Children Missing Education (CME) Update (May 2015)
Children Missing Education exploitation continues to be a subject that is high profile locally and nationally and it is important that in Nottinghamshire we continue to develop good practice in this area. CME is led by the Service Director for Education, Standards and Inclusion and is monitored by the CME Monitoring Group which meets monthly.
The primary aim is to identify children who are currently missing education or are at risk of missing education. Children and young people who are not accessing their full entitlement are also a focus of the monitoring group.
“Everyone must take greater responsibility for knowing where these children are. We owe it to them to ensure they are safe and can succeed” (Pupils Missing Out on Education Ofsted 2013)
Who are the children missing education?
Most of the CME cohort is a different cohort of children to those considered to be ‘missing’. Children who are missing include those who may or may not be on a school roll. However, their whereabouts are unknown. The whereabouts of children missing education are known but these children and young people are:
· not accessing their full educational entitlement as a result of failing to secure a school place,
· refusing to attend their school place and Targeted Support are identifying them as a concern,
· on a school roll but accessing less than their full educational entitlement
· any child or young person known to services without a school place or refusing to attend school
The DfE guidance to schools regarding Children Missing Education (January 2015) also includes the following vulnerable groups:
· pupils at risk of harm/neglect
· children of gypsy, Roma and traveller families
· families of armed forces
· missing children/runaways
· children and young people supervised by the Youth Justice System
Children missing education are at significant risk of underachieving, being victims of abuse and becoming NEET later in life. In addition, CME are at risk of being subject to child sexual exploitation.
Key recent reports & recent learning
1. Children Missing Education Statutory guidance for local authorities DfE January 2015
2. Not present, what future? Children Missing Education in England National Children’s Bureau June 2014
3. Pupils Missing out in Education Ofsted November 2013
4. Children Missing from Education Ofsted 2010
Issues from the reports / Positive strategic and operational responseLocal authorities must identify “as far as it is possible to do so, children missing education (CME) and get them back into education” (DfE January 2015) / Strong leadership and a corporate culture has been developed to ensure that CME is the responsibility of everyone from the Chief Executive, Director of Children’s Services and at all levels to ensure that children and young people do not become missing from education.
“Local authorities can use other duties and powers to support their work of CME.” (DfE January 2015) / Local Authority powers are effectively used by a range of service areas and teams. These include the issuing of attendance orders by Targeted Support, prosecution of parents for non-attendance, the use of NCET to ensure every child excluded or at risk of being without educational provision is identified, placed on the NCET register and appropriate provision provided
“Local authorities should regularly raise awareness of their procedures with local schools, partners and agencies working with children and families.” (DfE January 2015” / Existing communication structures with schools and governing bodies are being used effectively to ensure that everyone accepts responsibility for children who may be at risk of missing education. CME is a shared priority in every service area within Children, Families and Cultural services.
“… having a high level of recorded CME does not necessarily indicate that a local authority is performing poorly in comparison to those with lower CME rates. It is possible that a higher figure demonstrates that a local authority is more effective at collecting and recording the relevant data.” (NCB June 2014) / As a result of the introduction of more rigorous data monitoring the number of CME has risen. However, in relation to Fair Access termly data, which has been recorded since 2013, there is evidence that closer scrutiny whilst identifying more vulnerable CME, is supporting services to better understand the contributory factors that cause a child or young person to miss education and, therefore, develop new ways of working to support them back to full time education in a school or through high quality alternative provision.
“Local authorities have a statutory duty to arrange suitable full-time education for children of compulsory school age at school or otherwise for children and young people who do not attend school in the usual way” (Ofsted November 2013) / Since September 2014, data collection systems, including a termly return by schools of children on their roll not accessing full time provision, has allowed the Local Authority to challenge schools who are not supporting children and young people who are able, back to full time provision.
“Local authorities and schools that respond quickly to any signs of disengagement, or children and young people’s anxieties, were more successful in helping them to achieve at levels comparable with those of their peers and return to full time education.” (Ofsted November 2013) / The Education Psychology Service in partnership with CAMHS has developed a package to support schools to identify and intervene positively when early signs of anxiety can be detected.
What are we currently doing in Nottinghamshire?
Children Missing Education Action Plan 2014 -2015
Following the identification of CME as a highly vulnerable group, a corporate CME Action Plan was drafted and implemented in March 2014. This plan focussed on key priorities and the Impact Review (April 2015) has identified key achievements and learning:
Priority 1 - The development of a corporate culture around inclusion and CME
Impact evidence:
· Explicit corporate commitment to CME now evident across the department (evidenced by monthly CME Monitoring Meeting now in place and internal services now strategically aligned around cross service provision for CME – see space ship diagram)
· Service Director for Education, Standards and Inclusion leading on the implementation of the strategy (evidenced by Action Plan monitoring at monthly monitoring meeting and also by DLT. In addition, CME data reported monthly to CFCSLT performance meeting)
· Director’s Report to Governors distributed (evidenced by the completion of CME report for Autumn term 2014 governing body meetings and mediated at the September 2014 Heads and chairs Briefings. CME also the theme of a workshop at the March 2015, Governor Conference which had a focus on vulnerable children)
Priority 2 – Development of a Nottinghamshire CME Policy
Impact evidence:
· A CME Policy was developed in partnership with key internal partners informed by consultation with all schools (evidenced by inclusion of policy consultation through the primary and secondary Headteacher Summer 2014 term briefings (6 primary events and 1 secondary event).
· The CME Policy mediated with key stakeholders including the Dioceses, school based teachers and senior leaders and internal teams such as HRET, Ed Psychs, SEND. In addition, the policy has been mediated with and discussed at the Governors’ Board, Primary Trust Board, Secondary Trust Board, Place Planning and Admissions Board Chaired by Cllr Peck, Termly Diocesan Meetings chaired by Cllr Peck.
· The CME Policy was ratified by Children and Young people’s Committee on 23 April 2014 and the Policy Committee on 7 May 2014.
Action 3 – all services to incorporate CME into 2014-2015 Service Plans
Impact evidence:
The Service plans for 2014-2015 were reviewed and the following teams incorporated key actions within their respective 2014-2015 service plans:
· Quality Assurance – develop robust data systems to support the monitoring of CME (Jon Hawketts - Group Manager Quality and Improvement)
· Targeted Support and Youth Justice – to forge closer working with internal services and schools to ensure children and young people at risk of being CME are identified and appropriately supported back to full time education (Laurence Jones - Group Manager Targeted Support and Youth Justice Services)
· Admissions and Fair Access – further develop the weekly, termly monitoring of children and young people without a school place to ensure that the Fair Access protocol identifies vulnerable children and young people without a school place(Marion Clay – Group Manager Support to Schools Service)
· Children’s Social Care – to further develop CSC workforce to ensure that those children and young people subject to a CPP or CIN are appropriately referred to the Fair Access Team and/or Targeted Support if school attendance is a concern (Amanda Collinson – Group Manager, Children’s Disability Services)
· Group Managers have also been held to account for CME through the monthly Monitoring meeting chaired by Service Director for Education, Standards and Inclusion.
Action 4 – Present guidance to schools regarding CME
Impact evidence:
· Guidelines and advice to schools was distributed during the spring and autumn terms 2015 as planned. As a result of the focus on CME, the Fair Access Officer, working in partnership with the Children Missing officer, reviewed the guidance to schools regarding missing children and the process for reporting them to the LA. Revised advice and guidance was sent to schools on 19 November 2014 by Glen Scruby, Children Missing Officer
· The advice regarding the context in which statutory school aged pupils can be removed from a school register, was also confirmed again with schools. Senior officers challenge, as a matter of urgency, every known ‘illegal’ removal from a school register to ensure no child or young person becomes missing. There is some evidence that school leaders are accepting the challenge of operational officers as a result of the increased support of the most senior officers.
· As a result of knowing the CME cohort in more depth and the analysis undertaken to identify the barriers impeding the admission and full attendance and access of their full entitlement at school, the Education Psychology Service has developed new guidance, training and are in the process of implementing a new process in relation to anxiety related nonattendance. (This distribution of the materials and training is planned for June 2015 and will be a priority in the 2015-2016 CME Action Plan)
Action 5 - Analysis of CPC and CIN Plans
Impact evidence
· This action is underway but not yet completed. As a result of the work being completed by information and systems for the Ofsted Annexe A analysis, information is collected from both Framework and Capita 1 identifying children who are currently subject of a CIN or CPP where non-attendance or non-access to education are issues. These cases are then directed to the relevant teams by the information and systems team. This action is ongoing.
Action 6 – Tracking and reviewing of pupils not on a school roll or accessing full time provision
Impact evidence
· A tracking system is now in place to capture high and medium concern cases. An individual pupil monitoring sheet now captures key information from all services, including CSC. This sheet also presents a clear chronology that allows senior officers to monitor difficult cases and agree actions to be allocated to group managers and other senior officers. These actions are monitored at the monthly monitoring meeting.
· In addition, the Information and Systems team now collect from schools termly a list of pupils who are not accessing their full educational entitlement. This data collection also requests information about the school based plans to ensure the child returns to a full entitlement in a timely and appropriate manner. This information is monitored on a termly basis at the monthly monitoring meeting and where there is a lack of clarity about the school’s plan for individual pupils to return to full time education, this is appropriately challenged. (Key actions to be carried forward to 2015-2016 will include the further development of systems that will allow the sharing of pupil level data related to admissions, and full entitlement.)
Action 7 – Governance and monitoring arrangements
Impact evidence
· There are clear monitoring arrangements in place to monitor CME throughout the year. Rather than bi-monthly, the CME monitoring meeting is chaired by the Service Director for Education, Standards and Inclusion on a monthly basis April 2014-April 2015. (This monthly meeting will continue throughout 2015-2016)
· Key strategic meetings around the CME agenda have also included the strengthening of the AVC Meeting which is also now chaired by the Service Director. This has harnessed key services from education, health, and CSC and has also included school representatives. The further development of the Vulnerable Children Education Commissioning group has also emerged during the year to allow key services to identify high concern cases to agree a multi-agency plan ‘pooling’ their existing resources thus ensuring the best value of limited resource.
CME - Key Priorities going forward
We are continuing to improve and develop the work that we are doing within Nottinghamshire. Key priorities for 2015-2016 include:
Early intervention with primary aged children at risk of CMEWork is underway to expand the Primary Behaviour Partnerships to ensure that primary aged children at risk of becoming CME are identified, referred to the appropriate professional and supported to maintain full time provision. / Intelligence sharing with partners
Further refine the Vulnerable Children Education and Commissioning group to ensure that available funding, resources, and professionals are effectively deployed in a coherent and strategic way to maximise the benefit to individual vulnerable pupils and young people at risk of being CME.
Engagement with schools
Further develop a shared responsibility for CME to ensure that senior school leaders understand their responsibility for any child or young person at risk of CME. The further development of effective information sharing through the locality partnerships should ensure that any child or young person at risk of becoming CME is known at all times by relevant professionals. / Additional CME officer post (Children in Care)
CSC and the Support to Schools Service is considering seeking funding from Schools Forum to fund an additional Children Missing Education officer as a result of our increased understanding of the number of children who are at risk of becoming ‘lost’ within the system.
CME on part time provision
Consolidate the data gathering process to ensure that the analysis undertaken identifies children and young people who are at risk of not accessing their full education entitlement. In addition to strengthen existing systems to challenge schools and other providers who are not meeting legal requirements. / Fair Access Protocol
Continue to monitor children and young people without a school place or at risk of being without a school place weekly to ensure that the Fair Access protocol is effectively used to ensure vulnerable children and young people can secure a school place or appropriate provision.
CME Training for CFCS
Develop an online training and information module that provides every employee within CFCS with an introduction to CME to include a focus on everyone’s responsibility to report and act whenever a child or young person is identified at being at risk of becoming CME
Multi-agency working
Consolidate the work of the Admission of Vulnerable Groups meeting, chaired by the Service Director for Education, Standards and Inclusion to ensure that further good practice is developed to ensure no child is missing education.
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