Issue - meetings

This report provides the Panel with an overview of attendance and exclusions key trends across 2022-2023 and 2023-2024.

The Head of the Virtual School addressed the Panel and highlighted the following areas from the report.

She said that it was very timely for her to attend the meeting today as in August the Government issued their ‘Working together to improve school attendance’ statutory guidance and said that it was everyone’s responsibility to improve school attendance.

She added that they have worked very closely with the DfE on this issue and that the Council has a very clear Strategic Attendance Plan and felt that this was beginning to show in some of the figures recorded.

She stated that a particular focus at the present time was on our vulnerable pupils, children in need, children looked after and those within child protection in terms of persistent and severe absence.

She explained that this was a target that sits across the whole of Children’s Services and within the Children & Young People’s Plan. She added that a joint working party was in place and stated that clear targets need to be set and challenged within any plans for our children and young people.

She said that another area of concern was around the attendance of those pupils that are eligible for Free School Meals as too many are recorded as absent (40%) and missing around 10% of their schooling. She added that meetings are planned to discuss how can this attendance gap be improved.

On the issue of permanent exclusions she stated that there had been a rise in 2022/23, but a reduction was now being seen in 2024. She added that historically ethnicity had been an issue, but currently these figures were low.

She informed the Panel that last year two Education Inclusion Co-ordinators had been appointed to provide advice to our schools regarding children that were at risk of permanent exclusion. She added that they had also introduced six Inclusion Panels that meet every 25 days.

She stated that her aim, over the next 2-3 years, was to have no children with a Child Protection Plan to be permanently excluded.

She said that number of suspensions had increased over the past three years, but that this was below the now national average. She added in relation to both vulnerable and Looked After Children the figures were also below the national and regional average. She said that a disproportionality remains in terms of ethnicity and that this is to be addressed through the work of the Race Charter.

Councillor David Harding asked if the most common reason for persistent absence over the past four years was infection.

The Head of the Virtual School replied that she would need to check the data to be able to provide an answer.

Councillor Harding asked why B&NES was worse than other Local Authorities with regard to the attendance of pupils in receipt of Free School Meals.

The Head of the Virtual School replied that this was an issue that she would be raising with her colleagues at meetings planned to take place later  ...  view the full minutes text for item 44