course the autism education trust, which I think Yvonne is going to speak to in
A moment. There’s been a huge project of offering very comprehensive extensive training to schools, but I’ll say more about that because everyone’s got more detail and likewise in schools. We’ve had whams up and running now in the you know in all of the school’s bar two or three actually for
The last some schools for the last five to six years in some schools for last four to five years, which does provide exactly what Tim’s referencing in terms of a whole school approach to a whole range of presenting well-being and mental health needs including or Autism and autism presentations
And some of the the intersectionalities between Autism ADHD and mental health difficulty or lack of, you know, Paul well being and how that might been impact on school attend. overall in terms of the support Pathways, that’s a more complicated piece of work because that has to be
Something that’s delivered by Across the system and and so within the sort of the the cam space, for example, we’re in the middle of a Pathways. We’ve had a demand needs analysis carried out and we are now formulating those Pathways to create a much more. cohesive smoother experience
Journey for service users for Children and Families, but also to as we mentioned in a previous scrutiny meeting a large backlog that every area in the country is experiencing as a result of pandemic and the cessation of of assessment clinics mostly because well all the reasons but particularly because of the in-person
Element that assessment diagnosis or assessment requires. So there’s the piece of work around assessment Pathways is ongoing is we’re in the middle of it. We hope it’s going to you know end in a much better experience and a shorter wait for those assessments but around that we are also taking
An emotional health and wellbeing partnership approach to The Wider picture both from prevention and celebration of neurodiversity right through to what happens after a diagnosis. What are the support? What are the what is the support? Our community and our system and for autistic people children and families, and that’s a piece of
Work that Sarah and I working on as a subgroup of the emotional health and well-being partnership. So we’ve got a number of activities underway and the intentions that we will deliver on a number of actions contained in the action plan. For the emotional health and well-being partnership. So at
The moment there is a lot of work going on around autism and but it isn’t all one whole piece that we can clearly communicate to our communities to our to our population and that’s a piece of work. that’s underway. There are pieces of support work in lots of different
Institutions whether that’s through cams whether that’s through education and you know and the whole raft of community and voluntary sector organizations who are doing that work already. So it’s not a perfect answer but it’s to say that we know we know that we don’t have a coherent one, you
Know one plan or one strategy, but we are working on it and we’re working it as a system at the moment. Thank you. Did did you want to come in if or not you? Wanted to come back to identification. I don’t know whether counselor young wanted to add something there. You
Have a follow-up Council Young. Okay, I’ll come back. I’ll come back to work some conscious that we’ve also got to go to to Dr. Leslie and Tim on the the point about fetal alcohol syndrome, but if you did want to just come in on the point on identification I think there
Are several issues and ones actually is kind of societal issue and but going back Tim rosed in his presentation one of the things that parents ask for and say is please listen to me and we have and this is where the color societal bit comes in. We have some belief systems
That without a formal diagnosis a child adult cannot kind of identify as being neuro divergent or autistic. So unless for teachers often unless that child has that formal diagnosis. It’s very hard to adjust the behaviors that the environment Etc that the necessary to make that the reasonable adjustments all of
Those things and to be able to meet the needs of that child and I think for some adults it is difficult for them to kind of adjust their thinking and it kind of comes back to we talked about in Psychology having a social model of disability. And that’s where actually it’s not
The person with the disability who’s having the difficulty. It’s Society that’s disabling the person also for some families in some cultures being identified as having a special educational need or a disability is not seen as a positive thing. So we’ve got several kind of societal and interpersonal things that we
Need to take in consideration when we’re thinking about identification. So go back to the autism education trust and one of the why we are working in Partnership and co-producing the training is to bring that lift experience to the training that’s being delivered to schools and settings. So they have hopefully a better
Understanding not only of how to identify but also help best to meet the needs of autistic children another thing to out there as well is if you’ve met an autistic person or autistic child, you’ve met one person just as in the kind of rest of kind of society So there’s
Also a need to understand and get to know that individual in order to be able to make those risk numbers adjustments make that profession which in a busy school environment can be quite taxing and and difficult. Plus we need to also bear in mind that again government places.
And Society does places huge store on the league tables Etc examine attainment Etc part of that and trying to balance all of those needs while keeping attainment up becomes quite challenging for schools. Really quickly and what’s the current waiting time for diagnosis of autism in Hackney?
It depends because our Pathways have been variable. So we’ve got different providers offering assessments. We have got a large backlog waiting list for about 500 children. which means that there could be a weight, but it depends on comorbidities. So if there’s a child with the particularly and significant presentation and
Mental ill health, then it’s possible that that you’ll be traged to be assessed sooner in order to help the formulation and the diagnosis, but you could It for up to a year and a half currently. So it’s always a risk that mental health will deteriorate during that time.
They may well miss out an education and yes, but I would go back to the I mean like yes, I can’t argue with that. But I would go back to the to the point that Yvonne made which is that some people don’t want to be assessed Some people do want
To be assessed for all the varying reasons that people either want to know not know have a label not have a label and I think the the key point that needs to be taken forward in all of this is that it’s we need to support presenting needs as opposed to support
Only if there is a diagnosis in place, so that’s not to undermine the significant issue that every area in the country’s facing around backlogs for autism assessment, but we should be looking at each individual trials and thinking about what do they need to flourish and do well
And so in that context? Psychological can I just add as well to that but that’s again why we’re using the autism education trust training materials because we understand that the environmental factors are often the big impact for for children and in managing their sensory needs Etc. So the
Training is there to try and help that so we don’t necessarily need to have a formal diagnosis or an education Health and Care plan in order to understand and meet the need. the children but I suppose it’s also true that you know some funding of Education Health and
Care plans does depend on formal Diagnosis is a sort of interconnection that not necessarily but some of the specialist proficient so some of the additionally resource provision that we’ve opened those need a diagnosis and some special schools or so need to diagnosis, but the majority of children and autistic children
Really can have their needs met within a mainstream school with the right environment. Can I make my colleague? Sarah has just reminded me that in terms of the supporting of presenting needs or assessment no assessment that diagnosis. No diagnosis children. Don’t only get support from cams or from
Schools that are quite often on other services case though. For example, specian language therapy is a very significant area that supports autistic young people again with or without a diagnosis treating treating presenting need. Thank you very much. And just over to Dr. Leslie and Tim if you had anything on them cancer sizes
Question around fetal alcohol syndrome, and then I would come to you cancel. um, just really enjoy that thorough discussion actually from colleagues and so lovely to hear the energy about the work and really complicated issue. I’ve got nothing to add that’s anything special about fetal alcohol system just to
Acknowledge that I would just want to just emphasize again this issue about early identification and prevention with this cohort of children and the issue about diagnosis is not unique to the sparrower. Obviously. It’s a really fraud issue about weights up and down the country but what I would
Say is that if we can really help parents as well as schools understand the presenting as huge and then some of those strategies that I was mentioned we can go a long way at Wild children might be waiting for more identification. I there was no one in my survey
He mentioned them if you hadn’t abnormality symptoms, I’m aware of it, but I haven’t no sick come up and one thing I would say, which is already being said several times as having said that, you know diversions and this needs to be looking through the edge of neurodiversions. Diagnosis
Isn’t the issue inclusion is the issue and no, you know, there’s a previous meeting you actually talked about how this may impact on schools. exclusions and so on and I think the point I would like to make is is that by creating, you know some kind of suggestions
I’ve made and making skills more inclusive. That should cover a child’s. Whatever the diagnosis or whether they have diagnosis or not, and I think that was a really important point about being needs LED. Of course, it’s really important to training nationally should require more training on neurodiversions. but
Effectively if you’re looking the individual child is needless issue And and one of the things is, you know, absurface a small number of children, but we do know that more and more children are unhappy at school good child report and there could be certainly reasons around that but it means that
There are a number of large numbers of children who actually getting to school but who are unhappy there and that’s not a great state many child being abusive learning or the future so I suppose what I’m with the heart. This is saying if we look at Absa School distress and make schools more
Approachable inclusive to those children, not on effect could be tremendous for a whole range of other children. Thank you very much for that both Council young, please. >> Sarah Young (Cllr): A higher you thank you. You just answered my first question My second question is just about
It’s really interesting here in these ideas about that. There’s not actually a need for a diagnosis in order to you know, put in place. what a child needs. I’ve just will be interested to know how far we’re seeing that response within secondary schools in Hackney and just aware as a
Parent that you boot camp Academy that that isn’t what I see just isn’t why I see it isn’t what my church children of experienced or their friends. So be I suppose I’m looking for reassurance. That schools are responding positively. To the idea that actually they can put
In place. what a child needs without a diagnosis and the report specifically saying You must put X >> HTH Room 104 – Council Chambers: Yep. we’ve got a few few follow-ups just very quick follow up to that which is specifically around how schools are applying their behavior policies.
And what advice Hackney’s providing for instances where children have either a diagnosis or when they’re not just a presenting with the need. And did you also have a follow-up? I think I probably come in a bit later on because I just wanted to respond to that last comments a comment about what
You’ve asked just from my own personal context as I had teacher but I suppose I’ll come in at the end if you’d like me to. It’s a work in progress. So I’m presuming it’s quite it’s a challenge. It’s early days. Well because for us as a commission Behavior policies
Come up a lot. So they come up within the context of school exclusions. And if we hearing that you don’t have to make adjustments for children only if they have a diagnosis. The clearest example of where you would adopt that approach would be the application of the behavior policy, right? So,
You know is its attention for you know, like if you’re hearing stories that we’ve heard from parents about the children’s experiences around food and around lunch and around the needs or their sensory needs around wanting to be in particular spaces if we’re going to have a blanket
Approach of one size fits all and you get a detention if you take this box. Then I can’t see how if our schools are persisting with such an approach that we are able to be. To be honest, I don’t know how we’re actually even able to be inclusive for the children. who
Do have a diagnosis let alone the ones who don’t so that feels like it’s a particular point of contention and Tony and you probably answered this but initially what I would say is I know. We need to be making reasonably adjustments that that is the law in
The equalities like 2010 in the children and families act Section 3, which government special educational needs again. It talks about making reasonable adjustments for all children the majority of children having their educational needs met within mainstream settings. And with that belief system is here and present in Hackney in schools.
And in the education by kind of come back to that tension between High attainment good order in schools the government messages around behavior in schools Etc. Which is not quite counterbalanced with those other parts of the law that I’ve just mentioned and that’s why my it may have seemed to
Live a glib answer of it’s a working progress, but it comes back to that kind of societal pressures Etc. Not everybody is seen as having different and how that’s managed and again going back to the children and families that not every child needs a plan. Not every child needs to diagnosis those
Reasons of us adjustments should be there as described in in the law. I wouldn’t say that. that was a glib response say it was one that was fairly consistent with what has come up for us. I think when we speak to parents when we also speak to representatives from Happy
Youth Parliament when we speak to young people when we spoke to young people as part of the work that we did around school exclusions, and there’s so there’s a reason why we’ve decided as a commission to look at school Behavior policies, and this is one of them and
Paula think you wanted to come in Yeah, did you did you want to come in later or? Well, let’s just share a perspective. Obviously. I’m a secondary head and I would agree with some of the comments that have been made around the support that we ship have within our schools.
So in terms of the global support that we receive we work with the warms program winter with Hackney young Hackney as well. So there’s port for young people who are you know, who’ve got sent needs are those who’ve got autism as well. I don’t, you know School my school we
Take a graduated approach. to students who’ve got autism and in terms of absences as well and a Doctor Leslie, you spoke earlier about push factors and the impact that bullying and friendships can have an esport. I mean in our school, we do have mediation for young people. So
If there’s a falling out between young people we deal with that in school. So we avoid our push factor that you mentioned there. So, you know a lot and sometimes parents don’t even know about this and I know you’ve spoken to parents, but but you know schools do quite a
Lot behind the scenes that are not necessarily shared with with families, you know, certainly within my school for example to come back they’ll issue of absenteeism. You know, you talk about as well we we have a program that we call our first day phone call, for example so teachers are formed
Teachers are encouraged to make that first day phone call a welfare. call say notice you daughter or son wasn’t here in school today. She okay. She likely to come back to school tomorrow and you get that sort of encouragement to return sooner rather than later. So, you know, we work with Hackley
In terms of the the education well for officer to do home visits to get students back into school there are times when we we’re appropriate and on a limited basis we do offer a phase returning to school. So we’ve got students who’ve been away for a long time and there’s
Anxiety about returning we may say okay for this week you come in half a day for the first three days and we build it up and by the following week you’re back in school. So there’s lots of little strategies that we use Sports students to get them back into
School the point you made about to ensure that there is flexibility in our Behavior policies that’s in place. So we don’t apply the same rule across the piece for all students because we do know students with autism. They have a different threshold and we we try different strategies. So
Graduated approach to help them rather than giving them the same sanction that we’d otherwise give to other young people. So, you know, we, you know remain on facing school and I can speak. Some other schools that I’ve seen that we’ve worked in collaboration with all the system leaders within
The system across Hackney to implement strategies from shared learning. There’s one local school. I know they have a program called send first. I got wind of that through my sip and I’ve asked my send Co to go in there and and see what she can learn from that we reward
Students who come into school regularly to encourage attendance and punctuality and to reward effort that they make in terms of progress. So, you know. I would say that. Some of these practices are not always shared globally. We don’t always put that out there to parents and sometimes there
Is a bit of asymmetric information. there, you know, we screen students the point that you made about not all students being being assessed and and being supported because they’ve been diagnosed for autism or you know, we have a graduated approach and we we provide the support that that is
Needed for young people. We work with Hackney. For example, we’ve brought in the same team to do some specific training around autism to give teachers the tools on how to meet the needs of those young people. So but you know, We have you know, I can’t say that not sit here
And tell you that we fix the problem because it’s it continues to emerge and you know, there are issues around funding for us as well. There’s a higher proportion of students coming into our schools in my school in particular that have got these these needs complex needs and it’s about you know
Ensuring that the training continues to develop to meet those changing needs and I think you know, I see that a lot of schools. You know, when I visit them that there is a there is a desire to meet the needs of those students with with these challenging, you know
Circumstances and the question around getting students into school. I know it’s a bigger problem. We’ve got issues around. you know housing is also another factor to think about. I just recently I had a student who joined my school in your admission. two weeks a fortnight ago and then this week
That child is relocated to Coventry and they’re gone and then you get that instability there and there are the needs that are underlying and you know, I may know about the child’s needs in terms of your autism and so on and then get to another school and then they
Start from Ground Zero again, so, you know, those are some of the challenges that we face but Think schools within Hackney from my experience of two schools. I’ve worked in in Hackney are very very committed to supporting the needs of students with autism and there’s lots and lots of
Training involved in that because if you don’t offer them the support then everything falls apart. It not only impacts them but those other students who are not impacted by autism. Thank you very much, Andy. Who thank you chairman. I’d Echo Andy’s comments. Hackney schools the head
Teachers in the main like I come across there is a design there is a willingness to to actually go the extra mile to to meet the needs of our children young people and keep them in and mainstream schools as possible evidence proving that I don’t recall Hackney for the
Last few years only excluding a child who’s looked after despite the complexity in need. and the numbers of children and young people with statutory Education Health and Care plans are excluded a lower. So we whilst we recognize that there’s exclusion numbers permanent exclusion numbers are
Not where we want them to be but we do look at these we scrutinize the data we challenge we support but I’ve not met one hat you had teacher where there wasn’t a willingness to make reasonable adjustments following on from Evans comments regarding behavior policies Behavior policies are a framework their
Advisor. It’s guidance seek to be consistent as possible. But I have our head teachers do deploy reasonable adjustments consistently factoring in to all available evidence. I’m thinking around. What’s the best possible outcome to move things forward? without the exclusion conversation here and we will again I’m sure we’ll
Look at the data and we’ll look at those outliers and we will Challenge and we will Challenge and we will challenge where there are patterns whether a Trends whether afield with a riscope for challenge, but I will not entertain us having blanket approaches where we are saying. Hey teachers or schools
Are failing regarding behavior policies of policies. Are there our head teachers operate as effectively as possible within a national framework of Daring to inclusion and behavior standards as they’re expected. So and as they are held to account by the regulator in addition to Austin doing a regulatory framework our
Schools use best and others to implement these policies as effectively as possible, but we recognize that the needs of some of our children young people incredibly complex where there’s weak practice where there’s inconsistent practice and there’s a role of the local authorities statutely to challenge but in the main in
The main Behavior policies and the schools are there as a framework and our schools will Implement them robustly, but we’ll always deploy reason adjustments flexibly in response to each and every specific case Thank you Paul. And you know that I’m probably gonna Thank you. disagree with much what you
Said, I think if we’ve got any. Child safeguarding reviews that note our Behavior policies of which I can remember to then that is enough for us to say that that’s a priority for us as a local Authority and it doesn’t matter for me if in the most part. We are confident
That our Behavior policies are being applied fairly. I think that a solid case has been made that the behavior policies that not just we have in Hackney, but that has been adopted by a lot of schools across the country do not have the evidence base to support their ability to be truly
Inclusive and I think that the evidence that that is the case is who are the children are being excluded and who are the children that we are hearing that are avoiding or are not attending school for whatever reason, so I think that for us it’s not about focusing much
Like when we move on to attendance, it’s it is about celebrating what we’re achieving but we’re only as we’re only as good as as the child who’s performing the worst in the borough, and and that’s why that’s our focus and will remain our Focus. I think as a scrutiny commission and
That is not to to denigrate the achievements of of teachers and the efforts that go in by Educators in the borrower and those of you who work here in the commission, but I think that we would be remissed and not be focusing on where things are not working. Sorry, I’ve
Got a few hands up and I am conscious that I want to bring in Martha also, and that we’ve got quite a few questions to go through. So can I have very brief contributions on this point, please and then we we’re going to move on to the question from Martha. I think
Tim you were first. Just the point on. you know, and this is a complex issue in schools. have a huge amount of work today and isn’t it? You know, there’s it’s a phenomenally difficult task and I certainly, you know, hugely appreciative of good practice that we’ve noticed. But I do
Think the overwhelming tenor of the report which was done without prejudice. We’re saying a critical points. There are significant. I would call them failures failure to work together with the power of the relationship is very much in the school’s control. So for example, if a school’s missing you’ve got powers to threat to
Find, you know, as to prosecute. Thank you. He doesn’t happen and schools are very sensitive about that. You still there under that under those conditions and without having a sort of equal standing. you cannot resolve these issues and some of the you know, the reason Justice is
A great phrase, but you know, what does it mean? So for example a child this is a real example a child. who’s you know level Which we know teachers really struggle with quite understandably They’ve delivered it prepared a lesson. There’s a kid there. He’s fiddling around he’s messing
Around he can’t control himself and you know, so what what happened well very often and certainly in the case. I’ve seen they get a detention. So you have a kid who’s got probably adhds, you know messing around what you do you put them in a room for now
Where they can’t do anything. So either they don’t go or they get worth. and then the impact of that is they get an exclusion of temporary. Exclude so that is an example of how rigid systems can escalate include an exclusionary process and as those sorts of things
That I’d like to see reasonable adjustments apart, and I know schools do great things about this. I know they have cars they give to people and you know, that’s why I’m so keen on sharing best practices the evidence you talk about You know, it’s not it’s not applied reasonable adjustments is It’s
A phrase which isn’t always kind of disseminated with the equality that it’s sort of Presumed and and I would go back to you know, I I am I’m sure everyone comes into this was a very best intentions, but but what I found and what research has increasing me
Telling us. Is that the relationship between the school? and the parent is not working when you get very critical issues and I can give you references for that and it’s in my report and that’s something that has to be normalized as we has to have a sense of equal
Basis and as my main points are if that relationship doesn’t work and it isn’t working. Conflict there will undo. The potential the child to get back and integrate itself back into school. Thank you. and Council Benny Lubbock I just wanted to drill down a little bit into
What you were saying Paul about challenging whether our outliers in terms of how the behavior policies are enforced. Could you give a sense of the kind of challenge that Hackney has provided, you know, obviously not going into specific into your cases, but you know, what’s the scale of
That kind of challenge? Has that been widespread? you see scope for more of a challenge on that? Thank you in response. The first point I think everybody everybody would have would agree. That’s the importance of making sure that our schools have positive working relationships their parents and sometimes unfortunately that
That doesn’t work as desired and and sometimes the outcome it doesn’t end well for the private party so I can call schools are committed to where Possible having positive work in relationships of all of their their families. It’s in everyone’s interest to to make sure that they do work together,
But I think it’s as say without saying it does happen. There was a breakdown so we recognize that this system that it’s working with thousands and thousands of children young people not just across and across the UK. Unfortunately. There are some shortcomings there, but I think where we
Recognize Imports at schools we use best and others. Sorry best and others to to do that with regards to escalation. We do have our lives. You’re absolutely right. I’m not going to comment on any particular scenarios but everything from our work with the regional schools commissioner to regular
Meetings with the department for Education winners and need for escalation to in or having informal conversations scaling up to formal conversations to calling head teachers and if it’s an academy trust in the conversations as well and if need be using our our leaders that we have our disposal in
Terms of escalation to departure education and the Regional Schools commissioner and also our relationships with offset. This is something that during my time here led by Jason and his team. We’ve lost some very strong relationships now with often and the DFE in terms of regularly after terminally monthly meetings so we can use
Those so we need be can maybe think about thematic inspections with a focus on particular is a concern as well. So through that relationships-based practice. We are known a position to escalate if we need to Escalade, but we are also now in a position to try and
Address some of these issues informally before we need to get to informal stage an example being that we had two particular schools. last year. 22 23 Academic Year who’s exclusions of a disproportionately high considering when Benchmark of the rest of acne we had what we call in meetings when we have
Those conversations. We look at the days. Look at the numbers and break down the reasons for exclusions and those two schools in particular are amongst the low around this year. And sometimes it’s holding the mirror up those schools and saying help me understand why your school is responsible for
Such a high percentage of our exclusions locally. And what is it about what’s going on Is this stands this year people’s issue. So we talk about how can we support the school because it’s coming from a position of support and sometimes it’s a CPD issue. Sometimes it’s a systems issue. Sometimes it’s a
Particular challenging your group in which case we have to say, but the starting point is how can we work together on this not about But whether it’s need for escalation and unfortunately plan rest assured where we’re in that space where we do use our roots of escalation and have been
Encouraged to do so, I both and the DFE. Martha can I bring you in now, please? >> Martha Newman: Hi. Yeah, so I think you also need to consider the different cultures with different different schools. So I go to a grammar school and it’s just so unbelievably toxic just the
Focus on how children perform and I can’t imagine how it is for neurodiverse people but for neurotypical people like I have remember having very distinct memories and year eight. That’s what 12 13 year old children. just having panic attacks about kind upcoming parents evenings and things like that and I feel
Like if you’re driving children, especially children that young with nothing like GCSE is coming up to a point where they’re having panic attacks on a pretty regular basis and there is overwhelming pressure from all areas. Not just the school, but Also very often parents as well. It’s just an unbelievably horrible
And toxic environment for so many people and I can’t imagine if you then have additional needs or things that need to be met. I can’t imagine how much more difficult that much that >> HTH Room 104 – Council Chambers: Thank you very much for that Martha And for everybody else’s purposes and
Martha’s a member of Hackney youth Parliament and Mayor Bramble, please. Thank you. chair just to touch on some of the points that you touched on your right. There’s an opportunity to celebrate what we do. Well really, please that our primary schools have not permanently excluded any child
Since 2018 and I think there’s a lesson to be learned there to think about how when children transition across into the secondary sector that we continue to tell those children. Well, I think Paul’s right. You are seeing a willingness from head teachers to work cooperatively with us on this,
You know, 90 7% of our schools are good to outstanding, but I do believe we can have those high standards and have children included within the system. We have already engagement unit. They’ve seen 300 children 97% of those children have been now remained in school that are risk of
Exclusions, but there’s a couple of things what can we do before we get to that critical point, so it’s more inclusive before we even need that engagement to really engage back into the system. Anything you can do around schools. I think you know it’s a bit uncomfortable
For me to say this. Well, maybe more uncomfortable with people to hear them and say we have to look at individual schools those schools that hire excluded than other schools and those schools that aren’t that don’t have the high exclusion record. What can they pass on to other
Secondary schools, and we have to listen to the lived experience of the children and the parents and carers of this experience and hear what they’re saying and take that and make sure it feels validated and not just excluded. So absolutely Will Champion our schools and acknowledge the work
That they doing but the data is telling us something about what’s happening here in Hackney, and I think that with the Fantastic schools that we’ve got There’s an opportunity to improve the outcomes of our children young people even more. So, thank you. Thank you very much. So
I’m conscious that we don’t have very much time, but we’ve got Ambitions to get through many more questions. So I’m not always very good at this as a chair. I’m going to have to be very firm has to be one contributor. no context answer to the question, please and and
Questions as questions as opposed to statements. we’re going to move on to traded offer for school and attendance. Counseling Lubbock, please. Yes, so noted that only 20% of schools are currently buying into the trading officer about offer around School attendance, and we’re wondering whether or not you know, the relatively
Modest income of 90k is worth keeping it as a traded off. So rather than a universal officer, could that be funded through the the DSG? And in addition there was some talk around whether or not the data collection as part of that offer could be made Universal so that there could
Be some savings made around strategic targeting of resources and and other ways of addressing the issue. So I’m just wondering if anyone can speak to that and around around that trade. I might have one other question. Which is in relation to the universal offer. Also the
Noted that there’s 11 primaries for second reason one alternative provision of declined. Do we know why there’s a reluctance? for the universal offer in terms of the University of do we know why there’s a reluctance for those schools to participate and in the case of the AP as a service
Commission by the local Authority should engage with the school in tenants team be an integral part of the commissioning contract. I’ll answer the first part and I’m Catherine cracknell. I’m the head of well being an education safeguarding so nice to meet you people I met before thank you for that
Question And yeah our School attendance service has a universal arm that delivers and supporting all of our hacking schools, including our independent schools and which has been really successfully embedded in our independent sector. It does have a traded arm as well to offset some of the costs because the statutory
Obligations that are going to come into and we’re going to be statutory as of August 2024 and they come with no additional funding they’re perceived as not an additional burden. However, realistically in Hackney, I think actually nationally they are an additional burners and particularly in Hackney where
We have such a unique herodian dependent School sector, so it has been an expensive service to fund and we’ve done it a year ahead of becoming statutory as well because we think it’s really really important the service trades. in 20% of schools within those schools. We’ve seen some really fantastic. index casework and
Within that case work whole school learning and adaptations of approaches. It’s very much a support first service and and the service has been praised and for its focus on that by the DFE the guidance that we’ve embedded. We worked really closely with our educational psychology service and it bombs
Our pet and and so it is very much looking at psychological safety and emotional safety and the well being of our first. It is there is a there is a barrier I suppose in and and the traded service. is part of that it’s costly it’s expensive if we offered it universally
Arguably we would get a better completely universally and we offered that additional casework as well to all schools. Arguably. We would get a better understanding of need within our schools we would get a full of data set and I think attendance data is so important to the sort of the precise
Allocation of resources across so many and areas of Education notably. It’s difficult because you know you see our budgets. we’re operating within really limited resources. It’s definitely something that we are considering though because I think the benefit of having that data. Potentially does offset the fairly modest income
Of the service. Thank you for the question. Hi, I’m Nikki peeling. I’m a school tendency support team coordinator and just going to come in at this schools that haven’t taken up the offer and I think there’s kind of two main reasons for that one and
There are a number of schools historically who have brought into a different traded service outside of Hackney and there is kind of a protection around this they kind of work with that service for a long time and sort of there’s a view of we don’t need any additional
Support from Hackney at this moment in time. We’re okay. Thank you. So that’s for a fair few of the schools. And then there is also a few schools whereby we are in contact through kind of the legal side of things but the support first side they sort of have covered
Themselves in some way and so don’t kind of want us involved in that conversation at that point. So I think there’s kind of two main reasons that they haven’t taken us up as Catherine said we have got the guidance going to be statutory from September, so we’re hopefully with that. That we
Can open up the conversation a bit more with those schools and get that data and have those conversations. I think be really positive. Thank you very much. And we now move on to questions about cams. Please if anybody has any. And I’ll start with one so from the focus group parents highlighted
The difficulties in getting access to cams assessments and supports to assist the diagnosis of their child’s condition. what support they might need delays or complications in getting a diagnosis for their child. Sometimes limited support offered by schools and As they want to prove. I mean I suppose we’ve covered this but
But perhaps it might be useful to understand it in the context of other conditions because I know that we’ve spoken primarily about autistic spectrum disorder and ADHD, but I wonder if many of the parents that we spoken to had mentioned that and also even from Tim’s report that many of these children
Have got multiple needs not least seeing anxiety coming up quite a bit. So I’m just wondering about the difficulties that these parents are experiencing Chambers support generally and what can be done to improve these pathways. Did you okay? so I didn’t introduce myself earlier for anyone that doesn’t know me.
I’m so McElroy. I’m senior program manager for the cams Alliance and the emotional health and wellbeing partnership. So I don’t have it have any of my service lead colleagues from the cams providers here tonight. And it’s it’s quite a broad question that speaks to some parents experiences. I’ll give a little
Bit of context around which I think everybody’s quite familiar with although as a parent. That doesn’t help which is that we do have. a huge growth in the number of referrals into cam services are doubling of referrals since pre-pandemic we face in in this year and years getting the next
Year’s Finance Arrangements. We see almost a zero growth investment coming into City in Hackney, which is even more challenging given the context of trying to work within the resources that we already have but also recognizing that we don’t have any growth investment for next year. It’s
Not an uncommon, you know, it’s a well known piece of information that can Services have struggles and I’ll continue to struggle to keep up with the level of demand. What I would say is about the pathways. is that in the last year and a half we’ve develop we’ve looked at our Pathways.
We understand that there are delays that it is confusing to both referrers. Children and Families waiting for initial assessments appointments and then for treatment to begin we are aware that within City and Hackney that we have a very we have a Chambers Alliance which means up to nine different
Mental health service Providers, which can be very confusing to to users whether that’s referrers other services or whether it’s children and families. So in response to that understanding we the large piece of work around creating a single point of access, so that is a single point of access
Which includes Specialists can so that’s tier three, but also first steps, which is eight here too. So early intervention Primary Care psychology service, and also including cams disability for for neurodiversity and learning disability. So all three of those services will now accept referrals through a single
Point of access, which is Staff by colleagues from across those provider organizations. Which we we know immediately eliminates at least 15% of referrals, which were duplications or which got stuck in the system of allocation. We’re all sitting a much faster response to families who are waiting to be assessed and
Treated but it is as it’s a quote of on from an earlier response. It is a working progress and ultimately we do not have enough resources to respond in as timely way as we would like to the level of demand. the amount of need that there is amongst children and
Families for these services and just to to remind the commission that the approach that we’re taking City and Hackney is to recognize that cams is not the Silver Bullet camps. It’s not the only answer to the needs of children and young people and families in terms of their emotional health
And their mental health and well-being that we’re trying to support a system-wide response and approach and this comes back again to some of the discussion we hand around and that we should be responded to Children’s needs not to diagnose so We know that a huge number of children are experiencing
Anxiety at lots of different levels whether that’s it a normal anxiety that anyone might experience when they wake up on a Monday morning and think about the day or the week ahead of them. That’s children and adults right through to the topic of this evening’s commission, which is around emotional-based school
Non-attendance, which is surely sort of that very high level of presenting need around anxiety in the challenges. They’re going to school is going to face that we all play a part in responding to those needs and one of the things I want to come back to actually was to
Think about some of the interventions or some of the responses to emotional based on avoidance that are in development and that’s contained within the paper that we submitted from acne education. So for example, we will shortly we’re in recruitment. We’re just about to have that for two posts.
Which Nikki’s teens School. Team will be holding which is around an earlier identification of potential emotionally based school non-attendance. So we are really clear that unfortunately when when a child is already established in a pattern of not attending school for those reasons that actually that’s already gone too far quite
Often those children will always be undercounter will be undercams quite shortly. We’re hoping to divert those cases by recognizing them and seeing them earlier and taking some active and proactive approaches to working with that family that child and that school to think about and support that thinking around reasonable adjustments a
Range of possible approaches to meet that need for it becomes entrenched and it’s much harder for that child to get back to school. You very much. just have a few legal interventions and penalty notices and then also on continuing to receive education. And and support for parents if any of you’ve got
Questions around that so I’ve got cancel Gordon. And I’ll probably have a question after. so I’m going to go on to Legal interventions penalty notices because obviously that’s one of the fact one of the factors that play here. is that there is, you know, the possibility of the parents of children that
Don’t attend school being prosecuted. So I’ve just got a few points. I’d like to raise in this the data. We’ve been shown shares a sort of you know, very Asian across London boroughs. So it is really wondering whether there is a sort of you know system policy relation to prosecution’s across Hackney
Schools, and actually which body takes decision to prosecute the school or the local Authority and what are the sort of underlying policies and this school based or local Authority based? Just because we’re running out time. I think I may just go on to looking at the future as well is there’s
Been you guidance and School attendance published in February 2024, which potentially takes some more creative system enforcement. I mean, what is the plan really for working? what’s responses versus local authorities this new guidance and how you’re going to be working with schools in relation to that and you know,
And thank you. So currently we do have a local code of conduct over local Authority has a code of conduct and which gives the thresholds where new issue fines and for an authorized even an authorized absence over term time holidays or for any other unauthorized absence and as you
Say the guidance is changing and we’re going to move towards a national code of conducts of the thresholds will be different and from where we currently are and it will look slightly different and based on that National hood of conduct. We’re currently kind of in the process of understanding what
That guidance looks like how we’re going to translate that into a new local guide and work with schools and other partners to sort of make that a local levels at the moment. It’s a working progress for how it’s going to look going forward and to sort of make that in the
Local level. And I mean we’ve we’ve had on other occasions statistics presented the commission about the increase selective Homer education, and I expect we’ll probably all agree that there’s probably going to be some overlap with that cohort of children and these cohort of children do you think that you
Know emotionally based School avoidance is one of the reasons for elective Homer education. also, obviously the fear of prosecution and oh we concerned that’s something that might increase Okay now yeah there there is highly likely there is a there is a crossover and we don’t record formally because we’re
Not obliged to or asked to reasons for parents to electably home educate. They always have the right to ought to do that and We do here anecdotally that that parents might feel that school is not a PlayStation their child can be happy and that isn’t making adjustments that
They’d like to see to be made and yeah and there is that punitive response and that can that can trigger things as well. And our ehe service goes out to homes and undertakes a suitability assessment and it’s qualified teachers that go and do that. So they’ll go out and
They’ll meet with the family. First of all just to check everything’s okay and then within the 12 weeks statutory period and to undertaken education suitability assessment if we feel It through open discussions with with the family, but actually it was not. An open choice, I suppose to undertake education.
It wasn’t something they particularly wanted to do. It was actually a choice that was taken in what was felt to be the lack of others and then we will support that family and through various routes to get them back and to get that child back into onsite education. He
Just have a couple of final questions around support parents and around continued sort of Education input. So from the focus groups of parents. It was apparent that children, who are emotional based non-attenders are often at home with little or no educational input from any Source this confer the compound
Feelings of children in feeling left behind and a disengagement with education in a number of cases parents were paying for tutors to come into the home and accepting. This is a complex area can officers reassure the commission that continuing education offer to children who may be avoiding school is
Sufficient and accessible our officers confident that schools and the medical needs tuition service and the virtual school are working in tandem to ensure that this cohort of children continue to receive appropriate education. And yet the medical nutrition service is available to all children who have missed 15 days consecutively or otherwise
A school due to illness I would say around 80% of their referrals of for children who are experiencing and emotionally based school. not attendance. So is a really over-represented and health condition within that service. There’s a there is a huge amount of need and we rely on schools
Referring to us. And for that service one really positive thing that has come out of working closely with our newly established attendance service who sit within the same service area is that we’re able to use the data analyze it with the schools and start to unpick the reasons for children and non
Attendance and direct them where appropriate towards medical needs tuition service all alternative services. So, I think there’s been a real. Bonus, I suppose from that kind of cross-working. Can I add as well the bottom increasing number of requests for Education Health and Care needs assessment from this cohort of
Children as well, and it’s a really difficult area because the the children families that’s the scn codes of practice says that a plan should be To provide special provision. that isn’t already available within school and many of these children don’t have special educational needs as in the legal definition of
Special educational needs more difficulty accessing the curriculum compared to their peers and so it does put particular can be quite sort of difficult for families to understand that for school settings to understand that as well and it is beginning to put a bit of an additional strain
On the high needs budget because of that number of children needing very bespoke and special profession. Thank you for that both and just to sort of expand on that a bit. also and the number of parents of children with ebserver requiring more long-term supports highlighted that
They’re seems to be a missing educational setting and Hackney a halfway point between school and specialist provision and alternative setting in which they could continue to receive education in smaller quieter and classes or settings or which offered some respite to allow transition back into mainstream school. Is this a
Future role and envisioned for new regions College within the emerging alternative provision strategy and recognizing this might be some way of what’s the interim solution. Colleagues will recall that Karen Thompson our alternative provision commissioner has recently been to this forum setting out the plans we will turn to provision strategy
Which sets out the menu and proposals around the menu or alternative provision. And when we look at it’s not just new regions College. We are we have the boxing Academy. We have a number of additional resource-based Provisions in a number of our maintained schools, and there are lots of
Ongoing conversations about building our capability and capacity in that tattoo offer when we talk about our Universal offer, which is maintaining maintain sector our mainstream schools being tier one tier three is our specialist schools our specialist provision, but tier 2 is you’re saying chair is that Gap? Hackney actually
Compared to many other areas is reasonably provided for that will always be gaps. It’ll always be emerging meets and there will always be the conversations around how we change the designation have said provision and response to local needs, but I would disagree if anyone who says
There’s a fundamental Gap in Hackney. I would say it’s about how we repurpose that offer and make better use of it. Absolutely. Yeah, and those are conversations that need to take place and we will always have to keep that local offer under review which is a duty for for
Us all-time to take there are gaps, but there are also some positives about our offer in Hackney, but we have an AP strategy which Karen brought along to this forum recently which hopefully Colleagues how will remember which sets out our Ambitions in our key priorities and strategic games in this
Space? Thank you for I think it’s important to note that we’re just we’re very much reflecting the views and experiences of appearance that we’ve that we’ve spoken to use experiences are that perhaps that isn’t the case obviously just thinking about the work that we’ve done with alternative provision. There’s they are not
Our schools. So we’re unable to tailor those Provisions to the needs of the children that we know that we have locally. So whilst I know that they play in table role and I do I do think it’s fair to say that. gaps probably Cancel Bernie Robert. Yeah, just on those gaps that
The parents identified I think as well as providing something for the the children, you know to prevent that absence is also about transitioning back and that’s what they were saying that there wasn’t that that sense of a space which which would be able to help them do that. My question was actually
About links to Young Hackney and some of the trainings being delivered to help ensure consistent message and young Hackney a sporting 403 children experiencing ebony. So that’s quite a large cohort of there of their cohort they’re supporting but also quite a large proportion of the about 25% of the children
Experiencing in Hackney. So I’m just wondering what the impact of the cuts that were. the Council on that might be and also thinking about the more wider holistic approach of things outside of school impacting inside of school, you know more extracurricular activities making the school environment more pleasant and
And approachable. Like are there is that being considered as part of this holistic approach? If you want to come in on that point Jackie, yes, I’m Jackie Burke and the group directive for children education in respect of any savings. That might be earmarked against young Hackney. They haven’t been
Formally proposed yet and they haven’t been to any of the through any of the usual processes. so and not able to comment. What we do recognize is a huge impact that young Hackney does have on supporting adolescence children’s teenagers in our and our Borough and we’re very mindful of their
Experience, but there’s been no formal proposals about how they’re going to be met that being considered yet. And within the well-being education they’ve got in service in partnership with send we have been piloting this term and it’s been really successful and it’s due to expand next term a sort of an
Alternative offer for children who are out of Education long term. It’s been very very small to begin with but we’ve been using one of the children’s dentist in Hackney and offering a creative curriculum. So it’s led by teachers and it’s really under And by send specialism and by a well-being first
Approach developing those social skills, and that sort of graduated exposure to being in a more social environment. That’s very predictable and controlled and at the same time that the view the end sort of focus is to support those children to be in as typical an education setting as is possible for them. and
That kind of links into Yvonne’s point about how at the moment many of our children are simply considered within an ehcp and Education Health and Care plan lens whereas this is actually about meeting them where they are supporting them and hopefully sharing that learning with our mainstream schools and
Allowing children to access that on site here and Focused education, that’s their statutory, right? Thank you very much. And lastly. I just wanted to ask a couple of questions around support that we’re offerings parents. I think that we’re all particularly struck in you want to us question? Okay. I just
Wanted to say we’re all really struck when we had the sessions with the parents and we’ve picked these things up for various other sort of meetings that we’ve had and different events that we’ve attended as counselors hearing of parents who have been out of work and because they’re having to
Support the needs their children. It’s own. It’s only right that we Reflect that in these questions Council chart. Thank you chair. Yes. I I wanted to more or less come back to the point that Tim so eloquently made about you know, the priority being the child’s well-being. And so I wanted to
Ask, you know, the parents talked about. you know some very challenging behavior of the children at home. They were very eloquent about their the reasons that children were, you know, not going to school. So I just wondered what skill-based support and you know was offered to parents and how schools.
You know, perhaps they’re not now, but how could they work more collaboratively to ensure? there was a consistent approach, you know to encouraging, you know, the children to attend schools. So the school and the home were working from the same. If that makes sense. Thank you.
So I think it it depends where the level of need is for the child to a certain extent. So as a universal and preventative approach. through worms and mental health in schools teams. We offer a series of focused. anxiety workshops to both children and also to parents so
There is a lot of work going on through in that space. I’m also very conscious that we’ve got a lot of parenting groups happening in various Community settings. So for example at minicatesh in the Turkish Kurdish community at East and Children’s Center in the in the
Islamic community as well as parenting groups being offered by all of the cams services and a range of other for example within early years There are parenting programs being offered particularly. Most recently wished on a can speak to more comprehensively around the children and family hubs development. Where a series of
Solly whole parenting resources have been commissioned on our available already. So there’s a speak so much to the schools question. It does speak to the recognition that parents need tools and need resources and need support to to work at that sort of universal level when I’m just thinking about solihull
Which the children family helps this commission. that is very much an attachment focused or attachment based approach to Parenting thinking about how how what parents need to have in their toolkit to deal with their children’s these and so their own needs as parents. So there’s a lot of work going on
Around that and psychoeducation prevention early identification and Early Intervention when difficulties become more complex. So if I take the way that cams works for example both within for example First Steps. It’s here too and specialist cams at tier 3. You cannot work with the child individually, you have to work
With the whole family. So and I you know, that’s I don’t think any any cams clinician would disagree with that statement and wherever possible where the with an older child wherever the child is permitting their parents and their families to be involved in that treatment, whatever it might be that is
Exactly what those Services want to do. They know that they can’t you know, but if we locate the problem in the child and only treat the child, that doesn’t change their environment so I would say that in cases. I previously managed the what’s now called the medical needs tuition service. so dealt with
A lot of the situations that we’re talking about tonight, and I thought, you know, we worked very closely with County work very very closely with school. and of course with the child and family and we were looking for is quite often very slow Journey, but we’re looking to try out different approaches
To meeting that child’s needs. For example, Kate mentioned exposure therapy as a way forward. So where you you gradually stage, you know, and the journey of that child to support them to return to school attendance. It’s not always possible, but you try those things. We took many different approaches in order to you
Know, see what might work for that child and that family and in doing that work any Chambers clinician that was involved all the medical needs tuition service teacher was working at all times with the parent. Very much, you know a team effort if young Hackney was involved or if children social care was
Involved all of those Professionals in around that child and around that family would have multi-agency meetings or child team around the child meetings in order to discuss those decisions and those steps with with the the parents voice and where possible the child’s voice involved in that. So I think
That there is a huge body of existing good practice across the teens within City and Hackney around these more complex cases. I understand, you know, as Ivan said earlier. It’s a working progress as to how much schools are on board with that approach and I increasingly that’s that’s our
Job as professionals we go and work with schools and actually that development takes place quite often on the case by case basis as well as in response to the many different trainings and support services. There are available to schools to do that. I don’t know if that answers the question, but it’s
A sort of flavor of how we work around these. says In his family before you come in Yvonne. I just wanted to sort of expand on the support for parents bit of just a bit more just a very briefly because we run over now by 20 minutes. I’m
Very sorry for those of you waiting for the next item. I just wanted to ask about you know, what is the support that we’re offering to to parents and a lot of the parents that we spoke to said that the peer supports have been hugely helpful. So we have any plans
Do we think that this provision could be extended locally and also considering what my colleague had mentioned about the sort of conversation around the prosecutions. what independent legal advice is available to parents locally who maybe experiencing his children maybe and not and I mean also, I think the one
Things the research identified really was the importance of relationships between schools and you know parents who are jointly supporting children in this situation. I just really wondered what you know, being done to sort of develop models of best practice and I apologies because it just sent me to be
Really key thing. Thank you, and just to follow on from the points that Sophie made we published our own kind of local support guidance around and we’re called to episode then because we was still in that point there and last June we have been we’ve also produced a
Series of training to go alongside that in recognition that actually and calling from and avoids early intervention is better than waiting for children to To the point that the councilor mentioned there where they’re in their entrenched Behavior stuck in those patterns. And so we are we’ve been working very closely
With the attendance service to support that early identification of those patterns. We talk about those patterns in the guidance as well. So schools are able to spot it identify it early as well. We’ve got a chapter in there or section that talks very clearly about not just talking to families but
Listening to them as Tim raised in his in his presentation and the and the forage as well because often listening is where you start to one pick, what are the issues? What are the the barriers the training has started to get rolled with schools. Now we’ve provided a coffee morning as
Well for families to come and drop in we have employed last Autumn term for the first time two family coaches who provide not only one-to-one support for parents using a coaching framework, but also providing groups which are very well attempted to cross the borough. Looking at areas where they can
Also support their children in order to help them to feel more comfortable happier in school Etc. I think that I’ve probably missed something along the way there but we’ve we’ve also been linking up with Cam’s colleagues in education with attendance across the pieces. Well thinking about how we best
Coordinate all of the support, so it’s not disparate. to come and schools and we’re also bringing and hear my contacts you about this. We’re coming of coming together to create a sort of flow chart of sort of best practice around ensuring that relationship with school with her home and
Between home and school remains positive and the different ways of doing that. So we’re thinking about introducing things such as structure conversation training so that those difficult conversations that happen with between parents and school in those times. There’s sort of a structure around it and it can
Take away some of that difficult those difficult moments, but also thinking about what appropriate check-ins are and it’ll feel different Case by case, but it’s about giving schools and parents and everyone that equals safe from the beginning because I think that that if that first conversation doesn’t go as
Things are getting tricky. That’s when it becomes more and more difficult. So we’re trying to empower schools to sort of think and how to have those early conversations to keep that kind of positive relationship going from the beginning. So that is a working progress and it is going to
Involve lots of different colleagues and as well as parents to to come up with that structure. So that is that’s something that’s coming out soon. Thank you very much. I’m gonna have to bring this item to do you have a Final final word from Timmy I find what to say.
Thank you so much for this session, but also to say following what Nick is saying that has been saying and how coconut action is is incredibly helpful one of the things that was raised is people don’t understand parents understand the process one one person was very held up the absor document
Saying this is the first time that’s understood what the process was. So there’s an information there that can really help information gap, which if I can be Phil can help understand and perhaps You know assess where they are in the process and use it as a way to
Perhaps guide them through what’s happening for child doesn’t turning up to school. Very very briefly, please. Thank you. chair apologies my lateness. I’m true too. Need to meet with a school governing body before I came here today, but it may well have been mentioned at the beginning.
But if it wasn’t I just like to formally thank the officers and partners who worked together to put together an incredibly well written very comprehensive. Very clear. very very helpful paper. It’s I mean when I look at the amount of endeavor and work that’s got into this. I mean we’re talking about nearly
90 Pages here officer time with the support Partners. That’s a significant a lot of time energy resources got into that. So I’d like to formally thank the officers and their teams putting this together. Thank you. Thank you very much. And just thank everybody. Who’s has just been an incredible amount
Of effort that has gone in on all parts in the research that’s been done. but the presentation from and from the unemployed Center but also from the work of the parents and Tim in particular in pulling all of that together and And just yeah, thank you. everybody
Online also, so I think that we’re gonna have to reflect on on what’s emerged from today and in particular from the recommendations that that Tim and the parents who have experienced this first-hand and experience what this is meant for them in terms of services offered in in the borrow to
Think Out what recommendations we might be able to pull together. But thank you so much everybody. And thanks for your patience those of you have waiting to the next item and yet you by no means obliged to stay and so moving on to. Yes, by the way, we we’re gonna
Review the evidence and provide a short report to the cabinet member member and so item five people attainment. So the commission maintains oversight of people attainment in Hackney and is therefore and this is therefore a standing item within the work program of the commission. It’s attainment of children is presented at three
Stages for review for assessments at summer 2023. That’s early years Foundation stage Key Stage 2 and key stage four a range of demographic analysis is provided within the report to allow comparative assessment of people performance noting the variations in attainment achieved by different cohorts of pupils in previous years
Commission has requested further information from officers on local efforts to address the attainment gap for this item. We have Paul Senior Jason. morance and fanchich and And thank you all for also providing an incredibly concise reports. I have to say it’s worth noting that both reports have been.
Incredibly easy to navigate and really helpful for us as a commission. So thank you for that and the use of the graphics has been very helpful and So yes, we’ve got 45 minutes for this items. Can I ask officers to briefly set out key headlines from the report no
More than five minutes, please and then we can move on to Q&A, please. Thank you chair, and thank you. So for recognizing the efforts of officers working with the support of Partners to put together again another outstanding report. I to produce a report like this doesn’t happen by luck. It’s an
Exceptional report. It comes a lot of narrative. But at the same time draws the reader to identifying strengths with the system, but also at the same time the air is for development one the strength of the acne education system is that he knows itself very well performance of our schools are
Settings and the outcomes of children and young people compare very favorably with the Best in Class nationally. In fact in some area is pretty much Best in Class nationally when we have our conversations with the department for education and offset with regards to the performance of our schools and settings and outcomes of
Children on people and particularly also those vulnerable children the outcomes for Hackney vulnerable children again Compares incredibly favorably, so we recognize Got some good strengths, but we recognize also there are Eris development as we’re reminded often We know their area is such an exclusions that we
Really wish to do draw that and when we look at the attainment gap for a particular cohorts chair and colleagues here, we know that certain groups do better than others and certain groups. We have to think about our targeted approaches as well. But just to say I think
It’s a good report it reads. Well, it sets out what we do well, but it also sets that some of those ears that we need to focus on and work more closely with which our team in this area. I’m the Jason’s stewardship with the support of of senior officers such as Tim
Who leads on the early years phase and Anton and many others across our schools and settings working closely with our schools and settings. There’s lots of good collaboration Jason you want to give an overview as well. And so I think Tim why don’t you start? Why don’t we just go
Right into the subjects? I think that might just be the best Tim. Do you want to take early years? I’ll speak to primary and then Anton secondary. Yeah, thanks very much and good evening everyone. My name is Tim waldridge. I am early years strategy manager for hiking education and I’ll be
Talking to the early years Foundation stage data. I I hope the report is clear and just summarize situation, but I’ve just got a few points. I’d just like to draw your attention to specifically and maybe clear up a couple of things that might not is clear
As they ought to be I think the first thing to say, is that the report shows that children age five. continue to attain very well in line with other London authorities slightly higher and again slightly higher than National outcomes the early years data here is the only data set that includes
Information from the Independent sector from mainly from our haredi schools, and that’s not the case with other key stages. So I think it it’s helpful just to kind of clear up a couple of points around that figure two shows the difference in outcomes between children who attend State
Schools and children who attend our independent school sector and it’s slightly misleading and the cohorts are different. This the the children who attend maintain schools, that’s all the children. That’s all the children whoever they are the children who attend in the Independent Schools. They are only the summer born children.
Because we only collect information about attainment from those children who are still in receipt of funding. So if you’re born in the Autumn or in the spring term you have already turned five. You are no longer funded as part of your three and four year old free entitlement. We don’t
Collect the data. So it might be more appropriate to compare outcomes for just that the summer born children and the the summer Bond children. The outcomes is on figure four where you look at some of on then 59% of children attain a good level of development. So it’s more
Comparable. the outcomes in the independent sector are still lower those 388 children don’t do as well as comparable children in the state sector, but there are a number of factors affecting that I’m happy to go into later if people want to ask questions about it. um, the other thing that I think the
Report summarizes really really clearly is that as with National Data there is a gap between boys and girls there’s gap between children eligible for free School meals on those not eligible for free school males a gap between those who have English as an additional language and those
Who don’t and the gap between send children Who don’t have special education on needs the Gap in Hackney between those two groups with all those boys girls. Send not send them it is is a narrower Gap in hacker than it is National. but it is still a gap nevertheless and
It’s really interesting that this discussion about the the general follows on from the discussion about the specifics and that’s I’m sure that’s not lost on on anybody here when we come on to ethnicity data. um figure 5 shows very clearly outcomes for our African Bangladeshi And Caribbean boys
Is lower than the average across Hackney. And figure six shows how those groups compare with the same group nationally, and so our Caribbean boys compare favorably with Caribbean boys Nationally the same cannot be said for African boys and bangladashi boys. Um the final area I’d just like to
Draw your attention to is is the section on intersectionality which it which I’m sure you you recognize that that the ratio of boys and girls is 50/50 or thereabouts with all our ethnic groups. But the ratio of children or the proportion of children who are eligible for free School meals
Who have English as an additional language or who have sinned. varies according to each and for example 43% of the African children who were assessed are eligible for free School meals 43% and 62% of English as an additional language and that compares with of English Scottish Welsh who
Are eligible for free School meals and 5% who are eal. So we’re comparing quite different types of cohorts within this data. So figure 9 right at the end shows that each ethnic group has a different proportion of children with either none of those factors or one or two or three of those
Factors. to just by way of illustrating the start difference between ethnic groups 5% on the right hand side of that of that chart there and 5% of Turkish. cypriot Kurdish children have none of the above only 5% don’t have either preschool meals sen or eal or a
Combination of two or three of them compared to the bar on the far left-hand side, which shows 75% of English Welsh boys have none of those contributing factors that affect outcomes as we Illustrated nationally. Um, so I I think we’ve added that in into the previous years and the
Way we’re presenting the data because I think it helps it kind of develop a richness in in talking about the children a little bit more in terms of what we’re doing and what we’ve done and what we’ve got planned. I’m Fred. I haven’t gone into a great deal of detail there in
The report support to settings remains available either in terms of professional development, which is offered healthy early years initiatives or leadership and management advice. Although I think it would be remiss to say and and the managers of settings and child minders would would not thank me for not saying this
That continue to be struggles within the early years world they’re struggling with falling numbers struggling with business viability. They’re struggling with increase costs for their rent and leases and salaries and such like so some of those are weighing very heavily on our managers of settings. just delivering a
Business. So sometimes they find it challenging to access everything that’s on offer. I just I suppose the last thing I want to say and it builds on some of the the stuff which was mentioned earlier on in the earlier presentations that the children and family hubs. children centers continue to
Develop their offer one really good offer is the learning together program. So we’ve heard about the solid Hall so I won’t go on to that the learning together program is something that focuses exclusively on three year olds. It’s about working with parents in small groups to support language development. And it’s it’s
Currently in its kind of very early stages, but it will be developed much much more widely settings have all been told about it in schools are interested in taking up the offer of the program. It’s all about developing language, which is basically what is underpinning all of the
Attainment at the end Foundation stage. That’s it from me. I guess I’ll hand over to Jason. Think thanks everyone. Thanks very much. Tim. I’ll build on what she said by speaking about Key Stage 2 is in addition to being the assistant director. I lead on Key Stage 2. You will have
Seen in the headline data 70% of people’s achieved that Reading Writing and maths combined measure which Compares very favorably against 60% nationally, so that’s continuing to improve and that just draw your your eye back to the 2019 data. We’re actually Hackney was in line with national. so we fall and so actually we
Continue in upward trajectory even after the pandemic and indeed be compare favorably against 153 other education delays being sick overall behind some days that have much less deprivation than we see in Hackney and actually in writing. we’re no less than 50 in hilarious. So it’s it’s very
Positive data most groups not all when you compare to National perform better. particularly for disadvantaged pupils and also SE and D pupils with special educational needs and I will just point out that children who receive scen support so not children on Education Health and Care plans, but it’s the end support
Perform double that group nationally 47% versus 24 percent when we’re looking at the groups and children in the Heritage groups. children of Caribbean Heritage and Turkish Kurdish Turkish separate Heritage continued to perform lowest compared to groups within Hackney compared to national and I remind you we don’t have National comparative
Data for the Turkish Kurdish Turkish cipria group, but the Caribbean the Caribbean pupils, they do perform better than that group nationally and you can see and figure 17 this year They perform better than they did last year. I think it’s early days and we shouldn’t say that that’s that might be an
Emerging Trend. It’s something we’re very interested in but it’s it’s the beginnings potentially of something. in terms of the Turkish Kurdish Turkish cipria group. We really looked at that because that that was different that group performed less well than they did last year. We looked at
The intersectionality and we look particularly at children with English as additional language. At key stage two the vast majority of pupils of Turkish Kurdish Turkish cypriot. Heritage are English as additional language. And actually if you look at all the groups within the English as an additional language group, it’s
The Turkish Kurdish Turkish cypriot Heritage pupils that have the lowest attainment of all so actually was it was in the preparation of this of this work that we really looked at that quite carefully. So in terms of what we’re going to do next year, I’ll speak very briefly about the raising
Achievement program. That’s at the end of this section, going to be doing for children with English as additional language will hope which hopefully will overlap and really be focused on that group. I would just point out though, four children with English as an additional language Hackney did perform slightly better than that
Group. Nationally. There’s also mention of the peoples of Irish traveler Heritage, which is a very small group. It was only 14 pupils, but it’s a group that we’re really focused on because it’s concentrated in certain schools. Not just a year six, but across primary and there’s work being done to
Look at how we can collaborate more effectively with schools and support them to drive that forward and that’s coming through the raising achievement project in terms of what we’re doing. You could see the impact of some of those raising achievement projects that we did last year and you can see
There’s an expanded offer for this year. So we’ll be able to report on that next year and then we can hopefully pick up work on here and EA help pupils, which hopefully will have an impact on the Turkish Kurdish Turkish simply a group. So I’ll hand over to Aunt on
Them. Can take questions after thank you. Thanks, Jason. Just following on from the previous but before a kind of share the data. Context here. So last year was a typical year unplanned train sites, and that secondary over two years. We’ve had some of the 50% turnover and I think as
We primary we’ve got schools that are 10 15 years graded. Goodbye after there’s a there is behind the numbers of real success story. Keeping with the local picture. We you need to be aware. You know, we’ve got 43% FSN the national is is 23% but 43% and free School meals actually
Breaks down into in one school. that could be 35% over the road and in another part of that 76. 76% disadvantage could be even higher and yet as we primary on Headline measures we continue to at perform national. babies to say it’s upload away, but it isn’t when we’re not complacent
Leak. Also as you’ve heard I’ve got groups to look at that said the timelines progress 8 strong past standard passing GCC signature. Maths feedback strong pass standard pass average Point score. in the top quintile to the top 20% and against other disadvantaged of the local authorities with the hyperput disadvantage. We act
Performed them. I mean in some cases would be in the three compared with those. That there’s authorities there’s continued strong performance from boys girls disadvantaged not disadvantage. eal children with scn support including children with scnd with the hcp plans EHC and Hackney’s outcomes unlike the
National were above those in 2019 the bit before covid. And that’s strong pass. That’s also true nationally at standard pass. They were below. And that’s wrong Pastor just about held around and our prayer would say is 0.34. which means that on average a Hackney students will get a third of the GCSE
Grade better game. on my day started their secondary crew when compared with the people in a similar School. In terms of the results the standards gained in English and in mathematics again in Hackney above 2019 and in mathematics the same naturally for English. down compared to 2019 mathematics slightly above. the
Gap between the heights performing and the lowest performing secondary schools has closed at strong house and that’s That’s something that to really to kind of celebrate about the system about the way happening education engages with schools in secondary all but five are academies. And yet
We’re invited in we share the data they leave themselves open for Challenge and evaluation. the Gap from the national average. So this is one Gap that has increased. I Hackney’s probably seems to be pulling further away. and from the national and some of the issues that we have and you’ve heard
It from Tim And from Jason is our heritage cohorts at perform their natural peers, but internally so against the happy average they don’t perform as well and in and the issue we have is to kind of reduce the in-school performance. and to get every every Heritage group
To be a strong as the best in in that school. but we’re incredibly proud of the fact that with the sen and including sen and support plans to really come out so strongly. I’ve summarized the documents what it is that that we’ve done and principally the approaches and
We kind of work. We work on the knowledge that happens in classrooms. And what happened with the curriculum is what makes the difference it’s what makes the biggest difference so, you know, I have advisers that subject networks. that work with schools to look at the curriculum to develop pedagogy.
We share data. We analyze the data and we were with schools to pick that and to look at not just different ethnic groups. Also look at the lowest priorities and the highest priority saying this we work to look at recruitment schools to look at the way that they train
Their teachers and grow their leadership. As you can see in the early parts of the document. so we primary and in early years. We also help schools to provide targeted small group support. In secondary, there is a focus on developing reading phonics and core skills. We look at transition. We developing the
Approaches there. We developing the I suppose the craft of school employment because we have a parent person and working with schools to build that. I’ll say it’s just that it’s not taken as given. We do work with schools to examine how well they and their governing boards use the people
Premium Grant and the underachieving grants. and something that’s important in terms of building on best practice and building capacity learning from nature that we use networks. We use visits. We use learning rounds. We’ll take leaders to see the best within happening and we’ll take lead
To see the best and in other places that and bring bring best practice, but back in Jason’s already mentioned as Tim key groups, and we’re working on narrowing those we’re pleased. that would be some Target groups. There’s been a turn around and black boys, for example. the the journey is not
Over because frankly netheries would you know, there’s there’s that kind of zeal that the school leaders have got to do the best for having children. So we’re incredibly proud, but we not at all complacent not one bit. And that’s that’s it from secondary. Thank you very much for contributions. I
Start with questions around early years Foundation stage we have any and if not, I’ll kick us off with a question around figure two demonstrates, which is a page 11 that over 40% of children who attend private voluntary and independent settings are assessed to have reached good level of development. which confirms
Higher post-pandemic performance for children in these settings. as pvi settings in Hackney primarily relate to all stocks Jewish Independent Schools. what interventions have enabled these settings to make this step change? We have any other questions you can take a couple of time. That’s been a little bit Tim as you
Mentioned. There was some issues with uptake of some of the resources that we were able to provide because early years settings are struggling with other factors. Is there anything that we can do to help facilitate the uptake of those resources? Is there anything you’ve identified Works in terms of? um getting those
Resources in front of them and helping them pick them up. You might need to ask that question again because I’m not so good at retaining two questions simultaneously, but I should come on to yeah the outcomes for the independence say to have improved over the last couple of years. I think I
Think primarily it’s around the teaching of English. think the independent school Sophie’s schools are almost all the children within those heredity schools have English as an additional language the children come in and Yiddish is the first language and then the language that they’re taught as soon as they start schools. is
Hebrew. and there was very much a an attitude across lots of schools which is which was we can’t start teaching English until children have a level of Competency in Hebrew and we feel that they’ve got their spoken English to the point that we can begin to teach phonics.
Therefore will only start teaching phonics in year one. Well, that’s too late as far as this data is concerned because we’re looking at end of reception data. I think a number of things happened I think one is that ofsted inspected schools and said she can’t do that. This is this is
In the statutory framework that you have to teach in English and you have to begin the teaching of reading and writing and therefore lots of schools were graded inadequate because of that. And I think at the second time I think the second I think was that there’s actually schools. We we started
To persuade schools to take a risk to go out on a limb to give it a go. What have they got to lose? Let’s have let’s let’s raise the status of English within lots of our radio scores. And so all schools are now teaching phonics. Most schools are
Teaching in reception when I say most schools. There are still some that are saying we’re really not sure we’re going to start towards the end of the reception here and I think there have been some really impressive winds in the last 12 months. I mean, mainly down to Jason and the
Partnership that he has with kennel q in delivering a phonic program. So training was delivered across a whole range of schools. There was follow-up in the schools by myself Jason and a number of other people who went and observed the teaching a phonics and provided framework. provided some
Suggestions about where to go next. I think it’s really made a difference and and I think it will continue to make a difference as schools become more confident in the teaching of phonics. There is still work to be done. There’s still a challenge in terms of resourcing, you know, for
Example, you can teach children to decode using phonics, but if you’ve not got books to read our books that allow them to develop those skills and practice then it’s only going to go so fast. So we’re working with a number of schools to see we can develop the books that
They can buy in order to allow children’s develop those skills further. So I think that’s the sort of single main point perhaps the driving force was offset, perhaps it was Jason and Chinook UK supporting schools to go out on them and take a chance. The second question. Yeah, there’s a real
Barrier in terms of settings and their anxieties and their worries with things like the falling role that we know so much about because that’s manifesting itself in in school closures. It’s also manifesting itself in terms schools settings, really really struggling. um What can we do? Well that that’s that’s really
Difficult. I mean we’re working really closely with with lots of settings. We’re getting clusters of managers together to support each other to think about how they can develop their provision. but the challenges the challenge is real because one of the consequences of a falling role. is that primary schools are considering what
They might do with that. spare classroom and that available space and so schools are entering into the early years market and saying well, why don’t we develop two-year-old provision or provision for under twos which is putting further strain on the private and voluntary sector that traditionally of kind of
Managed that market exclusively, so it is typical. I’m really not sure what the council can do. There is question mark over kind of leases. We know the affordable child care commissions looked into this and we’re responding to the recommendations within the affordable child care commission. That doesn’t sit
Just with hacking education. It’s councilwide response and the recommendations in there are really helpful really positive, but we haven’t finalized our response to it yet. and other people might be on speaker more than myself. Thank you very much for that. I think we might have to move on
Now to Key Stage 2 just conscious of time if that’s okay and Do members of the commission have any questions on key stage two and it’s not our start as a whole happy children perform. Well at Key Stage 2 compared to Regional and National cohorts in tracking progress scores.
However, the borough comparatively just less well for both reading maths than other London boroughs. what reasons and we know and underpin this and also can I put in a include another question there are significant differences in percentage of children from Caribbean and Turkish cypric Kurdish communities achieving a good
Standard in Reading Writing and maths than their peers compared to highest performing players and in Hackney a 20% gap for both boys and girls and these communities would also appear that the gap between these communities reaching a good standard in Reading Writing and maths and the happy average is
Growing and this is what we’ve seen at page 130 or action is being taken to address this growing divide in the performance of children from these two ethic groups in particular and In part is this because English Scottish Welsh children are doing so well and as they do significantly better
Than National cohorts. I’ll take the first question. I’m going to have to ask you to repeat the second question because I think that was from earlier. So the two groups that you mentioned counts the Gordon. Your first question was about the progress. Let me pick that
One out one of the key reasons for that is it’s the it’s a bit tricky this year because because the progress measures changing it used to be from key stage one to Key Stage 2 and now it’s gonna be from the foundation stage profile further. So you’re absolutely
Right. We’re still attaining well, but what that means is that they attained well at the stage before so, you know, you could say could they make even better progress and the answer is that comes down to? The sort of natural cycle of things not all children will be able to get
To that higher standard. We have a high percentage that do so I’d argue that was probably down to the success of them at the stage before but it is something that we’re engaging our schools within and and also their their eight standardized scores the kind of level that
The children get to in the test and that comes down to the pedagogy and the actual questions as well. Do you mind repeating that second question, please just so I’m really clear. It’s about the atomic gap between different ethnic groups. So figure 14, and so to see the
Page 13. Oh, okay. Yeah. I’ve got it, you know it what is accounting for this and that growing divide in the performance. Is it that children who are English Scottish and Welsh are doing so well compared to their peers. What? Yeah, what counts for that? Yeah. No, I’ve got you
Now. Sorry. Thank you. I mean, it could be I mean data raises questions. >> HTH Room 104 – Col Chambers: Why does that seem to be getting worse? And I you know, it could be a number of reasons. I remember the conversations we had about housing here last year things
That we’ve pursued as a team to try to understand that better the hypothesis that I’m working on now is is the growing eal divide. So what can we learn about best practice working with people with the AL what’s going well and some of our schools. We have a couple schools that are doing
Exceptionally well in that area so we’ll try and learn from them to Scottish and Welsh are doing so well compared to their peers. What? Yeah, what counts for that? Yeah. No, I’ve got you now. Sorry. Thank you. I mean, it could be I mean data raises questions. It doesn’t give you
All the answers that the question that I asked that I mentioned before is taking the children from the Turkish Kurdish Turkish cypriot Heritage cohort. is part of that raising achievement program but also our school improvement work in that area. And in terms of the Caribbean pupils, you know,
It’s a 4% increase. I’m not saying that that’s a huge jump because it isn’t but it is good to see that going in the right direction. We have to remember that cohorts change you’re on years. So it’s it’s down to the pupils that we’re talking about as well and I think that’s
Where we need to really try and concentrate on early language development again, if you look at the section that we put in around things that we’re doing now and things that we want to do there’s a lot of work being done in that project reader Group, which is centered around
Those two key groups. Black Caribbean pupils and Turkish Kurdish Turkish people’s that happens at Year, too. So we’re trying to get that early. It’s about intervening as early as possible that particular initiative. It is led by a TA one of the things I would point
Out because you might ask me. why are those numbers bigger some of the schools that have done those programs previously are saying to us we don’t have the same level of Tas and that’s down to following roles and falling budgets. So it’s it’s making us kind of Reflect
On what we can do to try and support schools to continue to deliver those interventions. I hope you don’t mind me saying this. I just want to go back to something that Tim said before about the about the the Orthodox Jewish Community. Just want to point out on that
Phonics project. We spoke about Tim. It was actually the blossom Federation of school. So Hackney schools provided that training, so it’s hack these schools working with that community and that’s something I’m hoping that we can grow. So sorry for the thing that I just thank you so much that and
Also I’m really pleased team that I’ve been here long enough to have seen that trajectory of what was going on in that voluntary and private voluntary sector in the nursery settings. So it’s just really is so encouraging to see progress being made in an area that I
Think it was feeling for a long time. It was gonna be very difficult to so really really encouraging and well done pretty involved in finding a way that do we have any other questions? and thank you and you know, obviously congratulations to you know until the staff and students
And support staff and involved in other, you know, very encouraging set of results. And just I mean, obviously I mean the main focus of this commission really is the the ongoing attainment Gap and and sadly this really great to see the improvements in early years and all the dogs do schools,
But there is an ongoing attainment gap for by and Caribbean and Turkish separate and Kurdish children, and this is something that’s has been in place for you know a number of years. So, you know, it is troubling that it is continuing despite all these interventions. I mean, it’s
Good to see the the mention the D delegation of direct schools Grant to address this. I mean, it seems just to sort of few questions really about how that’s working. It seems to be fairly sort of small scale. How are the schools selected? it just maintains schools. and
Given the relative success of these projects are the plans to extend this and how are the schools selected? So if you just tell us a bit more, thank you. Thank you very much. I think there’s a good question the data that we’re shared in this report is from last year.
What’s in the table is what’s actually happening now, so that is an expanded offer. I’m actually and those work being done in a secondary sector is now I think we’ve worked really well as a team pulling that together and we’ve gone off into different areas like
Writing as well in terms of the selection originally before the pandemic. We would analyze the data and we would approach schools directly when we didn’t have the the day to coming through in the pandemic. We changed that approach and we let school self-select we now do both so we let schools approach
Us and we approach them as well. We have had a number of growing conversations about schools not having the capacity. So we need to think about that in a different way what we actually have done this year. I haven’t reported on it yet because it’ll be part of
Next year is we let schools just bid to do a project that they wanted to do. So one is bid around their Turkish Community one is better around put in a bit around there. I was traveler community. So we’ll see the impact of that that allows a bit more
Flexibility, which I was thinking. would allow them to kind of make it work for their setting so we’ll have to see how that compares to the other. and just your question about who this is for. this is only maintained schools because it can only be maintained schools because it’s dedelegated
Funding so it’s not on offer to the academies academies are told about it and if they want to do it will allow them to purchase it. That’s that’s happened once so it’s not common. Do we have any questions from the commission on key and I’ll kick us off so
Level 5 in English and maths is the key Benchmark outcome for children at keysage 4 and education as a whole it just 26% of boys from black Caribbean Heritage achieve this outcoming 2023 compared to over 70% of boys from English Scottish Welsh backgrounds. where proportionally almost three times as many children achieved
This same level similar figures are recorded for children from Turkish cypriot and Kurdish communities who are half as likely to achieve. And this Gap appears to be growing and which we can see at page and 151 as for Key Stage 2. What is the amount of funding which is them
Is delegated to address this Gap in performance aside from the dedic aside from the delegated funding. Are there any other local or other resources which can be used to help dress this performance Gap? okay, let me just kind of go back a bit the same and gaps.
He’s not anything new and I recognize beneath the question that we have to do do some thinking views and maths and particular groups, but the time and GAP isn’t the currency of schools that are failing or just Those it happens and and it grows with every key stage by
The end of primary. The Gap is nearly 10 months by the end of secondary 20 months and the message there is intervene early and provide targeted intervention and support. Going back to the chair’s question. We do use the dedicated money without maintains cause we are in terms of the rethinking. we
Thinking in in growing school-led approaches where the best performing schools that close the gaps where we kind of formalize away in which they can share their best practice their their curriculum design their implementation with other schools maths in particular. We’ve lost a subject Network leader the year before last
We’ve recruited another one. We working with new and that really reassert the power of the subject Network. So that’s just to give you one. one tactic one strategy another one working with secondary secondary heads and with subject leaders is to focus on the development of adaptive teaching so they
Can better customize or better tale of their provision. to the specific groups that you mentioned. Thank you. I just want to ask a question on the role of school Improvement partners and sort of two-part question. What challenge do school Improvement Partners bring to schools where there are significant gaps and
Attainment between different cohorts of pupils and do they visit alternative provision settings as well? I’ll start on that one in terms of the school Improvement partner. So it’s they’re made up of our internal team. We also use some consultant and at the primary level because there’s more schools Hackney
Head teachers. We have a training or briefing session every term as part of that data is shared. It’s also shared at the school level. So if you’re the school Improvement partner going into the school, you’ll get that data and that includes the gaps data and and there is
A pretty direct instruction to go in and have conversations. I’m sure Andy can speak to it as a teacher just about that Gap and to understand what the school is doing provides suggestions. and is Anton said a big piece of work we’re doing now is provide examples of where
Things might be going. well and and broker that that school to school level of support you’ve asked the question about alternative provision as well. They have sips as well. They have names as well and you’re aware that for our Schools whilst they don’t have the full schools Improvement partner
Program unless they purchase it and a number do we do give them sip time for what? We call the keeping in touch program, which is more of a conversation as opposed to before program. Just I don’t repeat so much. the school Improvement partners with with all their schools
Will provide a dates for analysis the expectation is that there is a discursive conversation with the head this year for all our schools. We developing what we call afflect program of flexible program of contact, so it’s not driven by Prescribed agenda. It’s driven by shared priorities presently. The schools are identifying
Those primarily from the data. So that opened those conversations The the hard challenge will be in the visit and the visit reports. But we know that working in Partnership working collegially without any loss of accountability is the best way of kind of identifying those leaders to kind of create those
Incremental changes. thank you very much for that think I’m gonna have to bring this item to a close because I’ve gone over significantly and very sorry about that for All of You special those of you’ve had to hang on until the end and so moving on to item six, which is
The sexual and reproductive health of young people the commission assessed the draft sexual and reproductive Health strategy together with plans to and discontinue the chips plus service, which is a dedicated sexual reproductive Health Service for young people at a meeting earlier this Municipal year and the commission’s response together with a number
Of recommendations was formally submitted to the cabinet member for health adult social care voluntary sector and culture Council Kennedy and the deputy mayor and the cabinet member for Education young people and children social care and Council Bramble. The response of cabinet members is in closed for members to note the
Commission should agree when to this item back to report on progress. What do we think? in the Years time feels like A sensible time. Yeah. And then moving on to item 7 the work program the work program for the commission for the remainder of the municipal year is contained
Within the report pack. The scrutiny officer will take the commission through any changes. There’s no changes to confirm the meeting is on the 22nd of May just because we’ll to the timing would be published without a membership. So we’ll confirm it after. And for that and the the first those items
Are confirmed. that’s with the disabled children service and the send area action plan. Thank you very much and item 8 which is minutes of the the minutes of the previous meeting held on the 19th of February are attached for members to know to agree any matters arising for the minutes members
Agree the minutes. Great item 9 any other business the date of the next meetings the 22nd of May. Sorry for going over. Thank you very much everybody.