Agenda item

The Interim Service Lead for Inclusion introduced a report on children missing education, including the definition of the term, links to the risk of exclusion and the actions being taken to improve the monitoring and support to children.

The term children missing education (CME) was defined as children of compulsory school age, 5 to 16 years old, who were not registered pupils at a school and were not receiving suitable education otherwise than at a school.  CME were at a significant risk of underachieving; being victims of harm, exploitation or radicalisation; and becoming NEET (not in education, employment or training) later in life.  Local authorities had a statutory obligation to establish the identities of CME.  The Panel noted the wide variety of situations in which a child could be considered CME including those permanently excluded not provided with education within 6 days, children removed from a school register without informing the Council, unauthorised absences or home education and children moving into the area without a school place.

The Panel was informed that the Council had a range of measures in place to monitor the whereabouts of children at risk of becoming CME.  The Attendance Team had key role to play and they operated a pupil tracking system that was published weekly and included children missing education at risk of CME and referrals from agencies such as schools, social care and Thames Valley Police.  The Officer explained the links to safeguarding and the position regarding fixed term and permanent exclusions from school.

Slough had a mobile population and the number of children being tracked and number of CME varied considerably throughout the year.  A significant number of referrals were made in September at the start of each school year due to the number of children who had left the borough or moved abroad during the summer holidays.  Most referrals were closed within a month and were not formally classified as CME.  There was 1,412 referrals in 2018/19 of which 118 (8%) were CME.  Slough’s overall performance was better than the national average.  The Panel considered future developments which included the work being undertaken to further strengthen inter-agency working and a review of the Fair Access Protocol.

The Panel raised a number of issues during a wide ranging discussion which are summarised as follows:

·  Members asked for further detail about the pre-emptive actions the Council was taking to reduce the risk of CME.  The Officer provided assurance that this was a core part of the department’s role and several examples were given of the types of proactive steps that would be undertaken given the particular circumstances of the child.  These included data collection to identify trends and children at risk and working with schools to try to contact families quickly after any absence to try to intervene early where appropriate.

·  The requirements for monitoring children being home schooled was raised.  There was tight monitoring in place for children were taken out of school to be home schooled, however, parents who chose to home educate from the start of education did not have to inform the local authority and monitoring was difficult with no legal obligation for parents to accept visits from the education department.

·  Concern was raised about the perception that exclusions were sometimes used by schools to remove challenging children from the roll.  Officers gave assurance that there were strong legal protections for children in this regard and the local authority was always informed by the school.  The number of permanent exclusions in Slough was low.  Littledown School and Haybrook College offered a range of provision to ensure all children remained in education or were able to return to mainstream education.  The exclusion of SEN pupils was discussed and it was noted that no children with a EHCP should be excluded.

·  Members asked for further data about the reasons for CME by the categories set out in paragraph 5.2 of the report.  It was noted that the data was constantly changing and the data was not collected in a way that put each child in one of the categories set out in the report.  However, Officers agreed to provide any further data that could be provided to help the Panel better understand the numbers of CME by reason.

At the conclusion of the discussion the Panel noted the report.

Resolved –  That the report be noted.