Verbal update
Minutes:
The panel received a short verbal update from Cllr Zena Brabazon, the Cabinet Member for Children, Schools and Families on recent developments within her portfolio. This was followed by a question and answer session with the Cabinet Member. The key developments within her portfolio were summarised as:
· The Cabinet Member advised that in relation to school exam results:
o A-Level results were at the national average, with good outcomes for young people. This extended to both A-Levels and more vocational courses like BTECs.
o GCSE results were also at the national average, again good outcomes were achieved.
o Primary school SATs were at the national average. Early years provision and phonics scores were above the national average.
· The Cabinet Member advised that Haringey had featured in a Sky news article in relation to the alternative provision it provided for children excluded from school for behavioural issues. Following this clip, the Council had been contacted by a number of authorities wanting to know how Haringey had achieved this. It was noted that the success of this scheme was down to the success of the HLP, the leadership of the unit, and the decision to insource the service providing an opportunity to do things differently.
· It was noted that two more schools had achieved an outstanding Ofsted rating; St Aidan’s and Bounds Green. 98% of Haringey schools were rated either ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’.
The following arose as part of the Q&A part of this agenda item:
a. The Panel sought clarification about whether organisations such as fire cadets reported their additional qualifications through to the Council. In response, officers advised that there was no formal reporting mechanism for third sector organisations to report this to the Council. Any arrangements that were put in place would be bespoke and were outside of the local authority statutory framework for things like GCSE results.
b. The Panel sought clarification about the extent to which the Haringey Learning Partnership (HLP) model differed from the model used by other boroughs. In response, the Cabinet Member advised that the model in Haringey was very different and that it was a high quality, inclusive educational based provision that emphasised learning, rather than disciplining children. The Director added that she had not done any benchmarking to know whether the model had been replicated elsewhere, but stressed that the model was right for Haringey. The Director emphasised the fact that when she started in 2017, no one wanted to send their child to the Octagon and no educational professional wanted to send a pupil there either. The DCS set out that the service put in place a vision for a pupil referral unit that was best in class and one that supported every pupil. It was added that they were very fortunate to have such an experienced head teacher running the unit.
c. The Panel questioned whether there was exam data on outcomes for home schooled children and looked after children. In response, officers advised that they didn’t have detailed information on this yet but that in relation to home schooled children, the Council had been successful in finding them somewhere to sit their exams (the HLP). In relation to looked after children, they only had KS2 and phonics information, the rest would not be validated until later in the year. Officers stressed that sometimes these cohorts could be small numbers and that benchmarking data was not always useful given small sample sizes.
d. The Cabinet Member offered to bring a report on the virtual school to a future meeting, if the Panel wanted.
e. The Panel sought clarification about what support there was in place for children who did not get the exam results they had hoped for. In response, officers advised that the local authority used to have a statutory duty to provide information advice and guidance on results day, but that the education providers did this now. Officers provided assurances that each school had someone on site during results day to assist pupils who didn’t get into their first choice higher education provider.
f. The Chair questioned the take-up levels in relation to early years provision and whether there was an estimate of the amount of additional resources required to meet the extra need. In response, the Cabinet Member outlined that provision had been expanded so that two-year olds received 15 hours free provision from April 2014, rising to 30 hours in April 2025 and that from September 2024, infants under nine-months also received 15 hours free provision. As a result, it was explained that take-up had increased in the borough and that there had been a concerted effort to reach out to harder-to-reach groups to advertise the existence of this provision. Officers agreed to provide a written response on the take up levels. (Action: Jane Edwards).
g. The Cabinet Member advised that the authority had received around an extra £10m in the early years grant as part of the DSG provided by the Department for Education. Funding for Early years had to remain within the budget for early years which was around £31m. This funded the entire early year provision, including staffing costs. It was noted that like all educational funding, it was based on ‘bums on seats’ and for that reason it was important that take-up levels were maximised.
h. The Chair sought assurances about what was being done to tackle child poverty, in response the Cabinet Member advised that the government had expanded the Household Support Grant for another 6 months, the primary output of this was to provide free school meals during the holidays. The provision of free school meals in primary settings had been secured for another 12 months, this was a provision for all children to have one free school meal a day. The Cabinet Member added that it was incumbent upon the local authority to ensure that everyone who was eligible for free school meals claimed them as this drew down additional funding through the Pupil Premium. In relation to a follow-up question, the Cabinet Member advised that schools routinely provided food banks, clothing banks, toy banks and other services of this type.
i. The Panel sought assurances about what the Council was doing to reach hard to reach groups around free school meal take-ups or parents from communities who may have an aversion to taking up the free school meals for cultural reasons. In response, the Cabinet Member commented that she wasn’t sure that reason some people didn’t take up their entitlement was necessarily down to cultural issues, but that the Council had been active in getting comms messages in different languages and had also centralised the process of communicating with parents when they applied to schools.
j. In response to a question, the Cabinet Member advised that the government expanded entitlement and that free school meals were available to families with no recourse to public funds.
k. The Chair sought assurances about how the Council maintained accountability in schools. In response, the Cabinet Member acknowledged that there were a number of different types of schools in the borough and that each had a different set of rules. In relation to maintained schools, these were self-governing and ultimately accountable to a board of governors, however the authority had a range of powers it could use to intervene if the school was failing. The authority did not have the same powers in relation to academies, which were accountable to the regional academy schools commissioner and the Secretary of State. Similarly, church schools and catholic schools had their own accountability structures.
RESOLVED
That the portfolio update and the responses to the questions put to the Cabinet Member were noted.