Agenda item

The Strategic Director of Social Care and Education submits the Virtual Head report which highlights the achievements of Leicester City’s looked after children in the school year 2019/2020.  The report coincides with the period of national lockdown arising from the Covid-19 resulting in most of our looked after children accessing their learning remotely from home during the summer term this year.

The Commission are recommended to note and approve the Virtual School Head Annual Report 2019-20.

The Strategic Director for Social Care and Education submitted the Virtual Head report which highlighted the achievements of Leicester City’s looked after children in the school year 2019/2020.  The report coincided with the period of national lockdown arising from the Covid-19 resulting in most of our looked after children accessing learning remotely from home during the summer term.

The presenting Officer informed the meeting of the following:

·         The aim was to ensure the educational outcomes of looked after children were near to that of their school peers.

·         It was reported that a maintained year on year improvement in school attendance had been achieved, there were no permanent exclusions and the rate of fixed term exclusions had decreased for the looked after children.

·         GCSE grade achievements for looked after children were explained and it was noted that teacher assessments had been cancelled and GCSE’s assessed in a different way, so there were no comparative data for that year.

·         During the national lockdown most looked after children accessed their learning remotely, were provided with access to a digital device for this, and a Virtual School touch down website was also established with resources to support learners and carers.

Members discussed the report and officers responded:

·         It was further reiterated that exclusion rates had gone down and although it was aimed to avoid exclusions, for the few that did happen most were one day exclusions generally relating to challenging behaviour including persistent disruption or not following instructions. To address an exclusion, resources were put in place and interventions to readdress the balance as to the underlying issues.

·         A Member of the Commission highlighted a point about the higher costs of employing temporary staff as opposed to employing permanent staff. The service would be discussing this issue with management in March.

·         In terms of careers support/ further education, it was noted that were visits for looked after children to universities, starting from primary school years and throughout school years. In addition, a sailing ship enrichment experience activity was offered which gave the opportunity to support the looked after children in developing their aspirations. It was noted that the tour ship activity had been confirmed for this year. The support provided through university life was also explained.

·         Some of the reasons why looked after children were not in education, employment or training post 16 were reported. Some reasons were due to several looked after children becoming young parents for that report year but who would return; some hadn’t engaged with education at any point for a wide range of reasons and some were serving time in institutions. A lot of time was spent working on how to engage and intervene and this was dealt with on a child by child basis taking into account many factors.

·         In terms of disproportion to the figures, it was noted that the majority of children looked after were from a white British background.

·         Progress had been made on all the key objectives and it was noted that this was a continual process and was not expected to be achieved within a year.

The team were thanked for their hard work

AGREED:

1.    The Commission note, welcome and approve the Virtual School Head Annual Report 2019-20.

2.    The Commission notes that the impact of Covid-19 would have affected young people and a report is requested to identify its challenges and how these issues will be addressed.