Education, Skills & Leisure Scrutiny Panel - 8.11.2005

MINUTES OF THE MEETING OF THE Education, Skills & Leisure Scrutiny Panel
HELD ON Tuesday, 8 November 2005
COUNCILLORS
PRESENT / PaulMcCannah (Chairman), GeorgeSavva (Vice-Chairman), JayneBuckland, LeeChamberlain, JohnEgan, JeffRodin and JohnWyatt
ABSENT / RobertHayward
CO-OPTED / Ruth Ejvet (Enfield Primary Headteacher’s Conference)

OFFICERS:

Philip Glascoe (Lead Support Officer), Karen Fletcher-Wright (Education, Children's Services and Leisure), Sarah Fryer (Education, Children's Services and Leisure), Jenny Tosh (Education, Children's Services and Leisure), Ahmad Ramjhun (Education, Children's Services and Leisure), Denny Grant (Education, Children's Services and Leisure), Janet Leach and Sue Roberts (Cheviot’s Children’s Centre), Penelope Williams (Secretary)
Also Attending: / Miranda McAllister (National Autistic Society), William and Ebru Mustapha, Pat Basharan, Dr June Keyte, Loyola Weeks (Primary Care Trust), Dee Eimer (Enfield Parents Centre), Sonja Lee, Lorine and John Jones-Alleyne

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Welcome and Apologies for Absence

Councillor McCannah welcomed everyone to the meeting at Cheviot’s Children’s Centre and invited the members of the panel to introduce themselves.

Apologies for absence were received from Jean Carter and Sue Warrington.

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Declarations of Interest

There were no declarations of interest in respect of items on the agenda.

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Confidential Items

There were no confidential items on the agenda.

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Minutes

(a)Minutes

The minutes of the meeting held on Wednesday 21 September 2005 were received and agreed as a correct record of the meeting with the following amendment.

John Wyatt added that he had sent his apologies for this meeting.

(b)Matters Arising

There were no matters arising.

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Briefing Update

The Panel received the report (circulated with the agenda), from Sarah Fryer, Recruitment Strategy Manager updating them on the current situation with regard to teacher recruitment and retention in Enfield.

(a)Presentation of the Report

Sarah Fryer highlighted the following from her report:-

  • The vacancy level had fallen overall.
  • There were still difficulties recruiting middle managers.
  • 35 teachers had bought into the Key Worker Living Initiative.
  • Open days for Newly Qualified Teachers had been successful.
  • There were still problems recruiting secondary teachers in some subjects.
  • They would continue advertising the vacancies and encouraging local people to apply for jobs.
  • Many newly qualified teachers had some connection with the borough.
  • There had been a rise in the number of special school vacancies but this was a problem across London.
  • One teacher had been trained by one of the special schools but they had not been able to train in just this school as by law they also had to have experience in the mainstream.
  • This year, for the first time, 4 newly qualified teachers were being employed in special schools and a programme had been put in place to ensure that they had adequate support. Historically NQTs had not been employed in special schools but because of the problems with recruitment they have had to do so.
  • A special brochure had been produced for prospective special schoolteachers, showing the advantages of working in Enfield.

(b)Questions/issues raised in response to the presentation

  1. Councillor Chamberlain requested recruitment and retention information on the averages for the region to enable comparisons to be made with other boroughs. Sarah Fryer agreed to provide this.
  1. Councillor Chamberlain asked why so few people responded to the exit surveys. Sarah Fryer responded that it was often difficult to get the forms to people before they left. She would keep on trying to get responses and was considering the possibility of offering some incentive to those who completed the forms.
  1. The Chairman thanked Sarah Fryer for providing a high quality detailed report and answering the questions raised by Panel members.

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Special Needs - Main Theme for Tonight's Meeting

The Panel received a report from Karen Fletcher-Wright, which provided a briefing giving background information on special needs in Enfield. She also circulated a leaflet: the Special Educational Needs Inclusion Strategy.

(a)Introduction

Karen Fletcher-Wright gave a brief introduction to the issue of special needs. She talked about changes to the language associated with special needs and the increasing use of the terms “learning difficulties” and “learning disabilities” rather than special educational needs. These terms were more inclusive.

(b)Special Educational Needs and Inclusion

Jenny Tosh, School Improvement Manager for Inclusion, gave a presentation.

She highlighted the following: -

  • The service was looking at the issue of inclusion across all schools, teams and services.
  • Inclusion was about raising achievement for all children, about maximising their potential.
  • All services needed to be working together to achieve this, placing the child at the centre of their efforts. Cheviots is an excellent example of how we are doing exactly that.
  • The needs of children had to be identified so that their starting points and where they were going could be worked out.
  • The central goal for the Local Authority wasto challenge and support schools to meet a wider range of needs. Schools need to adapt their teaching and learning styles to meet this goal.
  • By sharing understanding about the needs for all children, effective planning, provision, monitoring and review could be developed.
  • The law said that Inclusion was about providing access for all children and removing the barriers to access.
  • Inclusion was a central part of Ofsted inspections, the achievements and attainments of all children matter.
  • Children with special needs are particularly at risk of not achieving their potential of not being included. .
  • At Aylands, for example, a school for children with emotional and behavioural difficulties, 36 of the pupils are boys and only 2 are girls; this could be an additional inclusion issue for this school.
  • The service needed to ensure that they are doing all they can to ensure all can succeed.They were working in partnership with the schools and other services such as Cheviots to do this.
  • The school improvement services offered a whole range of training to schools, governing bodies and other services.
  • They were currently working on developing a formula so that more funding can be delegated to schools to enable them to support inclusion more effectively. It is a difficult process to get the right provision in place and this will be easier when the schools received more money directly into their budgets to enable them to ensure that the children had what they needed as soon as possible.
  • The majority of special needs children were in mainstream schools and it was therefore important to improve the skills in the mainstream and to provide additional resources and expertise.
  • Part of the strategy is to develop some schools with additional resources and provision, sometimes known as mainstream plus schools. These schools were becoming centres of expertise in particular areas such as speech and language and autism. They are adding to our capacity with our special schools to offer advice and support to mainstreams across the Local Authority.

(c)Questions and Issues raised in response to the presentation

  1. June Keyte, Chair of Governors, said that her school had experienced difficulties with inappropriate referrals and lack of information about how to support specific children. Jenny Tosh explained that children were only placed at particular schools following the advice of the special educational needs panel. The Council valued all children and wanted to work with schools to meet a child’s needs. All the relevant information would be collected together before any decision was taken by a panel which included a professional advisor, headteachers, Educational Psychologist, paediatrician and special needs specialists. No decision was ever taken lightly.
  1. A father of a 3-year-old autistic child explained how he had had to fight very hard and had found great difficulty getting his daughter a place at Russet House School. The Local Authority had wanted her to attend a mainstream school.
  1. He had also had problems with his son who suffered from Aspergers Syndrome who was in a mainstream school and was being bullied. He felt that there was a lack of help and support and that the local authority needed to consider carefully how far inclusion should go.
  1. Jenny Tosh said that inclusion did not necessarily mean inclusion in the mainstream. The Local Authority wanted to provide the most appropriate place for every child, to fit the provision to the child.
  1. Councillor Rodin felt that many parents were not as articulate as the man who had spoken about his problems and many parents would find it impossible to negotiate the bureaucracy to gain a place for their child, however badly it was needed.
  1. He felt that the process was too long and bureaucratic.
  1. Concerns were raised about the lack of autistic provision in the borough at secondary level. Autism could not easily be dealt with in any school as it was a very complex condition.
  1. Members of the public felt that inclusion was just an excuse to cut costs. Ahmad Ramjhun said that this was not so. The aim of the authority was to do the best for children.
  1. Some councillors suggested that they were not doing so as there were so many unhappy parents.
  1. The Law had strengthened the right of parents to choose a school, and some parents preferred to have their children educated in the mainstream. It was difficult for the authority to respond to their wishes and to provide a continuum of provision across all levels but they were trying to do so. If needs could be met in the mainstream with the appropriate support then children would be placed in the mainstream.
  1. The authority was providing a lot of support to parents and both training and facilities for schools.
  1. Needs in the borough were increasing all the time.

(d)Meeting the Needs of Enfield Children

Ahmad Ramjhun, Head of Special Needs and Inclusion, gave a presentation on meeting the needs of Enfield Children.

He said that: -

  • The child was at the centre of what they do and their ultimate aim was to enable children to maximise their life chances.
  • The Outborough Project was set up in response to the recommendations from the recent best value review into the service.
  • Consultation had established that parents wanted their children to be educated locally. It was also important that the borough made the best use of resources. A great deal of money was spent transporting children to places outside the borough and some children were travelling over 4 hours a day. It was in everyone’s interest to provide places in the borough. Many children travelling great distances were amongst the most vulnerable, including a number with autism.
  • However no autistic child has actually been bought back in borough, but as children have left, local provision has been increased for children new to the system.
  • There has been more investment in resources. Money saved from the transportation budget was being used to develop more resources in the borough.
  • One of the shortage areas was the lack of secondary autism provision in the borough. It had been agreed that they could not build another Russet House. Several of the other special schools had capacity and therefore it had been decided to develop secondary autism capacity at Durants School. There was also provision for children with Asperger’s Syndrome at West Lea School. The provision at Durants had recently been externally validated as “good”.
  • Officers were working with all the special schools and services to identify gaps in provision and to work out how best to fill them.
  • All autistic children were different and their needs were various. All children needed to be seen as individuals.
  • There were 3 schools in the borough providing for children with complex needs. These were Durants, Oaktree and West Lea. Oaktree encouraged the redevelopment of links with mainstream schools.
  • The Special Needs Admissions Panel met every month to determine admissions.
  • Cheviots provided important services for children and families. Janet Leach, one of the managers of the centre, said that their aim was to support families so that the children can be included. They provided a whole range of services to make it more possible for the children to remain in Enfield. They co-ordinated access to the services and put together packages of support. She thought that creating an inclusive society was everyone’s responsibility. It was not just about working with children’s services but with everyone to make inclusion more possible. For example working in a consortium with the Parks Department they had been able to provide specially adapted swings in some parks. The local authority had the responsibility to make sure the whole borough was accessible and inclusive.

(e)Questions/comments raised in response to the presentation

  1. Miranda McAllister explained that she had recently set up a local branch of the National Autistic Society. In the process of doing so she had spoken to hundreds of families. She had been under the impression that the Council was considering setting up a secondary facility for autistic children at Russet House. Peter Lewis had discussed this with the Governors of the school.
  1. Millions of pounds had been spent developing the autistic provision at Durants and a deputy head teacher from an out of borough school been bought in to develop it.
  2. It was reported that Russet House Year 6 parents who had visited Durants had been very upset when they had seen the new facility. They felt it compared badly with Russet House. Autistic children needed continuity and parents felt that this could better be provided at Russet House.
  1. Karen Fletcher-Wright said that she was very pleased that a branch of the National Autistic Society had been set up in the borough and was keen to develop constructive dialogue with parents.
  1. Denny Grant, Child Psychologist, felt it was important to consider the majority of children who had many different very complex needs and that in the context of all children autism affected a tiny minority.
  1. Different schools were able to cope with different needs and challenges. Some schools were able to cope with bed wetting children and some better than others with autistic children. There was a need to place children where they could best be provided for.
  1. They were trying to address the problem of the secondary autism provision but obviously had not yet got everything right. It was always difficult to meet everyone’s needs.
  1. If parents were not satisfied with the provision in Enfield they could be offered out of borough places.
  1. Parents asked for confirmation that a policy existed that children should be placed in mainstream education at an early stage and then moved on later if necessary.
  1. There were many well-trained staff and resources in the borough and many examples of good practice in Enfield. Some of the provision out of the borough was not so good.
  1. 7% of the this part of the budget was spent on autism and 90% on long-term residential care. The potential savings in having better-educated children was huge.
  1. Ahmad Ramjhun confirmed that they were listening to parents.
  1. Comments were made about the lack of disabled toilets in Enfield Town Centre

Post Meeting Note: officers have confirmed that there will be disabled toilets in the Palace Gardens development and both general & disabled toilets in the PalaceXchange scheme. These would be on the first floor of the Cecil Road block next to lifts and the bridge-link. In addition, there will be disabled toilets within the Shopmobility accommodation, which is likely to be on the ground floor of the civic facility.

  1. Councillor Egan asked if there were enough facilities for carers who needed a break.
  1. Janet Leach responded that there was significantly more provision for respite care than there used to be. Additional money had been made available to extend respite services and successful work had been done involving the voluntary sector. The Social Services Scrutiny Panel was currently carrying out a review of respite care in the borough.
  1. Cheviots ran a disability network, which sent out information on the services available and organised regular meetings on disability issues to which people were invited.
  1. Respite care takes many forms and could be provided by the local authority or the voluntary sector or by other carers. It could involve an after school or weekend club, limited overnight shared care, or residential care over a period of time. There was a whole range of ways that it could be provided. Several hundred children took part in CAPAC playschemes in the holidays. Over a 9 week period in the summer 60 -70 children per day took part in schemes at Cheviots. Karen Fletcher-Wright had arranged transport for children to take part in some of the voluntary schemes. Support groups had been set up for siblings of children with special needs.
  1. The different services were working together in a more joined up way to provide and co-ordinate services.

(f)Working with Partners