Message from the Dfe Looked After Children Education Team

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Message from the DfE looked after children education team

Dear colleagues,

At the end of the school year Ian and I are sending you the VSH summer newsletter.

The newsletter contains information we believe you need to know about in order to help you carry out your roles to maximum effect. There are contributions from virtual school heads, which is always good to see. Thank you to Chris and Jill for sending these to share with VSH colleagues.

The third round of regional Children in Care Council meetings, which are organised by A National Voice, has just ended. Two recurring themes ran through the ten meetings.

Firstly that young people do not feel they get the information they need, for example about the 16-19 and HE bursaries, at the time they need it.

Secondly, young people discussed the unevenness in the quality of pathway planning and the support they receive to help them make their transition to adulthood.

As virtual school heads, please would you do all you can to:

• raise awareness about the revised guidance on accessing the 16-19 Bursary for 2012/13, which has just been published by the Education Funding Agency

• promote the availability of the two leaflets Entitlements for looked after children and care leavers that the Department has produced.

We included the entitlements leaflets in the spring 2012 newsletter but have included the hyperlink above for reference.

One way of making sure that young people receive the information they need is for IROs and personal advisers to have copies available when they meet young people.

On 9 Julythe Minister’s latest quarterly meeting with looked after young people and care leavers focused on education. Some of the recurring messages from young people – many echoing those from the Children in Care Council meetings – will be summarised in the next newsletter.

If you have effective practice in making sure looked after young people receive the information they need please pass it on through this newsletter.

Finally, Michael Gorman, VSH Bath and North East Somerset, has confirmed that BathSpaUniversity are willing to organise a National VSH conference next year. Provisionally it’s looking like 27 March. Look out for confirmation of the date.

Thank you to everyone for all your help with various requests from us both this year. Have a good summer.

Ian Payne and Michael Allured.

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In this edition

1Statutory guidance on exclusions published 3

2Making the virtual real: a view from Staffordshire3

3EPIC 2012 awards in East Sussex5

416-19 Bursary 2012/13 published6

5Extension of second chance learning7

6Research on implications of summer learning loss 7

7Charlie Taylor’s review of alternative provision8

8Have you seen?9

9Keep us updated10

10Ask a VSH question and give feedback10

11Useful links11

Revised statutory guidance on school exclusions

New arrangements for school exclusion come into force in September 2012.These will apply to any pupil excluded on or after 1 September 2012 from a maintained school, academy school / FreeSchool, alternative provision academy / FreeSchool or pupil referral unit in England.

Under the new arrangements, the process for challenging a school’s decision to permanently exclude a pupil will change.The current system of independent appeal panels will be replaced by independent review panels.

Where requested by a parent or, in the case of a looked after child, the person who has day-to-day parental responsibility for him or her, an SEN expert will need to be appointed by the local authority or academy trust to advise the independent review panel.

The independent review panel will be able to uphold the decision to permanently exclude a pupil; recommend that the governing body reconsider its decision; or direct the governing body to reconsider its decision. A direction to reconsider will be limited to circumstances where a panel decides that the school has acted illegally, irrationally or where there are significant flaws in procedure.

Where a parent alleges discrimination (under the Equality Act 2010) in relation to a fixed period or permanent exclusion, they will also be able to make a claim to the First-tier Tribunal (for disability discrimination) or a County Court (for other forms of discrimination).

The references to looked after children in the statutory guidance can be found in paragraphs 20, 22-24, 46 and 48. Four of these key paragraphs are reproduced below for ease of reference.

22. As well as having disproportionately high rates of exclusion, there are certain groups of pupils with additional needs who are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of exclusion. This includes pupils with statements of special educational needs (SEN) and looked after children. Head teachers should, as far as possible, avoid excluding permanently any pupil with a statement of SEN or a looked after child.

23. Schools should engage proactively with parents in supporting the behaviour of pupils with additional needs. In relation to looked after children, schools should co-operate proactively with foster carers or children’s home workers and the local authority that looks after the child.

24. Where a school has concerns about the behaviour, or risk of exclusion, of a child with additional needs, a pupil with a statement of SEN or a looked after child it should, in partnership with others (including the local authority as necessary), consider what additional support or alternative placement may be required. This should involve assessing the suitability of provision for a pupil’s SEN. Where a pupil has a statement of SEN, schools should consider requesting an early annual review or interim / emergency review.

48. It is important for schools to help minimise the disruption that exclusion can cause to an excluded pupil’s education. Whilst the statutory duty on governing bodies or local authorities is to provide full-time education from the sixth day of an exclusion, there is an obvious benefit in starting this provision as soon as possible. In particular, in the case of a looked after child, schools and local authorities should work together to arrange alternative provision from the first day following the exclusion.

ClickStatutory guidance on school exclusions September 2012to view the full document.

Making the virtual real: communications virtual and otherwise

One of the many challenges in establishing and then sharing the work of a virtual school is the choice of the medium you use to communicate information, news and updates. Being a relatively new virtual school, we have set out to utilise both the electronic and hard copy forms of media wherever possible. We have found that this is important if we are going to reach the wide variety of possible audiences that we potentially have.

That variety of professional audiences ranges across Designated Teachers in schools, Social Workers in a number of different teams, carers both employed by our own LA and independent providers, as well as residential homes and LA teams from across the spectrum. This audience multiplicity means that we have to try to maximise the audience we can gain from any one given medium or method.

Probably one of the default forms of communication that any school, virtual or otherwise, would defer to is the newsletter. Trying to define the virtual school within terms that all our audiences will recognise, we decided to aim for a termly newsletter from the virtual school. ‘Looked After And Learning’ (see the side bar to view a copy) was the result. The newsletter holds no great challenges or surprises but the important point that we have found around content is that it has to have articles and snippets that will appeal to our wide variety of audiences; not an easy trick to pull off.

From the outset, we aimed to produce this electronically and direct mail it to our ever developing mailing list of, for example, individual Designated Teachers’ email addresses. The added advantage of the newsletter though, is that colour copies can easily be printed off for hard copy circulation.

As always, one of the challenges is to keep the content flowing in and keeping that content up-to-date and relevant. In this regard, there is no substitute for old fashioned badgering, reminding and requesting; all of which, is of course, time consuming. But in terms of the possible breadth of audience, worthwhile.

The duality of use of the newsletter is easily seen when we have placed it onto our webpage.

In terms of websites and webpages, this is in no way the best that there is and I would never offer it as a best practice example. But what it has done is to develop. Initially from a depository for our latest PEP and basic contact information, into a home for a variety of additional information sources regarding Looked After Children and education locally. The webpage address has become a regular addition to the final slide of our presentations, allowing our multiple audiences to easily access the latest training or financial support information.

Good communication must be at the heart of any good school, virtual or otherwise. We face more challenges than most in this regard, therefore using, developing and exploiting key communication channels will continue to be an important area of development for the StaffordshireVirtualSchool for Looked After Children.

Christopher Tyler is the head teacher of Staffordshire’s Virtual School for Looked after Children

Looked After and Learning. Staffordshire’s virtual school Spring 2012 newsletter. Should every virtual school have one? To view it please click on the PDF file below.

EPIC 2012 awards ceremony in West Sussex

Acting on the wishes of the West Sussex Children in Care Council the VirtualSchool for Looked after Children in partnership with Social Care and Health Professionals is proud to report that the annual celebration of achievement event for Looked After Children and Care Leavers is firmly back on the calendar.

Over 300 hundred children/young people and their guests packed the Charmandean Centre, Worthing, on Sunday 19th February for the presentation of the 2012 Exceptional People in Care (EPIC) Awards.

In keeping with the Olympic theme, red white and blue medal ribbons and balloons abounded. West Sussex County Council had donated a number of Olympic tickets to support this event and three of the 64 young people attending won pairs of these in the lucky programme draw at the end of the day, all of the 92 award winners will be included in the draw for the remaining tickets.

Candidates had been nominated by teachers, tutors, social workers and health professionals in recognition of achievement in the following categories:

• volunteering
• education and learning
• sports and cultural activities
• overcoming adversity

The event was supported by a number of local dignitaries and awards were presented by:

• The Lord Lieutenant, Susan Pyper the Queen’s appointed representative in West Sussex,
• Louise Goldsmith, LeaderWestSussexCounty Council,
• Peter Griffiths, Cabinet Member Education and Schools,
• Peter Evans, Cabinet Member Children and Families,
• The High Sherriff of West Sussex David Tupper.

However the real stars of the day were the children and young people, the truly inspirational Care Leavers who spoke, the spine tingling performance of a highly talented singer, the members of the Children in Care Council and all those who had achieved great things over the past year. Congratulations and well done! We are very proud of you all and thank you for making this such an exciting and memorable event.

Jill Dyson is the virtual school head in West Sussex

16-19 Bursary guidance for 2012/13 published

Have you and your local authority’s leaving care services seen the new 16-19 Bursary Fund guide published by the Education Funding Agency in May?

Looked after children and care leavers will be eligible for a bursary of at least £1,200 (pro-rata for courses lasting less than 30 weeks a year). Larger bursaries can be paid if the provider considers this necessary to enable the young person to continue in education or training. References to looked after children and care leavers are made in paragraphs 7, 14 and 47.

Here is the hyperlink to the 16-19 Bursary Fund Guidance for 2012/13.

This guide provides information to schools, colleges, academies, training providers and local authorities (providers) on the operation of the 16-19 Bursary Fund.

This guidance should be read in conjunction with the documents 2012/13 16-19 Bursary Fund Q&A for providers and local authorities and 16-19 Bursary Fund examples of good practice. These can be accessed here. Three of the examples relating to HertfordRegionalCollege, Hertfordshire, NewcastleCollege, Newcastle and South Gloucestershire Council mention care leavers.

16-19 Bursary Funding Schedule

The Education Funding Agency (EFA) has agreed the schedule of payments for the 16-19 Bursary Fund for the 2012/13 academic year.

It will be undertaking an in-year review in October, to ask providers to submit data on the actual numbers of students enrolled who fall into the defined vulnerable groups. Where it is identified that providers require additional funding to be able to award bursaries to vulnerable group students, these payments will be made at specified times.

For your background information only the arrangements are detailed in the document below.

Extension of 'second chance learning' entitlement income support and housing benefit for care leavers in further education

From April 2012 the rulesaround income support (IS) and housing benefit (HB) for young people undertaking ‘second chance learning’ have changed.

Previously, care leavers studying up to A-levels could claim IS/HB until age 21 on the basis of being estranged from their parents, but they had to start their course before their 19thbirthday. From 1 April 2012 the age 19 qualification was removed.

A young personcan enrol at any time up tohis/her 21st birthday and can continue to receive these benefits up to the end oftheirstudies or the end of the academic year in whichtheybecome 21, whichever is earlier.

Implications of summer learning loss for looked after children

Pupils tended to lose maths skills over the summer. Poorer students specifically lost ground in reading during the summer, while their more advantaged peers sometimes gained progress.

A United States study explored the issue of summer learning loss i.e. pupils’ loss of knowledge and skills from the end of the summer term and when they return to school in the autumn. It specifically explored the nature of summer learning loss, and also the effectiveness of summer learning programmes in improving pupil achievement and the successful elements of programmes.

The study was conducted in the United States where there has been a policy drive to tackle summer learning loss; the US government launched a programme that encouraged Americans to address ‘the summer reading gap’ in 2010.

The study was commissioned by The Wallace Foundation which is a philanthropic organisation in the US and aims to improve the outcomes of disadvantaged children. As part of this desire, the organisation is in the process of establishing district supported summer learning programme. The study was mainly based on a review of existing research, most published in the US, and revisited and updated an earlier comprehensive research review of summer learning loss published in 1996.

Key findings

The study found that pupils tended to lose skills over the summer, particularly in mathematics, and that summer learning loss disproportionately affected economically disadvantaged pupils. Disadvantaged students lost substantial ground in reading during the summer, while their more advantaged peers often gained progress.

Summer learning loss was found to be cumulative and, over time, the periods of differential learning rates between low-income and higher-income students contributed substantially to the achievement gap in reading.

The review found that efforts to close the summer learning loss achievement gap during the school year alone tended to be unsuccessful.

Would anyone like to share their experiences of looked after children attending a DfE funded summer school this year? Why not send in your stories to share with VSH colleagues in the autumn newsletter?

Charlie Taylor’s review of Alternative Provision

In March 2012 the Secretary of State responded to the recommendations set out in Charlie Taylor’s review of alternative provision (AP).

The focus for the review was about improving the outcomes for vulnerable children in these education settings.

The starting point for the review was that the focus of pupil referral units and alternative provision, just as it is in schools, should be about getting high quality education for all pupils and the best value for public money. All decisions around provision should take this as the starting point.

The report sets out 28 recommendations, all of which the Secretary of State accepted in his response. The recommendations are grouped under the following headings: Expectations of AP (rec.1-3), Quality Assurance of AP (rec.4-5), the Exclusions Trial (rec.6-8), Commissioning of AP (rec.9-12), cost of AP (rec.13), Inspection of AP (rec.14-19), PRUs (rec.20-28) What will these recommendations mean for your job?

HAVE YOU SEEN…?

Information at their fingertips from NorthCLASS

Have you heard about NorthCLASS?

This is a network of people who work in universities and colleges in the north of England who are committed to supporting looked after children and care leavers.

Every member of the network has a range of support on offer and NorthCLASS thought it would be useful for looked after and care experienced young people to have the information all in one place in a booklet.

Click on NorthCLASS Higher Education Providers: Provision for Looked After/Care Experienced Young People to view the booklet.

The booklet provides information on the activities offered to looked after young people, the support available to care leavers and invaluable contacts at over twenty higher education institutions in the north.