Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were received from Ellenor Beighton (Headteacher, De Aston School, Market Rasen), Vicky Cook (Headteacher, Welbourn C of E Primary School), Roger Hale (Headteacher, Caistor Grammar School), Linda Houtby, (Principal and Chief Executive, Grantham College), Bridget Robson (Headteacher, Fortuna Primary School, Lincoln) Bridget Starling (Business Manager, Church of England, Diocesan Education Centre), Dave Thompson (Pupil Referral Unit) and Ian Wilkinson (Headteacher, Deeping St James Community Primary School).

An apology for absence was also received from Councillor Mrs P A Bradwell, (Executive Councillor for Adult Care and Health Services, Children's Services).

Members were advised that Scott Healey (Assistant Headteacher, De Aston School, Market Rasen) and Ken Rustidge (NUT) had attended the meeting on behalf of Ellenor Beighton (Headteacher, De Aston School, Market Rasen) and Helen Stokes (UNISON Lincolnshire) for this meeting only.

It was also noted that apologies had been received from Councillor Mrs P A Bradwell (Executive Councillor Adult Care and Health Services, Children's Services) and it was noted further that Councillor D Brailsford (Executive Support Councillor for Children's) was in attendance on her behalf for this meeting only.

The Schools Forum also extended their welcome to Heather Sandy, Chief Commissioning Officer for Learning who had recently been appointed in to post.

No declarations of Members Interests were made at this stage of the proceedings.

RESOLVED

That the minutes of the Lincolnshire Schools Forum meeting held on 14 January 2015 be agreed and signed by the Chairman as a correct record.

(To receive a verbal update from Katrina Cope, Team Leader – Democratic and Civic Services regarding election proposals to fill current vacancies on the Schools Forum)

The Chairman introduced this item and advised that since the last meeting of the Forum, an email had been received from Michael Follows advising of his resignation from the Schools Forum.  Michael wished to extend his thanks to all colleagues both past and present for all their hard work, and that he believed that the Schools Forum had contributed to making a difference to education in Lincolnshire and he wished the Forum good luck for the future.

It was agreed that a letter of thanks should be sent to Michael Follows on behalf of the Forum.

The Team Leader Democratic and Civic Services advised the Forum of the current vacancies these were as follows:

·         Special Schools - 1 Vacancy

·         Primary Headteacher – 1 Vacancy

·         Secondary Headteacher – 1 Vacancy

·         Academies – 4 Vacancies (3 Primary, 1 Seconday)

·         Early Years Providers – 1 Vacancy

It was reported that an election for these vacancies would be taking place at the end of June, to ensure that the election process was completed well before the summer holidays, and that the new members would then be in place for the October meeting of the Schools Forum.

Two Academy representatives and one Primary Governor advised that they would be leaving/retiring from the Forum and that these vacancies should be included in the forthcoming election process.

Some of the Forum felt that the work of the Schools Forum needed to be promoted better and that there needed to be a link for schools to get in touch with their respective members, either through an outlook email account into the Council, or to the members directly.

The Executive Director for Children's Services advised that promotion/recruitment to the Schools Forum would be included as an item on the next Headteachers briefing agenda, and that Officers would look into improving existing arrangements.  The Executive Director welcomed suggestions from Forum members.

(To receive a report from Tony Warnock, Operations and Financial Advice Manager, which sets out the Local Authority's planned spending on Children's Services for 2015/16)

Consideration was given to a report from the Operations and Financial Advice Manager, which provided the Schools Forum with a copy of the Section 251 Budget Statement for the 2015/16 financial year.

In the absence of the Operations and Financial Advice Manager, The Assistant Head of Finance Children's and Specialist Services guided the Forum through the report and brought their attention to Appendix 1 to the report which provided information relating to the LA Table: Funding Period (2015/2016) – Department for Education Section 251 Financial Data Collection for Lincolnshire.  The Forum was advised that the Section 251 covered the planned expenditure for Dedicated Schools Grant (lines 1.0.1 – 1.8.1) and Council funded services for Children's Services (2.0.1 onwards).  It was noted that no material changes had been made to the centrally held budgets within the Dedicated Schools Grant following the report presented at the 14 January Schools Forum meeting.  Particular reference was made to the following description codes:

·         1.0.0 – Individual School Budgets (delegated funding to all schools sectors);

·         1.6.1 – Total Schools Budget (overall Dedicated Schools Grant funding plus 6^th form funding;

·         2.1.4 –  2.1.8 - Home to school/college transport (25.8m); and

·         3.1.1 – 3.3.4 - Children's Social Services (£45.3m).

RESOLVED

            That the report be noted.

(To receive a joint report from Jonas Gibson, Commissioning and Development Manager and Catherine Southcott, Commissioning Officer, which provides the Schools Forum with an update on the current position of Outreach Services)

The Forum gave consideration to a report from the Commissioning Officer, which provided an update as to the progress of the Behaviour Outreach Support Service and to explore a mechanism to achieve savings to the Dedicated School Grant through investments in early intervention and support.

The report aimed to conclude the review of the Outreach Services, which had been initiated by a report from the Assistant Director of CfBT Education Services which had been considered by the Schools Forum at its meeting on 15 January 2014.  The outcome of the overarching service review with recommended model for delivery for Outreach services for "Physical Disabilities and Autism and Learning Difficulties" was then agreed by the Schools Forum at its meeting on 14 January 2015.

It was reported that throughout the review process it had been recognised that further research was needed for the "Challenging Behaviour" Outreach Service.

The Executive Director for Children's Services introduced the report and expressed concerns to the increase in the number of children being excluded at all key stages from schools and special schools.  The Forum was advised that to date there were 39 permanent exclusions from primary schools; 93 from the secondary sector; and 7 from special schools.  The increase in numbers was putting extra pressure on the Teaching and Learning Centre, who was struggling to cope with the increase in numbers.  It was noted that some children because of their complex SEN needs had to be catered for out of County, and that this sector had also increased.

The Executive Director advised that the Local Authority had a statutory responsibility to educate excluded children and that the final review of the "Behaviour Outreach Services" had presented an approach that would hopefully assist in achieving longer term savings from the Dedicated Schools Grant by containing the growth of the exclusions and the high specialist placements.  It was reported that this could be achieved through investment and the development of an effective "Behaviour Outreach Support Service," which would be focussed on early intervention, prevention and support for Schools, Families and to the pupils experiencing social, emotional and behavioural difficulties.  Details of the Financial Implications were shown at Paragraph 10 to 10.6 on pages 39 to 41 of the report.  Paragraph 11 on page 41 of the report provided details of the recommendations, the benefits and disadvantages/risks associated with the proposed service.

The Executive Director stressed that action need to be taken now, due to the current pressures on the Teaching and Learning Centre as the Ofsted inspection had highlighted the current pressures on the Teaching and Learning Centre.  The Executive Director highlighted that this issue had been discussed by the Schools Forum before, and at that time the Forum had decided not to impose a penalty on schools that excluded pupils.  The proposed Outreach Service would offer a solution to the problem and reduce the pressure on the Teaching and Learning Centre but the issue of exclusions was a complicated and wicked issue which required a range  ...  view the full minutes text for item 50.

(To receive a report from Andrew Mclean, Children's Services Manager – Commissioning, which provides the Schools Forum with an update with regard to Sector Led School Improvement)

The Forum gave consideration to a report from the Children's Services Manager – Commissioning, which provided an overview of the future commissioning arrangements for school improvement in Lincolnshire.  The arrangements being focussed on embedding an integrative, school-led system, to establish a Lincolnshire Learning Partnership, to deliver a tiered approach to school improvement, which would include peer review; quality assurance and appropriate governance arrangements to drive forward the strategic vision for education in Lincolnshire.

It was reported to support schools in engaging and driving this approach forward, a school development fund had been established between the Council and CfBT Education Trust (CfBT).  The Schools Forum was asked to consider providing £0.5m additional funding to support ongoing development to schools through allocating funds from the 2014/15 DSG underspend, which had been previously considered by the Forum at the October 2014 meeting.

The Chief Commissioning Officer for Learning guided the Forum through the report making particular reference to:

·         Tier One: Peer Review and School to School Improvement;

·         Tier Two: Monitoring Outcomes and establishing a Network of Excellence;

·         Tier Three Lincolnshire Learning Partnership Board; and

·         Funding to Support Schools – It was reported that through the Council's agreement with CfBT, a non-recurrent school development fund had been established of c£0.297m, targeted to support schools in engaging with and developing a sector-led approach. 

The Forum was advised that 310 expressions of interest had been received to get involved.  The Forum were advised further that the Peer Review Training contract was hoped to be awarded within the next ten days and this would provide training to Headteachers on how to complete a successful Peer Review programme.  It was noted that this training was free of charge to all maintained schools and also to academies that chose to join the partnership.  The training would increase access to peer reviewers in Lincolnshire as well as increase the capacity of individual headteachers to precisely identify and focus their own school improvement activity.

During discussion the Forum raised the following issues:-

·         Concern was raised as to whether Headteachers of teaching schools would receive benefit by commercially being in an advantageous position to sell their services.  The Forum was advised that this was a risk and that the LA (for its commercial relationship) would take steps to identify and put systems in place to mitigate the risk;

·         It was highlighted that Teaching Schools broker through the DfE so that they were able to draw monies into Lincolnshire;

·         Existing arrangements of sharing best practise already existed with Academies.  Some concern was raised as to whether the proposal had been thought through as some schools were running on very little funds and that spending this sort of money on training seemed unfair at this time;

·         Some concern was also expressed that interest for the proposal was only an expression of interest and not a firm commitment.  If Academies chose not to take part then they would be penalised as the funding was for all schools.  The Forum were advised that  ...  view the full minutes text for item 51.

(To receive a report from Michelle Andrews, Service Manager Early Years (Head of Birth to Five Service, which sets out arrangements for early years provision)

Consideration was given to a report from the Service Manager – Early Years Head of Birth to Five Service, which provided the Forum with information as to the Authority's statutory duties under the current DfE guidance and an analysis of Lincolnshire's priorities during 2014/15.

The Service Manager guided Members through the report making reference to the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile Outcomes (EYFS); the quality of Provider judged by Ofsted; the Early Years Entitlement (EYE) for 2, 3 and 4 year olds; Childcare Sufficiency; Workforce and Professional Development; Inclusion and Early Years Intervention; Partnership Working; the Early Years Conference; and Budgets and areas of focus for 2015/16, which were detailed on pages 64 and 65 of the report presented.

The Forum noted that the Birth to Five Service endeavoured to maximise outcomes for Lincolnshire's youngest children through the delivery of varied and early intervention strategies.  The service continued to ensure that sufficient, inclusive quality provision was being delivery across the County and that strong relationships existed with Service users.

The Forum were advised that the Department for Works and Pensions had committed to producing a list of all those eligible families for individual local authorities and that this would be available 7 times during 2015/16.  Lincolnshire's list produced in March had indicated 3,300 two year olds currently eligible for funded education places.  Funding for 2015/16 would be based on participation, so it was crucial to ensure that as many eligible families access their child's full entitlement to secure appropriate funding for the future take-up for two year olds.

RESOLVED

            That the report be noted.

(To receive a report from Sheridan Dodsworth, Head of Service Additional Needs and Children with Disabilities, which sets out arrangements for pupils with special educational needs; arrangements for use of pupil referral units and the education of children otherwise that at school)

The Forum gave consideration to a report from the Children's Services Manager, Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) which provided an annual update on Special Educational Needs as required by the Schools Forum Regulations.

The report covered:

·         Special Educational Need Funding Analysis;

·         A progress update following the Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) reforms; and

·         An outline of the current Independent Review being undertaken to support a Lincolnshire SEN Strategy.

The Forum was advised that Lincolnshire currently had circa 3,200 pupils with Statements of Special Educational Needs.  Clarification was given that Out of County placements were only made when Lincolnshire Schools had stated that they could not meet the Special Educational Needs of a particular learner.  It was reported that there was a continuing pressure on meeting the needs of those learners with Autistic Spectrum Disorders and specifically those with challenging behaviours.  It was highlighted that Out of County placements went through a rigorous commissioning process.

It was highlighted that over the last two years the number of Out of County placements had risen by approximately 23 places as a result of demand/pressures on Maintained Special Schools, and, in a number of cases their inability to meet students' needs.  As at 31 March 2015, there were 100 Out of County placements with a projected cost of £6.9m.  64% of students placed Out of County had a diagnosis of Autistic Spectrum Disorder and associated challenging behaviour.

In a bid to address the increasing number of pupils the LA had commissioned an independent review by ISOS Partnership details of Phase One - Review of the implementation of Lincolnshire's 2011 SEN Strategy were shown in Appendix A to the report presented.  The outcomes of which would be considered in conjunction with the re-procurement of Behaviour Outreach provision in Lincolnshire.

The Forum extended their thanks to the Children's Services Manager, Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) for a very clear and concise report and presentation.

RESOLVED

            That the report be noted.

(To receive a report from Adrian Clarke, School Re-Organisation Officer, which sets out the current and projected number of academies and the pupils attending them)

Consideration was given to a report from the Children's Services Manager Education Support, which provided the Forum with the latest position regarding the number of Academies and pupils in Academies.

It was highlighted that since the last report three further Academies had opened bringing the number of Academies to 124 (34.35) educating 59,467 pupils (58.6%), which was an increase of 0.9% of schools and 0.1% of pupils.

It was reported that there were two further primary Academies Keelby Primary School which had become part of the Enquire Learning Trust and Ingoldsby Wood Primary Academy, which was being sponsored by the David Ross Educational Trust.  These two further Academies brought the total number of primary Academies to 71 (25.4).  The total of primary pupils now educated in Academies was now 18,222 (34.3%).

It was reported further that there was one further secondary Academy Kirton Thomas Middlecott Academy which was being sponsored by the David Ross Educational Trust. This raised the number of Secondary Academies to 48 (87.3%) and the number of Secondary Academy pupils to 40,908 (88.9%).

RESOLVED

            That the report be noted.

RESOLVED

            That the contents of the information pack be noted.