Agenda and minutes

The evacuation procedure was noted.

There were no declarations of interest.

To approve the minutes of the last meeting held on 13 March 2024.

AGREED that the minutes of the meeting held on 13 March 2004 be confirmed as a correct record and signed by the Chair.

To receive evidence from the regional DfE Attendance Adviser and nominated attendance hubs.

The Select Committee received a presentation from Kevin Burns, the newly appointed regional DfE Attendance Adviser.

The presentation covered:

·         The new Statutory Guidance: Working Together to Improve School attendance which had been published on 29 February 2024 and was coming into force on 19 August 2024

·         Progress to date:

o   90% of schools now had a senior champion

o   85% of schools were now sharing data on a daily basis

o   Two thirds of Local Authorities were either fully delivering the new expectations or had an agreed plan to do so by January 2024

o   89% of Local Authorities now had a single point of contact for schools in their area

·         What might be working:

o   Targeting Support Meetings – holding termly conversations with schools, using their attendance data to identify pupils and cohorts at risk of poor attendance and agreed targeted actions and access to services for those pupils

o   Multi- disciplinary support for families – proving access to early help support workers to work intensively with families to provide practical whole-family support where needed to tackle the causes of absenteeism and unblock the barriers to attendance

·         The focus of work in Stockton – understanding that attendance is everyone’s business:

o   What is the impact on the Local Authority?

o   What change could be made at an operational level?

o   What change could be made at a strategic level?

Key issues highlighted and discussed were as follows:

·         Understanding of the issues/ problems specific to Stockton cohorts was essential

·         A need to understand how schools and the Local Authority can position resource to address the issue

·         Absenteeism had still not returned to pre-Covid levels

·         Many Local Authorities reported issues with anxiety and mental health as a key factor in absence

·         Members questions whether schools were adequately resourced to make up for lost learning due to Covid and to fully integrate children back into the classroom

·         Attendance Hubs had a role to play in sharing best practice and developing support networks

·         Member queried whether a “safe space” within mainstream schools could provide a stepping stone for children with additional needs to integrate back into the school system

·         Attendance was not as important as it used to be in Ofsted judgements. If this changed, it might encourage more schools to return to the interventions they used to employ

·         Schools should make adjustments to respond to the needs of the community

·         Home visits could have a positive impact on improving attendance

·         Some young people would be better placed in alternative provision

·         The extent to which waiting times for mental health support was impacting on attendance needed exploring locally

·         An absenteeism and suspension dashboard was under development and would include data from partners. According to the data, early incations were that Year 10 had the highest absenteeism for Stockton; this year group had been in Year 7 in 2020 and were likely to have been adversely affected by Covid disruption. Absenteeism also seemed to be an issue on a Friday and could possibly be  ...  view the full minutes text for item CYP/4/24

It was proposed that the May meeting should be an informal session to facilitate a discussion with health colleagues. This would mean re-scheduling the summary of evidence session to June and consideration of the final report to July.

AGREED that the work programme be amended as set out above.