NATIONAL
ASSOCIATION
OF SOCIAL
WORKERS IN
EDUCATION
Founded 1884
ASSOCIATION
OF SOCIAL
WORKERS IN
EDUCATION
Founded 1884
NewsThe government’s new cross-departmental strategy for young people and youth services brings together all of its policies for young people aged 13 to 19, and it covers a wide range of issues - including education, youth services, health, crime and housing. As well as the involvement of nine different government departments, young people and youth professionals were also involved in the reports preparation. It calls on Local Authorities to get young people involved in local decision-making, with the introduction of initiatives such as youth mayors and young inspectors, and the government also wants LAs to develop stronger partnerships with voluntary organisations and their local business sector.
Positive For Youth Executive Summary (127KB).
Positive For Youth Full Report (1,917KB).
International children’s charity Plan UK is providing thousands of secondary schools with a groundbreaking animated film and learning plan – ‘The Right to Say No.’ The film is based on the true story of a 16 year old British girl whose family tried to force her into marriage. Sadly, some schools have continued to shy away from discussing the issue of forced marriage – despite hundreds of girls in the UK going missing from education every year to become married off. In May, the Home Affairs select committee stated they were “extremely worried” that schools were not doing enough preventative work on forced marriage.
This is the first national effort to provide materials for use in British classrooms on the issue of early and forced marriage. There are up to 8000 cases of forced marriage reported in England alone, and overseas early and forced marriage is one of the biggest development challenges of our time. Last year, the Government’s Forced Marriage Unit dealt with 1735 cases from the UK alone. Plan UK wants people to better understand how it can cut short a girl’s education – and how young people can take action both here and overseas.
School holidays are considered the most dangerous times of the year, as girls risk being taken abroad to be married to men who may be two or three times their age. They become at risk of not only being pulled out of school, but early pregnancy and serious health problems like HIV.
The educational pack is designed to be used by Key Stage 3 and above (11+) and was acted and voiced by members of the National Youth Theatre. It was created by Plan UK in collaboration with the design company, Yeast Culture.
This useful report summarises some of the latest research evidence around improving learning & attainment, in order to help schools make more informed decisions about how they can best support their pupils who are eligible for additional ‘premium’ funding. It identifies different approaches to improving learning in schools, the strength of existing research evidence and also estimates the associated costs of adopting these various approaches.
The toolkit also provides guidance on whether the approaches are applicable to primary and/or secondary school settings, and for which core subjects – English, Maths or Science.
(500KB).
The above is the headline of a report by Simon Walters that appeared in the 4th September edition of The Mail on Sunday – Mr Walters’ is the newspaper’s Political Editor and he was commenting on an article written by David Cameron in the same paper.
Under the banner "We've got to show people their actions have consequences" Cameron says 'For too long we've tied teachers hands behind their backs and allowed some children to escape the consequences of their bad behaviour... We have overhauled the rules... But given the levels of unruliness from a troublesome minority of pupils, we've got to go further. For example, it's time that the parents of pupils who continually play truant face even stronger sanctions if they refuse to take responsibility for their children... These are the big areas we are focusing on this autumn."
The clearly in the know Simon Walters then expands further in his commentary, stating that 'radical plans to withdraw the child-benefit payments to parents of youngsters who play truant from school are being considered by the Government... to tackle the hard-core minority of families who wreak havoc in towns and cities.'
However, what's really interesting is that Walters goes on to say that 'Mr Cameron has asked former Headteacher Charlie Taylor, the Government's adviser on discipline in schools, to lead a review by a team of experts into ways of cutting truancy, including withdrawing child benefits" ...and that "Officials stress no final decision has been made, but it is understood to have the support of Mr Cameron's head of strategy, Steve Hilton, as the penalty would be simple to impose... at the click of a computer mouse in a welfare office."
But your NASWE National Council members and now left wondering if this is the same 'team of experts' who recently contacted us for advice because that didn't understand the current legislation sufficiently enough to even draft a simple, competent, explanation of how the full range of existing sanctions can & should be consistently applied?
When can children work by law? What does the law say about taking family holidays in term-time holidays?
As we all know, the laws affecting children & families are numerous and can often be confusing. Myths are still common, even amongst professionals e.g. what age can a child be left alone? ...Yet it is essential for both families and those who work with C&YP to understand the legal framework; to know the basics about childcare and parents/carers rights & responsibilities.
This is the latest edition of the Family and Parenting Institute's popular guide, and it provides clarification on relevant aspects of the law for families and those professionals who work with them. The version includes updated information on all the main areas affecting families, and education support professionals should find it both useful reference material and a helpful document to hand out to clients and schools.
(807KB).
Copy of the
Behaviour Supplementary Guidance Details (645Kb).
Copy of the
Attendance Inspection Guidance Details (600Kb).
The Education (School Day and School Year) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2011 amend the Education (School Day and School Year) (England) Regulations 1999, which stipulate the minimum number of sessions that must be held in each school year for all maintained schools in England. These amended Regulations reduce the minimum number of sessions for the school year 2010-2011 from 380 sessions to 378 sessions, i.e. from 190 days to 189 days. Similar regulations have been made in Wales.
The School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions (Amendment) Order 2011 modifies the School Teachers' Pay and Conditions Document 2010 by reducing the number of days for which a teacher must be available for work in the 2010/11 school year by one day, and makes a corresponding modification in relation to the number of hours during which teachers can be required to perform their duties over the 2010-11 school year.
The Modifications reduce the number of days a teacher employed full time must be required to work from 195 to 194 days, and a reduction in the number of days they may be required to teach pupils and perform other duties from 190 to 189 days. There is a corresponding reduction in the number of hours during which a teacher employed full time is required to perform their duties – from 1265 to a "one-off" 1258.5 hours.
The amending order can be accessed from this link: www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2011/192/contents/made
NASWE will shortly be meeting with DfE's Improving Attendance team and one of their colleagues from the Academies team. The purpose of the meeting is to try and clarify how the current regulations & statutory duties regarding admissions & attendance, and of course their enforcement, will be affected by the Government's recently announced changes. Following the meeting we will write a briefing paper for all members.
If you have any specific issues that you would like further clarity on, can you please let me know by 28th February. We will then compile some pre-meeting questions for the DfE based on your concerns. Although we may have different views about the Academies programme, it is happening and so the meeting will provide a useful opportunity for us to try and re-focus some of the DfE's attention onto how this may impact on those duties routinely undertaken by Education Welfare Services.
It will also be useful if you can let us know about any specific experiences you have come across of Academies acting in ways which are damaging to children & young people, and if you can email me a brief account, we can create a collection which although anecdotal (and we will preserve your anonymity if requested) will nonetheless provide us with a range of examples - indeed, if you are worried, then do not need not reveal any identifying information!
Please email to your issues to: jnewvell@ncb.org.uk.
Many thanks
Jacqui Newvell - NASWE General Secretary
Copy of the
Michael Gove
Pupil Premium Details (136Kb).
Allocations for Local Government and Maintained Schools.
Annex A - show the Early Intervention Grant Indicative Allocations by Local Authority.
Annex B - Form funding streams for Children, Young People and Families.
Copy of the
The 'LibCon Government' Coalition programme for the Next 5-years (476Kb).
O brave new world that hath such people in it!
Pupil truancy rates on the Isle of Wight have improved thanks to a rewards scheme that offers pupils families free ice skating passes. Students who attend school for every day over a complete term are awarded a free family ice skating ticket for 'Planet Ice' in Ryde - and the tickets are being provided free of charge by Planet Ice, so there's no cost to the local authority. The scheme has been operating over the last 12 months and in that time around 4,500 passes have been given out. Indeed, the scheme has proved so successful that it's now being copied in Cardiff and Peterborough.
Speaking at a recent seminar for Youth and Connexions workers, Dave Prentis, the General Secretary of Unison, called on the government to properly fund the Connexions service and ensure that the position of being a Connexions PA becomes a respected role that's placed on a par with teaching and social work.
Mr Prentis said: "With nearly one million young people unemployed, it makes no sense to start cutting funding for vital services such as Connexions, youth workers and youth support services. These cuts will leave many young people without the help they need to take their first steps onto the jobs ladder, creating a 'lost generation'. Young people should not be left to pay twice for a recession they did not create – with dwindling job opportunities and less services to help get them back on their feet."
However, whilst many of us might agree with Mr Prentis' views about the importance of adequately funding career services for young people, it's extremely disappointing that Unison has not made any similar supportive statements on behalf of the education welfare service. Indeed, by signing-up to the national job evaluation scheme that was introduced as part of their much hyped 'Single Status Agreement' to help tackle inequalities in pay, Unison has arguably contributed to the huge damage that's been done to Education Welfare Services up and down the country in recent years - despite assurances that "many will gain and none should lose".
The reality is that Councils' serving some of the most socially deprived boroughs in England have found themselves having to allocate more funds to protect their front-line social care staff at exactly the same time as their grant subsidies from central government are running dry. Consequently, Education Welfare Services in many Local Authorities are now experiencing massive budget cuts and/or a freeze on recruitment and access to professional training opportunities. Indeed, some Local Authorities have even disbanded their Education Welfare Services - which is ironic given that the majority of Education Welfare Officers are female and the Single Status agreement was supposed to address the imbalance between male and female workers!
It is very commendable for Mr Prentis to be shouting out for the Connexions service to be better funded, but it's a pity that Unison said hardly anything when Education Welfare Services like Bolton and Lancashire needed somebody prominent to speak up for them? If Unison is genuinely serious about safeguarding the delivery of quality support services to children & young people, then it also needs to ensure that the job of Education Welfare Officer remains a valued and respected role, in-line with its recent commitment about Connexions PAs.
Many of the Education Welfare Officers I know have now resigned from Unison. If you're one of these people, can I recommend you look at the pro-active work that NASWE has recently undertaken with ASPECT on the 'Duty of Care', and if you are concerned about the plight of the EWOs' continuing professional status, then you might want to consider taking advantage of NASWE's joint membership deal with ASPECT.
(644KB).
The latest DCSF school attendance statistics published in December show that children eligible for free school meals (FSM) are three times more likely to be persistent absentees (PA) than their peers.
81,800 children who are eligible for FSMs are classed as PA, which constitutes 8.2% of the total number of FSM nationally eligible pupils, whereas there is a total of 146,300 PA pupils who are not legible for FSM, which makes up only 2.7% of the equivalent PA national cohort, i.e. there's is a disproportionate over-representation of FSM eligible pupils in the national PA figures.
These latest figures were released following yet another parliamentary question tabled by shadow children's minister, Tim Loughton.
It has just emerged that the cost of ministerial & staff expenses incurred by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) over the last year topped £7.6 millions. The figures were released following a parliamentary question tabled by Justine Greening, the Conservative's shadow minister for communities and local government.
The total figure is made up from car hire charges, train fares and hotel fees, but it does not include claims for meals in restaurants, and it has embarrassingly come to light at a time when the DCSF is having to find significant savings.
Back in April last year, the Department was forced to agree to make £650m worth of efficiency savings over 2010-11, facing the strong possibility that additional staff cuts will have to be made in order to meet this target.
Of the £7.6 millions paid out on ministerial & staff expenses, £5.6 millions was spent on train fares (an increase of 9.9% compared with 2008) and another £1.5 millions was paid out for hotel accommodation (up 26.8% compared with 2008), with a further £360,900 spent on care hire charges for the seven members of the "ministerial team" compared to a total of just £193,122 on car hire for the rest of the entire Department.
Documents published on the DCSF's own website show that Permanent Secretary David Bell claimed close to £50,000 in the first six months of the current 2009-10 financial year: between April - June 2009 he claimed a total of £20,914 in expenses (and this included £183 for a dinner with the managing director of APCO, a public policy & media relations firm) and then between July - September 2009 Mr Bell's expenses claims ran up a further £26,855.
So far, nobody from the DCSF has come forwarded to comment.
As part of Sunderland council's "Don't miss school, don't miss out" campaign, the parents of primary pupils are in-line to receive shopping vouchers if they manage to improve their children's school attendance over the month of February. Every pupil has been given a "fun attendance record card" to keep track of their days in school, and at the end of the campaign, the primary school with the best overall attendance will get visited by 'Spike', the Mackems mascot, who will run a "fantastic tombola prize draw." However, in a spirit of fairness for all concerned, there will be separate prize draws for the parents of pupils with 100% attendance records and the parents of "truants" who manage to improve their overall attendance rate during the month.
Previous attendance campaigns run in the city have awarded helicopter rides and Nintendo games consoles as prizes, but these ran into a barrage of complaints from some quarters, with accusations that the council was "bribing pupils to go to school."
By Lauren Higgs
Children & Young People Now
26 January 2010
Specialist professionals working with children face being marginalised in modern-day children's services departments, a report by the Children's Services Professional Network has found.
The Every Professional Matters report warns that the squeeze on public finances and move towards integrated services threatens the future of specialist disciplines such as educational psychologists and education welfare officers.
It found workers are increasingly expected to carry out "hybrid" roles, which water down professional expertise. It also revealed that specialist workers are ever more likely to be accountable to managers with no direct experience of their discipline, meaning managers are unable to offer all appropriate supervision.
John Chowcat, general secretary of the children's services union Aspect, which leads the network, said workers are in favour of integrated services, but warned that merging roles to save cash which could damage individual professions and children's services as a whole.
"If you integrate just to save money, professionalism can be lost. When you bring together different services, they have different interests. You can't just wave a magic wand and make them work together," he explained. "We've got to get past institutional rivalries, but we also have to protect expertise."
He added that asking staff to work from home or hot-desk saves money short term, but jeopardises informal learning and development.
Lauren Higgs
‘Dick’ Grimoldby started work as an Education Welfare officer in the Don Valley Division of the West Riding County Council back in April 1952. He initially covered the mining area adjoining Doncaster, and then moved to North Yorkshire, where in 1965 he was appointed as Senior EWO for Skipton and Settle.
Dick became active in the affairs of the Education Welfare Officers National Association (EWONA), and went on to serve at Branch, Federation and National Level, becoming President in 1970, the year the Association celebrated the centenary of the first Elementary Education Act. This was such a key event that Dick spent two Saturdays with me going through the archives of the Association in writing his Presidential Address – he wanted it to reflect the progress of Education and the significant parts our Service had played in key developments. After many drafts, I managed to get Dick down to a thirty minute address – but unfortunately on the day it still took him 45 minutes to deliver; probably one of the longest in the history of the Association.
With the help other colleagues he pioneered EWO training courses at Grantley Hall, the West Riding Adult Education College. Those who are in the Service today might not appreciate that back then, opportunities for training were very limited and mainly only available at weekends in your own time.
In the early 1970’s Richard and I produced a report on ‘Education: a Cause of Poverty.’ It was an exposé of the financial demands placed on parents by schools and which were causing problems for many families with limited resources. At the time it was acclaimed by the Child Poverty Action Group for highlighting this problem.
Dick was also a member of the West Riding Branch of NALGO, serving on their Executive Committee, and in 1977 he was awarded the Queen’s Silver Jubilee Medal for his work with children.
Richard Grimoldby was a champion for children and families, and on his retirement from the Education Welfare Service he left the communities he served a better place due to his tireless efforts on behalf of education, children and families.
Brian Field
A local authority has been forced to apologise for bringing a truancy prosecution against the parents of a boy who had a phobia of school.
A tribunal ruled Suffolk County Council should not have taken the family to court because of the effect it had had on the boy's mental health.
The boy developed anxiety while off sick with a virus shortly after starting at the east Suffolk school.
In the meantime, officials have been told they must write to formally apologise to the family before 1 December.
The boy, whose identity cannot be revealed, had been diagnosed by a clinical psychologist as suffering from a school phobia.
He is now 16 and has since taken up his studies at a different school.
Gary Nethercott, the council's service director for learning, said: "We are committed to ensuring all young people in Suffolk receive the education they are entitled to".
"We are pleased that the child is now back in education."
Secondary schools who have benefited from having dedicated parent support advisors as part of the DCSF's pilot programme are reported to have cut their PA rates by almost a quarter over the period September 2006 - July 2008, at least according to researchers from the University of Warwick.
The claims are made in the final evaluation report of the Government's £40 millions funded pilot programme, which saw PSAs placed in schools across 20 different Local Authority areas.
The PSA pilot programme was developed & delivered by the Training and Development Agency for Schools, with the aim of providing improved advice to parents/carers who needed help with supporting their children accessing education. In addition to improving pupil attendance, outcomes from the pilot included parental engagement with their child's learning and improved relationships between parent and child.
A spokesperson for the Training and Development Agency for Schools told 'Children & Young People Now' reporters that: "Parent support advisors help schools deliver extended services, in particular, parenting support and swift and easy access to targeted and specialist services. The evidence shows that PSAs can help improve school attendance and reduce the number of referrals to services."
Review of elective home education in England Review parent support advisors.
Graham Badman's useful report to the Right Hon Ed Balls MP, the Secretary of State, on his recent review of the arrangements for elective home education in England' - in his report Badman concludes that urgent changes to both the regulatory & legislative frameworks are necessary if local authorities and other agencies are to effectively carry out their safeguarding responsibilities in relation to home educated children and improve their access to support services.
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Review of elective home education in England |
Reply letter from Rt Hon Ed Balls MP Secretary of State to Mr Graham Badman CBE |
For information on Education Supervision Orders (ESO's)
A child-protection service has been condemned after a 12-year-old was left with no schooling for two years.
The Local Government Ombudsman concluded that West Sussex County Council was guilty of “maladministration with injustice” - the first such finding against the council in more than seven years.
It is the strongest reprimand available to the ombudsman, and the case has been deemed so sensitive that, exceptionally, the report will not be made public.
The complaint centred on a 12-year-old child who was temporarily excluded from school in 2004.
Apart from a short period in a pupil referral unit, the child did not attend school again until September 2006.
The investigation uncovered that: * crucial reports were not being written or followed up, * staff were not listening to children * social workers had threatened care proceedings instead of trying to gain the trust of the child.
This criticism follows a report by Ofsted, the education and care watchdog, in December 2008 which said protection for children at risk was inadequate.
West Sussex was named and shamed as one of eight local authorities, including Haringey council in London, which dealt with the fatal case of Baby P, to be criticised for the way it worked to keep children safe.
The Ombudsman concluded the council had failed to provide adequate education while the child was out of school and made an inadequate initial social service assessment.
An education fund for the child has now been set up, following the investigation, and a “small payment” has been made to the complainant.
A review has also been ordered to ensure social care casework is written up promptly, staff shortages are addressed and to ensure staff “adopt a culture of listening to and engaging in dialogue with children”.
The report to the council’s children and young people’s services select committee reveals: “This individual case is sadly an example of the difficulties that the social care service has experienced, resulting in an Ofsted annual performance assessment judgment of “inadequate” for its 2007/8 performance.
“Since April 2008, the county council has worked hard to support children’s services in responding to this area of difficulty.
“This has focussed on improvements in undertaking initial and core assessments.
“This has resulted in increased capacity and renewed focus on producing timely assessments.
"The council has already implemented the ombudsman's recommendations to put things right for the complainant.
“The Ombudsman has also recommended reviews of procedures in order to learn from what happened.”
The committee will scrutinise the council’s response to the Ombudsman’s recommendations at a meeting on Wednesday, March 11.
To see the article in context and follow-up comments.
This PDF provides an insight in to the changing role of the education welfare practitioner.
When I took on this job, you would identify the needs but you wouldn’t have to fix them, or find the support yourself, but you would be able to refer it out. We would be the main referrers. We’ve visited this family and we’ve discovered the family needs this you know. I’m asking your service if you can provide it please. It’s now become that if we don’t offer it, very often doesn’t get offered all, the support that the family needs.
We do so much outside the box as well you know, we have examples of people chairing CHIN (Children In Need) meetings when social services are unavailable to do it, making referrals for schools into social care because they either haven’t got the time or the experience to do it. So we do an awful lot in the way of which doesn’t perhaps technically doesn’t fall under our remit but do it for the sake of the child.
To read the
full report background...(73 KB)
To read the report in full please click on this
PDF (393 KB).
To read the Learning Development & Support Services Education Welfare Case File Audit Project Report and Recommendations login to the members area.
For access to the latest materials and more information regarding forced marriage either contact NASWE.
A fresh new look at Education Supervision Orders (funded by the Paul Hamlyn
Foundation), with the latest ideas in best practice and guidance, including real life case studies.
The Report by the National Children's Bureau aims to increase the capacity of local authorities to deliver education supervision orders.
For more information and to download a copy of the ESO report.
'Are you analysing figures or data - thinking about how things compare to others and how you might present your findings in the most effective way? Sometimes it can even be difficult to get your head around all the various statistical interpretations - do I use the mean, median or mode, and what on earth is polarity?
'The following, simple to use, tool is designed to help practitioners make their data work better for them. It use practical examples to explain the different statistical aspects and includes a useful data glossary that explains all the different meanings.'
Statistics Guide (555KB).
Customised local neighbourhood statistics from the Office of National Statistics.
New resource created by Roger Thompson focusing on Behaviour and Attendance
Beatbullying has recently re-launched its main website
www.beatbullying.org.
In addition there is also a young people's site at www.bbclic.com.
