Adela Kay, Assistant Headteacher at Aspire Virtual School, has conducted in-depth research on a variety of pressing issues affecting children and young people within our community.
For October’s research, you’ll find summaries and links to key reports that highlight national concerns around attendance, children missing education, and the socioeconomic factors impacting vulnerable children. These resources are intended to help equip you in addressing these issues. These reports provide important insights into the current challenges our young people face and offer guidance on how we can better support vulnerable children within our schools and communities. The topics covered include:
- Government policy updates
- Attendance
- The science of learning
- Exclusion and suspensions
- Post-16s in care
- Young offenders
- Safeguarding teenagers
Keeping Children Safe, Helping Families Thrive
Last week the government delivered a policy statement outlining their plans for social care and education. Keeping children safe, helping families thrive this is an interesting policy piece because it appears to continue policies begun during the last labour administrations and references Start for life and the Every Child Matters Agenda. It has quite a lot in it but from a statutory point of view the ideas around Elective Home Education are interesting, with a plan for parents whose children are on a child protection plan or subject to a Section 47 investigated to require local Authority permission to home school them, and more importantly the local authority will have the power to require them to attend school. This will close a significant gap in the law which opens vulnerable families up to lack of scrutiny from professionals. In addition the document talks about strengthening the role of education within multiagency safeguarding arrangements, and improve data sharing through creating a Single Unique Identifier.
From a Virtual School Point of view there are plans to make the extended roles statutory and an emphasis on championing attendance, attainment and progress across all vulnerable groups. They have included Kinship Care which I know I have mentioned to many of you. This became part of the extended role in September and Angelina Ikeako is leading for the virtual school on this. The identification of this group is tricky because they will not necessarily have a social care file at all. There is also a lot around the care system and how it can be more child centred and also hold on to children for longer when they reach 18.
Attendance
I have attached a recent article on ‘The Friday Effect’, this is an article which has analysed the daily attendance rates across the country, Wonde has really come into its own for data nerds because it has given such a huge data set that patterns can be seen beyond statistical anomalies. This article highlights the fact that Fridays show a 20% increase in absence compared to any other day of the week. This is apparently even greater in schools with high levels of persistent absence. I think that this is quite a good reminder for colleagues who manage attendance that looking at the pattern of attendance is as important as looking at the overall percentage. If a child is missing a particular day what is happening either in school or at home that is a barrier to their attendance.
Pupil absence at the start of Autumn Term 2024 this is the most recent analysis from FFT regarding attendance comparing figures week by week from last year to this year. At the moment we are broadly in line with 2023/24 figures although there has been a small reduction in authorised absence at secondary due to illness.
Learning
I have also been reading a little about the science of learning and about effective teaching and learning strategies. I have attached a couple of PDFs of articles I have recently read, The Science of Learning one is really practical and consider the impact of the research on the classroom which I found really helpful. It once again talks about growth mind set which feels like it has been the buzz word of the last decade. It also emphasises the joined-up nature of learning and that learning new ideas is easier if it is connected into prior learning whilst also encouraging students to think about the meaning of the information that is being shared with them. The emphasis for teaching is very much on the use of analogies and worked examples as the primary method of delivering information whilst feedback should be specific, clear and focus on methods of improvement.
I have also attached the ‘People teach with rewards and punishments as communication’. Although in all honesty I am not sure I completely understood the science of the experiments they ran, I did draw on the conclusions which seem to suggest that rewards and punishments were used more as a communicative tool rather than purely for reinforcement, so people sign post what they want through rewards and punishments. The implication here is that ‘reward maximisation and action signalling’ may improve teacher-learner interaction and increase productivity, although I have to say I struggled with the links to dog training which were made throughout this article, but see what you think!
Exclusions and Suspensions
Exclusions and suspensions in 2023/24 the following analysis has been published by the FFT, showing the increased number of suspensions in comparison to the previous academic year. The analysis also includes markers around disadvantage, particularly highlighting the significant disproportionality at secondary school.
16-17 year olds in Care
Government urged to end the wilful neglect of teenagers in care – Article 39 this piece by Article 39 calls on the government top amend the Children’s Homes Regulations to support children aged 16-17 living in care. Many of our older young people who come into care in the mid to late teens end up in semi-independent living. During our recent corporate parenting meeting we spoke to some of our older looked after children and one of them highlighted to me the complexities of living independently whilst still trying to study. Schools and Colleges also need to be aware of the other pressures these people face, whilst also managing their school work, managing cooking, cleaning and budgeting on their own.
Young Offenders Institutions
The government has published a new report Multi-agency responses to serious youth violence: working together to support and protect children – GOV.UK reviewing responses to serious youth violence. Whilst there is an executive summary you may prefer to read the press release which can be found Serious youth violence more far-reaching than many realise – GOV.UK. This examines the experience of children across the country and shows that in some localities inspected carrying a knife was the norm for some children. It also suggests that that not all local partnerships are sufficiently focused on serious youth violence of identifying it as a safeguarding issue.
Safeguarding teenagers
Finally this is a podcast on safeguarding teenagers from neglect. In light of the neglect strategy where we have been looking at how to identify and support vulnerable teenagers. I thought it may be of interest to some DSL/professionals. Podcast: Providing better support for vulnerable teenagers: an interview with Anne Longfield | NSPCC Learning
Best wishes,
Adela
