Children S Trust Vision

Children’s Trust Vision

All children, young people and their families in Cornwall are safe and have good opportunities to achieve and improve themselves.

We will close the gap between those who are doing well and those who are doing less well by effective work with those with greater needs.

18 subject to a

Child Protection Plan

479 Children in Care

11 New Care Proceedings

Head of Service Introduction. David Wood

Schools, Achievement and SEN came together as a combined service in December 2011. During the last year it has made progress in building a management team which has a more developed understanding of the range of work undertaken by the service and has begun to take advantage of opportunities for synergy and joint working across the new team. This process continues. In scoping service plans across Children Schools and Families Directorate one key ‘Golden thread’ are the actions and initiatives associated with ‘Narrowing the Gap’ between high achievers and others to ensure that all children and young people achieve their full potential.

The service is very mindful of the impact on families and children of Welfare benefit Reforms in terms of dislodging families from their homes and communities in additional to the financial pressures on families created by maximum benefit allowances, ‘bedroom tax’, housing benefit changes and council tax charges.

The educational landscape is evolving swiftly in line with government policy change and significant organisational design challenges remain in terms of keeping the school improvement service delivering effectively within a declining budget envelope. New SEN legislation early in 2013 will also bring the need for radical change in SEN structures and processes.

Two significant organisational change projects have been agreed at directorate and corporate levels. The first is to move Short Stay Schools into an Alternative Provision Academy, working with an independent sponsor. This will move a section of the service out of the council, mirroring the academy development in schools. The second is to re-position school improvement as part of Cornwall Learning, trading on a business footing, as part of a new business entity at arms length from the Council.

A parallel development is the re-design of the Education Welfare Service to focus on statutory responsibilities with a reduced reliance on grant funding and service traded with schools.

A second wave of organisational change will come through the SEN Pathfinder development and response to SEN legislation. This is likely to gather force in the summer of 2013

While these significant change projects move forward, it is important that effective service delivery continues in schools and community in order to secure improvements in outcomes for young people, particularly in improving the performance of young people at GCSE. While other key education indicators are showing real progress, GCSE performance has stalled, and is 3.8% behind the national figure at 5+ inc English and Maths in 2012. Improvement will be driven by effective use of data by schools in order to identify those who are not progressing at an appropriate rate and by narrowing the gap for vulnerable groups, most notably CiC, SEN, and EAL. While progress against other indicators has been good, the quality of school improvement overall will ultimately be judged against the GCSE headline indicator. Challenge to schools on GCSE performance will remain a high priority.

The recent publication of Ofsted inspection results for local authorities shows that Cornwall compares favourably to both the national picture and that in the south –west for the number of schools judged good or better. This demonstrates the effectiveness of the service in identifying schools at risk and in supporting and developing practice in such schools.

The school improvement team has been successful in shaping a new relationship with schools based on buy-back and is developing a working relationship with academies. The team is now playing a substantive role in shaping academy partnerships and sponsorships which, alongside the growing number of Trust schools in Cornwall, is adding to diversity and choice.

SEN services are effective. Performance indicators are met and the web of educational support available is being developed through the ARB and CDC provision. School attendance remains good. Although exclusion are showing a rise in both primary and secondary, comparisons with other authorities remain favourable. The ‘Assessment for All’ programme has been adopted to push harder on the achievement and progress of those with SEN in order to narrow the gap for these students.

The Access and Infrastructure team continue to develop the services for schools offer and to introduce changes to admissions and to school meals. Transport costs remain high and this issue needs to be tackled in conjunction with corporate colleagues.

The service has made a significant contribution to safeguarding, particularly on the schools agenda. Ofsted judgements on behaviour and feeling safe in schools remain very good. In the last round of school inspections under the previous framework, 148 inspections reported safeguarding to be outstanding or good in 88%, satisfactory in 12% and none were reported as inadequate. Safeguarding processes in schools are monitored and S157, S175 returns are now consistently returned. All colleagues in the service prioritise safeguarding matters and support individual casework for children and young people as required.

The Service is determined to continue to improve by focusing on properly deploying its human resources and encouraging training and development through the Performance and Development System (PDS). The Workforce Development Plan and the Business Support Plan appear in Appendix One.

1

Schools, Achievement and Special Educational Needs Service Plan 2013/14

July 2013

V2.0

• Implementation of new SEN funding system from April 2013
• Refine the Local Offer to reflect the new funding arrangements
• Managing budgets within High Care Needs Block
• Piloting of Single Assessment/ Single Plan process whilst maintaining current administration of statutory assessments
• Responding to the proposals of the Children’s Bill 2013 with the expected changes in SEN processes.
• Setting up new IT system to underpin adoption of new SEN processes
• Ensure that there is a robust commissioning process for the Short Stay/BESD Academy ensuring we meet the needs of Cornish children.

1. To implement the revised EYFSP programme for all schools, ensuring statutory requirements are in place and all reception staff trained.Will be completed August 2013 – this should then be rephrased to say to continue to implement….
2. To continue the implementation of the revised statutory EYFS Framework , ensuring all 0-5 provision is compliant and that EY Ofsted registered settings have been monitored and are secure with regard to pre-and post inspection support under the new September 2012 Ofsted framework
3. Implementing effective performance management SLA – children’s centres.
4. Revise CDC SLA work and ensure CDC coverage is effective in North Cornwall
5. To review Early Years and Childcare if new Government proposals announced on 29th January are implemented from September 2013.
6. To secure sufficient Ofsted settings graded Good or Outstanding in order to meet the demand for 1000 new two year old places by September 2014.

• EY Conference
• Area training and cluster meeting events
• Targeted training for schools and settings

• Maintaining CSIT SLA position within an increasingly diverse landscape of school support and the strong likelihood of school improvement no longer being a core funded element of the LA is a major challenge.
• We need to ensure greater influence on schools even where the leadership is unwilling to fully engage with the support offered.
• Continue to work with schools and other providers to ensure CPD and school improvement is effectively targeted
• We need to disseminate key messages from phonics screening and ensure all of our schools are ready for the tests in year 1.
• Ensure Pupil Premium is effectively targeted, monitored and makes a real impact on outcomes for pupils on FSM
• Need to prepare KS2 for new Grammar Tests to be introduced in May 2013
• Improve outcomes at L3 and L5
• Support and challenge middle leaders particularly with schools that are currently satisfactory or are likely to be judged as requires improvement
• In light of the new changes to the statutory Ofsted framework we need to review and respond to the raised expectations of local authority responsibility to support and challenge schools.
• Sustain and enhance existing arrangements to ensure partnership and collaborative working in schools in order to achieve a school place for every child in Cornwall who wants one and high quality educational provision.