Minutes:
(A) Mr
Sheahan asked the following question of the Leader or his nominee:
“It has been recognised that many Early Years
providers have had significant reductions of children attending preschool. How many early years places have been lost in
Leicestershire, expressed both numerically and as a percentage?”
Mrs Taylor responded as follows:
“Since March 2020, 9 pre-schools and day nurseries and 33 childminders
have closed resulting in a loss of 436 places.
However, over the same period 6 pre-school and day nurseries and 20
childminders have opened offering a total of 333 places.
Therefore, in total there has been a loss of 103 places (0.88%) in
Leicestershire since March 2020.”
(B) Mr Sheahan asked the following question of
the Leader or his nominee:
“There have been concerns from Head Teachers,
reported nationally, that some students have fallen behind after the closure of
schools. What assessment has been made
of this trend in Leicestershire? Is it
known how much further disadvantaged pupils have fallen behind in comparison
with their peers due to school closures and what arrangements have been made to
ensure there is appropriate and targeted catch-up support?”
Mrs Taylor responded as follows:
“Most students across Leicestershire were out
of school from 23rd March 2020 until the beginning of the Autumn
Term 2020. Over this period schools
remained open for children of key workers and those children who were deemed to
be vulnerable. Children who were not in
school over this period were provided with education through their school,
predominantly through online methods.
As children have returned to school in the
Autumn Term all schools have undertaken an assessment of all children in order
to fully understand the impact of the period of time out of school and learning
at home. It appears that the impact of
pupils’ time out of education in Leicestershire, mirrors the gap reported
nationally which is that the curriculum learning gap between disadvantaged
pupils and their peers has increased by 46 per cent compared with July 2019.
In the summer (2020) the Government announced £1 billion of funding to
support children and young people to catch up lost time after school
closure. The funding is especially
important for the most vulnerable children and those children from
disadvantaged backgrounds. This funding
includes:
Individual schools are responsible for
planning their programmes of work to support children to catch up.
Through the County Council’s Education
Effectiveness Team, school leaders have accessed training on recovery
curriculum, provided jointly by the Local Authority and school leaders on what
this means and how it could be structured and implemented. Training sessions on planning for effective
remote learning in schools and another on the most effective use of the catch-up
funding allocated to schools by the Department for Education have also been
well attended by school leaders.”
(C) Mr Sheahan asked the following question of
the Leader or his nominee:
“Early on, it was anticipated that schools
would require access to computer equipment for those children who needed that
support. How many pieces of equipment
were delivered to schools in Leicestershire?
In preparation for further periods of
home-based learning, how will the County Council work with schools to survey
pupils and parents to better understand the need for digital equipment and
resources?”
Mrs Taylor replied as follows:
“IT equipment has been delivered in different
phases. 893 laptops were issued directly
to Leicestershire County Council which have been allocated and distributed to children
known to social care or who are looked after, as well as those who are now in
their GCSE year in the local authority maintained schools. In the same scheme, all academies preparing
children for GCSEs also received an allocation directly for them to allocate to
pupils.
A further allocation of laptops has been made
for schools directly by the Department for Education, enabling schools to apply
for laptops once ‘bubbles’ of students have been sent home to isolate. We only have access to details for the
allocation to local authority maintained schools, which currently totals 267
for 89 schools.
Schools are responsible for the allocation of
IT equipment and are best placed to understand the needs of pupils attending
their schools.
The County Council’s Education Effectiveness
Team is actively engaging with schools through the Leicestershire Education
Excellence Partnership to establish needs and co-ordinate support.
This has included training on the use of
remote learning in partnership with the Edutech Demonstrator schools, as well
as communicating and facilitating schemes to enhance provision, such as the
rural broadband roll out for schools and communities, and the Vodafone offer of
free data SIMS for disadvantaged pupils.”
(D) Mr Sheahan asked the following question of
the Leader or his nominee:
“How has the County Council been monitoring
the impact on support for vulnerable learners due to the temporary relaxation
of the 2014 SEND Regulations and has the Council prioritised restoring support
to these learners?”
Mrs Taylor replied as follows:
“Temporary relaxations were introduced by the Secretary of State for
Education for a limited period of time. The relaxations affected
timescales for undertaking initial Education, Health and Care (EHC) Needs
Assessments and the ability to exercise some flexibility in terms of the
provision to be made available through an EHC Plan.
Relaxation of timescales for undertaking EHCPs. This
relaxation enabled Local Authorities to identify where any delay in producing
an initial EHCP within the expected 20 week timescale was due to reasons
attributable to Covid-19. This ‘temporary relaxation’ applied between 1st
May and 25th September 2020. In Leicestershire we did not
record any such delays as being due to Covid-19.
The ability to exercise some flexibility in terms of the provision to be
made available through an EHC Plan. The temporary relaxations
removed the legal requirement to provide the exact provision stated in the EHC
Plan and instead placed an expectation that the local authority/or the NHS can
make ‘Reasonable Endeavours’ to provide the support. This ‘temporary relaxation’ applied only
between 1st May and 31st July.
The County Council has worked with schools so that every child with an
EHC Plan was assessed in terms of the schools’ ability to provide the support
as detailed in the EHCP. Children were assessed as ‘green’ where they were able
to attend school as normal, ‘amber’ where they were educated at home but the
school were able to work with the parents to provide as much continuity of
education as possible, and ‘red’ where the school had specific concerns.
Where there were any concerns these were followed up on an individual
basis between the SEN Officer, school and parent. The County Council
wrote to all parents/carers of a child with an EHC Plan and advised them about
what to do if they have any concerns. In
a small handful of cases parents did contact the Local Authority and in each
case officers worked with the school to identify a workable solution.
Since September all schools have been open for all children, with the
exception of those few children who are clinically extremely vulnerable, or
where it has been necessary for schools to ask certain year groups to work from
home following a positive test in a particular bubble for a short period of
time. Where children with an EHCP cannot attend school, e.g. because a
year group have been asked to self-isolate, then there is an expectation that
the school make suitable arrangements to provide continuity of education.
Schools have been working extremely hard to provide continuity of
education during this demanding period. County Council officers, such as
SEN Officers, Specialist Teachers, Educational Psychologists and Education Effectiveness
Partners, continue to work with schools to offer support and advice regarding
children on a case by case basis, including for example attendance at Annual
Reviews.”
(E) Dr
Eynon asked the following question of the Leader or his nominee:
“Parents who are clinically extremely
vulnerable to SARS-Covid-2 and who refuse to send their child to school risk
being prosecuted under section 444 of the Education Act (1996).
1. How many children
attending Leicestershire schools have family members at home who are clinically
extremely vulnerable to SARS-Covid-2?
2. How is this authority
addressing these families’ concerns regarding school-related viral
transmission?
3. How flexible is this
authority regarding the prosecution of school non-attendance in these
circumstances?
4. How does this authority
ensure that children who are not attending school due to family concerns re
Covid-19 receive an adequate education?”
Mrs Taylor replied as follows:
“1. The
County Council does not hold this information, however the Department for
Education guidance sets out that children who live with
someone who is clinically extremely vulnerable, but who are not clinically
extremely vulnerable themselves, should still attend education.
2. There
is no available data to show the breakdown of whether viral transmission is
through schools or in the community.
The education
team is working closely with schools and the public health team in the County
Council to mitigate any risks identified and to reduce the risk of transmission
in schools.
3. The
Department for Education required all local authorities to re-commence
non-attendance measures from the start of the autumn term, as part of their
proposals for a return to education for all schools following the earlier
lockdown restrictions.
The County Council’s approach to non-attendance is predicated on
supporting pupils/families to achieve an early return to regular schooling and
in this respect penalty notices and prosecutions are always seen as a last
resort when other support measures, for example working with the Inclusion
Service, have been unsuccessful.
Our approach throughout the autumn term has been to keep in close contact
with schools, and to ensure that families who may lack the confidence and seek
further assurance about a child’s safe return to school are not penalised; where there are persistent cases of non-
attendance which pre-date lockdown restrictions, it is expected that these
will be processed in the normal manner
and in accordance with the duties of the County Council.
Whilst each case will be assessed individually, parents who are
clinically extremely vulnerable to SARS-Covid-2 and who refuse to send their
children to school are unlikely to risk prosecution.
4. Where children of statutory school age
are identified as Clinically Extremely Vulnerable (CEV) and are unable to
attend school, they are considered as a child with medical needs and as such
schools will refer these pupils to the County Council in line with the
statutory guidance. The County Council
will jointly work with the school to ensure that effective education is in
place and will arrange education on behalf of the school if required.
Where children are missing education (CME)
due to family concerns relating to Covid-19 (including parents who are
clinically extremely vulnerable as set out above) the school will notify the
Inclusion Service in line with the CME guidance. The Inclusion Service will be engaged to
ensure that the school is enabling the young person to access education through
virtual or other means, whilst considering risk assessments for the child to be
able to return to full-time school based education.”