ANNUAL REPORT
BRADFORD VIRTUAL SCHOOL FOR LOOKED AFTER CHILDREN
2012 - 2013
Roger Morris
Acting Virtual School Head
December 2013
1. Introduction
Looked After Children are a priority group for Bradford Council and all services are committed to improving life chance opportunities for this group of children and young people. On 31st March 2013 the total Looked After population in Bradford was 877; of these 697 were in education. Of the 697, 160 were living in other Local Authorities and 537 lived within Bradford Local Authority. In total the 697 children attended over 200 schools.
The Virtual School in Bradford has responsibility for ensuring all these children, both inside and outside Bradford, receive the best possible educational opportunities to enable them to achieve to their potential and above.
This annual report will outline the work of the Virtual School during the academic year September 2012 to September 2013, with a particular focus on the outcomes for children and young people. The report will end by describing objectives for the academic year 2013 – 2014.
2. Bradford Virtual School for Looked After Children
The overall aim of Bradford Virtual School is to promote and champion the educational needs of all Looked After Children across the Local Authority and those children and young people placed out of authority.
The Virtual School for Looked After Children is able to offer the following:
· Track and monitor the progress of all Bradford Looked After Children
· Deliver in school interventions and placement support through 1 to 1 work from 2 qualified teachers
· Intervene, where necessary, in admissions of looked After Children to school and ensure key partners are familiar with the School Admissions Code
· Arrange individual tuition as required
· Access Early Years advice and support
· Monitor completion and undertake some quality control of Personal Education Plans (PEPS) and aggregate management information from them
· Identify individual and cohorts of Looked After Children who may need additional support.
· Provide Further Education / Higher Education advice and support
· Provide support at Looked After Children Reviews and Special Educational Needs meetings
· Support transitions
· Support partnership working with agencies and Council Services
· Provide support/ advice to Designated Teachers in schools, set up networks for Designated Teachers and regularly liaise with all Designated Teachers through Teachers On Line
· Maintain a database of Designated Teachers, Looked After Children at schools and Ofsted ratings of schools
· Deliver training to teachers, school governors, foster carers and partners.
· Recognise and applaud the achievements of Looked After Children through an annual awards ceremony
· Advise on the targeted use of the Pupil Premium to raise achievement.
· Advice to carers at key stages of schooling such as SAT’s, Phonics screening and GCSE revision.
· Provision of a ‘top ten tips’ advice sheet.
· Based on the ‘top ten tips’ advice sheet support a self-evaluation process for primary and secondary schools
The support from the Virtual School is “additional” to school resources.
The Virtual School has the additional responsibility of monitoring the progress of Looked After Children who are placed in Bradford schools by other local authorities, and will offer advice and exchange data with other authorities.
3. Background
Bradford Virtual School is part of the Bradford Looked After Children Strategic Partnership. The Strategic Partnership developed its latest strategy in 2013 for all partners in relation to Looked After Children. The strategy sets out the priorities for 2013 – 14 which the Looked After Children’s Education team will strive to achieve along with its partners. Each priority has a related sub group which reports to the Looked After Children’s Strategy Group.
Our priorities for 2013-2014
Staying safe
· Lower the numbers of children and young people who are missing from care.
· Lower the number of looked after children who become involved in crime.
Enjoy and participate
· Support and develop our Children in Care Council.
· Make sure all looked after children are listened to, so their views help us plan what we do and make it better.
Improve educational achievement
· Set better targets for each looked after child so we can support them in reaching their full potential.
Staying healthy
· Improve dental and health assessments.
· Improve access to emotional and behavioural support.
Improved employment, education and training for care leavers
· Improve access to work, education and training.
· Ensure young people who leave care have access to a safe place to live.
4. The Team
The Virtual School in Bradford is a small team consisting of the following:
Virtual School Head – Ewen Godfrey held this post until his retirement in July 2013. This report expresses great appreciation for Ewen’s work over many years to promote and support the education of Looked After Children. Ewen brought considerable drive and commitment to this work. The post is being covered temporarily by Roger Morris pending a recruitment process.
Teachers – Alan King (full time) and John Whittock (one day per week) provide direct support to young people in education. They have primarily worked with young people in residential care offering one to one tuition, behaviour management work, transition support etc. Reports regarding the progress of individual children can be compiled with an example of this below:
Student X. Autumn Term 2013
Student X was given the Schonell Reading Test on 15/12/13 and scored 7.3. This represents an increase of 0.7 from the previous test. Whilst this is below the national average for his year group, it seems that he is benefiting from the input from the LAC Education team. X continues to gain fluency and confidence through his daily Toe by Toe sessions. He is recognising two and three letter blends and is using this to successfully decode harder words this term. He completed the Yellow Level on Meadowlea's Big Cat Reading Scheme on 09/11/13 and is currently on the Lilac Level. He has attended all twelve sessions. He is motivated, hard working and well mannered.
Research and Data Officer Malcolm Robinson – (5 hours per week / 0.2 full time equivalent)
Analyses data to identify individuals and cohorts, particularly Year Groups, who require support at such times as assessment and testing, school transfer, admission to good or better schools and other DfE initiatives such as Summer Schools and the Phonics Check.
Specialist knowledge of the Code of Practice for pupils with SEN. Advice on the efficient use of the Pupil Premium. Publishes news items and maintains the information and training resources for schools on the Bradford Schools Online website.
Admin & Data Support – Joanne Sutcliffe (full time) and Fiona Wood (part time) update and maintain the Virtual School databases, providing regular performance reports. They also maintain an overview of the completion of the ePEP and have provided a significant amount of training and support to Social Workers and Designated Teachers in completing PEPs. They organised the Annual Award Ceremony at which over 100 children and young people received an award from The Lord Mayor of Bradford and Director of Children’s Services.
This year the team moved from Future House to co-locate with the Looked After Children Social Work Team. This has greatly enhanced communication between the teams and joint work to improve outcomes for children and young people worked with.
5. Our Partners
The Virtual School recognises the importance of partnership working and actively promotes Corporate Parenting. There is the expectation that Looked After Children are the responsibility of all services and that their outcomes can only improve if those services work together. The Virtual School Head is an active member of the LAC Strategy group and chairs the ‘Improve Educational Achievement’ sub group, leading the development and monitoring of the Action Plan. The action plan is a continuous working document which is reviewed at each Sub Group Meeting.
Our key partners have included the following:
Pupil Referral Unit, Behaviour and Attendance Collaboratives, Multi-agency Partnership Team, SEN team, Education Social Work Service, Educational Psychology, New arrivals and Travel Service, School Improvement Team, Leaving Care Service, Fostering and Adoption, Residential Care, Information Management, Further Education Providers, Admissions Service, Behaviour and Exclusions Team, eCare Solutions and Welfare Call.
The following partners have added their own contributions to this annual report:
Early Years Service
The core offer to looked after children has been:
· Registered with a Children’s Centre and accessing activities and services as appropriate
· Taking up free the Early Education Entitlement for 3 & 4 year olds
· Accessing the free Two year old places
· Receiving Book Start packs
· Accessing Children’s Centre Plus provision where applicable
· Involved in early communication activities
· Have a Personal Education Plan in place
· Have carers who are supported to have a good understanding of the importance of early years development
· Local authority has good monitoring arrangements in place to ensure that the core offer is being effectively delivered
The take up of services has been as follows:
2 year olds
Term / Dob From / DoB To / Headcount Date / No of LAC on headcount date / No taking up a place / % take upAutumn 2013/14 / 01/09/2010 / 31/08/2011 / 26/09/2013 / 49 / 29 / 59%
3 year olds
Term / Dob From / DoB To / Headcount Date / No of LAC on headcount date / Non-maintained place / Maintained place / % take upAutumn 2013/14 / 01/09/2009 / 31/08/2010 / 03/10/2013 / 32 / 4 / 13 / 53%
4 year olds
Term / Dob From / DoB To / Headcount Date / No of LAC on headcount date / Non-maintained place / Maintained place / % take upAutumn 2013/14 / 01/09/2008 / 31/08/2009 / 03/10/2013 / 47 / 2 / 25 / 57%
Social Work Service
The Looked After Children social work teams moved to new premises in Shipley in the summer of 2012 and welcomed the Looked After Children Education Team to the same premises in September 2012. Being co-located has resulted in much greater partnership between the two teams and social workers and team managers have worked with the education team to develop links and understanding of the different roles and responsibilities. Social workers have particularly welcomed the opportunity to discuss and address any education based issues face to face and for issues to be quickly resolved. The Education team have made presentations to the whole LAC team and the Education team were involved in the social work teams open day as part of Safeguarding Week
A team manager within the LAC social work team leads on education matters and has worked with the education team in the education attendance group and the group regarding Personal Education Plans.
The need to ensure up to date Personal Education Plans are in place, and that they are of high quality continues to be a key priority across both teams. PEP completion has increased over the year as a result of regular reports from the LAC education team shared with team managers in Children’s Social Care identifying children who do not have up to date PEP’s.
One way of demonstrating the focus on how achievement in education is prioritised by the social work teams is the following summary by a worker of her ‘shining stars’
Child 1 made a successful transition to secondary school with a significant increase in confidence following transition. Now in Year 8 andachieved an education award on 16-11-2013. She participated in a school concert last week playing saxophone and is also in part of the schools drama / dance production plannedfor next year. Such participation indicates a significant progress in her increased confidence as she is a shy and quiet child. She is academically capable and achieving consistent progress within school.
Child 2 is now with Leaving Care. He arrived in UK in June 2011 without any English, yet following attending a local school for years 10 and 11 he achieved qualifications including GCSE's and is now studying at college. He received an education award this year.
Children 3 and 4 demonstrate consistent effort and achievements and are progressing well academically and have exemplary behaviour in school (primary and high schools). Child 3achieved Level 4's at the end of Year 4and is in Year 5 now. Both achieved education awards this year.
Child 5 is in year 7 and is a consistently well behaved and motivated young person who has just had a very positive transition to secondary school (outside Bradford) despite having significant anxieties. She has developed increased friendship groups and is a bright, capable child who always tries her best! She also achieved an education award for her achievement and effort at primary school.
Designated School
Gaynor Jervis – Designated teacher for Children Looked After at Beckfoot School.
I am new to the role of designated teacher within school but have found the role rewarding so far. For me, the position involves a general overview of all the CLAs within school, and I use a (restricted access) spreadsheet as a ‘live document’ of sorts to help me to keep up to date with dates of review and EPEP meetings, record names of Social Workers and keep a track on students’ behaviour, attendance and any spending for Pupil Premium money. This works well – and is updated by the Learning Leaders as necessary.
I also keep a locked cabinet of files for each of our CLAs where I store review meeting notes, and feedback from staff/teachers.
I attend review meetings for students in KS4, or am updated by Pastoral Managers who attend them. I also accompany any Learning Leaders to review meetings of CLA who may have had particular issues in school.
As a new designated teacher, I have found it useful to meet with Roger Morris and Joanne Sutcliffe who have talked me through the role and also shown me around the EPEP system at length. I would appreciate some formal CPD/training – as the legalities, systems and rights and entitlements of CLAs are something I feel that I should know more about.
Below is an example of a young person, Looked After, who is a real success story.