NASWE!Joint Conference Friday April 27th 2012 Birmingham.
Wendesday 7th December: NASWE has received official notification from the DfE’s School Attendance and Safety Team (part of the Behaviour & Attendance in Schools Division) that - as we always suspected - independent private providers cannot prosecute section 444 offences for schools or Academies. The DfE’s lawyers have now confirmed that only Local Authority employees can exercise this power, as statutory enforcement duties cannot be delegated by a LA to a third party or an agent, irrespective of their professional history or qualifications.
Recent research report provides a comprehensive view of the latest statistical trends and analysis on absences in the maintained education sector in England. The paper expands on the pupil absence information that’s already been published, and provides a detailed breakdown on absences by types of school and various pupil characteristics more...
PINS is a new Scottish resource for employees in both the voluntary and statutory sectors more...
The DfE have suddenly announced that their definition of 'persistent absence' will change with effect from 1st September, with the current 20% (of lost sessions) threshold figure reducing down to just 15% or the equivalent of 23 missed days or 46 pupil sessions, compared with the previous figures of 32 school days or 64 sessions... with the threat that Ministers will further lower the threshold next year!
The DfE's accompanying press release also stresses the importance of schools (not local authorities) undertaking earlier interventions with problematic families "who tolerate low levels of attendance" and identifies the need to challenge poor attendance in "reluctant primary schools" as being a priority.
These new thresholds will be appear in the national pupil absence statistical releases published from October 2011 onwards, and will be taken into account in Ofsted inspection judgements undertaken from January 2012.
For more information please visit the members area...
Roger Fox Obituary
We are sad to report the tragic death of Roger Fox, long time NASWE member who worked in Norfolk's education
welfare service for many years before becoming the court officer with the county's children's services department.
Roger was the victim in a fatal car accident on the A067 at Stibbard, near Fakenham, on Friday 22nd July. His car was involved in a collision with three other vehicles, including a coach carrying some elderly day trippers, and he sadly died at the scene.
Those of us who were lucky enough to know Roger, who was only 56 years old, will remember him as a devoted husband, proud father and dedicated professional. A keen musician, gardener and traveller, he had only just returned from his latest trip to Italy five days before the crash. He was also a committed Christian and an important member of his local Methodist church, and his strong faith was reflected in the way he lived his life. His concerns for the welfare of children & young people were always paramount.
In his spare time, Roger was a keen gardner, enjoyed coastal walks and loved listening to classical music, but his other great love was travelling, and he and his wife, Aileen, had been to Africa, Europe and the Bahamas, but his favourite destination was Italy, and he and Aileen had only just returned from a holiday in Lake Bolsena.
Roger will be much missed by his family, friends, work colleagues and NASWE members - his frequent cries of "Hear, hear" from the back of the room during sometimes passionate debates will now be much missed by all those of us who have regularly attended NASWE annual conferences since the 1990's.
Roger' wife Aileen and his daughter Katherine can be very proud of everything that Roger achieved throughout his life.
He was dearly loved and a thoroughly decent chap whose dedication will be much missed by all. As well as being a great loss to education welfare, the world is now a much sadder place without him.
The following 2 documents seek to paint a picture of the nature & level of behaviour by pupils in schools and the impact that challenging behaviour has on other pupils and teaching staff. The Education Select Committee has attempted to identify how challenging behaviour can best be addressed, with a particular focus on the roles of schools, local authorities, and parents/carers.
Crucially, their report also recognises the important role that education welfare services can play in early identification & intervention with pupils who are at risk of poor behaviour and their families, and the Committee also formal expresses its concern about the fact that many local authorities are now making significant cuts to our services in a knee-jerk response to trying to manage their current funding crisis. Indeed, the Committee goes on to recommend that the Government should ensure that despite it's preference for increased responsibility being devolved to schools, the evidence shows that responsibility for the central co-ordination of education welfare services should remain with Local Authorities if our services are to continue to function well.
Copy of the
Select Committee Report Details (168Kb).
Copy of the
Behaviour and Discipline in Schools House of Commons Education Committee Report Details (2Mb).
There are further background notes on the News page relating to Education Behaviour and Discipline in Schools.
Education Welfare Preventative Interventions Save Many £ Millions...NASWE wants the coalition Government to urgently review the preventative role that Education Welfare teams play in integrated Children's Services. This review should seek to shed new light on the complexity of the education welfare officers role, and especially the services contributions to improving educational attainment, safeguarding, preventing youth offending and helping break cycles of social deprivation. NASWE also wants the new Government to establish a clear timescale for improved regulation of the Education Welfare Service, including better training standards and improved access to professional development. NASWE Members can access more information in the members area.
National disparity in the numbers of Education Welfare Officers impacts on schoolsAn investigation for Children & Young People Now magazine undertaken by Lauren Higgs has revealed enormous variations in local authorities education welfare staffing levels.
The figures were obtained through Freedom of Information requests, and show how specialist education disciplines like EWOs and educational psychologist have become marginalised under the Every Child Matters rush to introduce more integrated working. This follows on from a report published earlier in the year by the Children's Services Professional Network in which they warned that the government's squeeze on public sector finances was threatening the future of education welfare services.
The big concern is that more and more staff are being asked to take on "hybrid" roles that end-up diluting our expertise & undermining our professional status, and this is being further compounded by increasing numbers of specialist education professional teams becoming accountable to local authority senior managers who have no direct knowledge or understanding of the disciplines involved.
John Chowcat, General Secretary of Aspect, told C&YP Now that "These figures reflect longstanding variations between local authorities. This underlines the need for national frameworks and standards. It is a relatively small part of Children's Services, but what they do to improve attendance is a really important expertise that needs to be protected. Council's could be missing a trick. Providing young people with a postcode lottery of access to services is unacceptable."
Similarly, Malcolm Trobe, Policy Director for the Association of School and College Leaders, said "It's important to get continuity so education welfare officers know the families in the area. One education welfare officer for 5,000 youngsters is a big patch, especially if they are covering a large geographical area. It's an identified shortfall, so a reconsideration of how training is funded would not go amiss."
According to the C&YP Now figures,
Oldham Council has the worst ratio of EWO to pupils @ 1: 18,246
but the London Borough of Kensington is the best resourced local authority with an incredible 1 x EWO for every 505 pupils!
New government figures released in response to a Parliamentary question have revealed that the number of parents prosecuted for failing to ensure their children's regular school attendance more than quadrupled over the 8 year period between 2001 - 2008. The figures show that 9,506 parents were prosecuted in the magistrates courts in 2008 compared with only 1,961 in 2001.
However, over the same reporting period, the number of half-day sessions lost due to unauthorised absences actually rose from 0.72% in the school year 2000/01 to slightly over one percent in 2007/08.
John Bangs, Head of Education at the National Union of Teachers, told 'Children & Young People Now' magazine that "there is no magic solution to truancy, because it's often the result of massive pressure and dysfunction in families. Truancy can only be prevented by addressing that pressure and dysfunction." Bangs then went on to say "Education Welfare Officers are so important. I would love to see more of them. Their work has sometimes gone un-noticed but they are brilliant at detecting problems" and he called on Local Authorities to reinvest in their Education Welfare Services, as he believes that the recent cutting back of our services has made it a lot more difficult for schools to tackle truancy issues.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, when a reporter from 'C&YP Now' magazine approached the DCSF for a response, they felt "unable to comment."
New from the Department for Children, Schools and Families - Guidance on the Employment of Children
This guidance document explains the key provisions of the various laws on child employment. It include
'best practice' advice to help Local Authorities deal with the sorts of practical questions they regularly
face. It should also enable employers to operate as prudently as possible within the legal framework both
for their benefit and to the benefit of the young people who are working for them.
More...
Published August 2009
NASWE summary of the Governments position regarding Schools...More
The National Children's Bureau have just published a new book entitled 'Building Resilience in Families Under Stress' which explains how child welfare professionals can help support parenting in families affected by both parental mental health problems and / or parental substance misuse. As well as examining current service responses, the book also:
The publication cost £20.00 (£16.00 for NCB members) and is particularly relevant to professionals who are directly or indirectly involved in providing statutory or voluntary services to family members affected by parental mental health problems, substance misuse or alcohol misuse. You can order the book via any of the following contact details:
Email: ncb@centralbooks.com
Telephone 0845 458 9910
Fax 0845 458 9912
NCB, c/o Central Books, 99 Wallis Road, London E9 5LN
School Absenteeism and the Implementation of Truancy-Related Penalty Notices This paper derives from the author's recent research into disadvantaged children's access to compulsory education in England.
Examining the national attendance strategies and practice, the author interrogates the current trend towards a more punitive approach to addressing the problem of school absenteeism while debating the issue of irresponsible parents in terms of parental responsibility.
Using the data collected from 150 Local Education Authorities and a survey among Education Welfare managers, the research study reported in this paper measures the association between authorities' readiness to issue penalty notices and the change made in pupils' absence rates between 2004 and 2006.
Presenting the findings of the research study, the author argues that truancy is a complex social and historical issue and that poor parenting is itself a symptom of several underlying social problems and the circle of disadvantage. Therefore, the findings of the study call for more efforts and measures to address the underlying social problems and to break the circle of disadvantage of the families that most truanting children come from.
The first document highlights the reality of the case work undertaken by EWO's.
The second document covers an audit of the needs of 197 children.
The third report and recommendations are available to members only in the Members Area.
This is a comprehensive online resource aimed at Social Workers and people in a similar position working with children and young people. The website provides practical information broken down in to highly targeted bite sized chunks. Problems are described in layman's language, defined with topics to think about, sensible suggestions to consider, what not to do's and when to consider more specialist help. Once you have accessed the site, it is highly possible that you may subsequently decide to re-visit it again to uncover further helpful advice on how to respond helpfully to children and young people's troubling behaviour, build up their self-esteem and promote their positive mental well-being.
The content has benefited from the feedback of many professionals in the field and is constantly evolving as more feedback is received.
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