Agenda for Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee on Tuesday, 20th September, 2016, 11.00 am

Agenda and minutes

Venue: LB 31 - Loxley House, Station Street, Nottingham, NG2 3NG. View directions

Contact: Rav Kalsi  0115 8763759

Items
No. Item

15.

Apologies for Absence

Minutes:

Councillor Georgina Culley

16.

Declarations of Interest

Minutes:

None.

17.

Minutes pdf icon PDF 135 KB

To confirm the minutes of the meeting held on 19 July 2016

Minutes:

Subject to the inclusion of Maria Ward as attending, the minutes of the meeting held on 20 September 2016 were confirmed and signed by the Chair.

18.

Youth and Play Provision in Nottingham pdf icon PDF 91 KB

Report of the Corporate Director of Resilience

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Councillor David Mellen, Portfolio Holder for Early Intervention and Early Years, Aileen Wilson, Head of Early Help Services and Jean Case, Senior Youth and Play Coordinator, delivered a presentation highlighting the following information:

 

(a)  Youth and Play service at one time employed more than 100 full time youth and play workers, the current service now employs 54 workers and yet the youth and play activity has not been proportionally reduced and continues to provide effective quality sessions;

 

(b)  the Youth and Play Service is divided into three localities, north, south and central, with two teams working in each locality and during the past year 4,652 young people aged between 5 and 19 years of age have attended youth and play service activities within the City;

 

(c)  to ensure that all young people can access the services, sessions are provided at low cost or free in all wards within the city. Resources are not available to provide full time day sessions during the summer holidays;

 

(d)  the voluntary sector is also funded via area based grants to provide youth and play sessions to support and complement the City Council’s work. The youth and play team meet with independent providers, such as Brownies and faith groups, to ensure that they have what they need to ensure adequate safeguarding;

 

(e)  in addition to the educational and fun elements aspects of sessions, there is also a mentoring element which can which can result in young people being referred for further support as the environment is more relaxed with youth workers than teachers and young people often feel more able to talk about issues of concern;

 

(f)  61 universal sessions are held across the city and they can be accessed by people from any area of the city. Venues vary and not all are City Council owned. The service aims to try and broach some issues which young people face in everyday life. To date this has included: bullying, safe internet use/sexting, healthy relationship, drug and alcohol use, gender, and fire safety;

 

(g)  to enable the delivery of the above sessions, members of the Youth and Play Service have undergone training on safeguarding awareness and how to identify the non-verbal signs of when young people are experiencing or at risk of harm such as domestic abuse (not necessarily directed at the young person), self-harm and mental health;

 

(h)  the service works closely with Young People’s Panels and where concerns are raised, partners share information and try to identify if there are areas of common concern  within the city, such as child sexual exploitation, which is then targeted with awareness projects at youth and play sessions;

 

(i)  workers try to ensure that sessions are appropriate for all you people of varying ages and abilities. Groups often identify the topics which they wish to address and where appropriate, workers try to create a safe and engaging environment for young people feel they can be listened to and can share their experiences and Concerns. Jon Rea, Engagement and Participation Officer is often involved with engagement sessions;

 

(j)  it is important that youth workers can build trusting relationships with the young people so that they can approach the workers for support, guidance or help. Many troubled young people have been grateful for this opportunity;

 

Following questions and comments from the Committee, the following points were raised:

 

(k)  Youth and Play is not a statutory service so could be seen as an easy target for budget reductions above other services, but this is an important and valuable area of work. New budget models are to be considered to attract and retain more staff;

(l)  Councillor David Mellen receives a report of attendance for every Youth and Play session and if the attendance drops below 10 young people, careful examination is undertaken of what is being provided, where and how to identify how to attract and engage young people in that area. Identifying the right venues and timings is very important, as is consistency of services;

 

(m)  systems are in place across all teams which work to one rationale to ensure the timely identification and addressing of safeguarding issues. Initial concerns can be escalated to Senior Youth Workers who may then introduce a Specialist Worker to discuss the concerns with the Youth Worker Team and consider if referrals would be beneficial. Teams maintain written records of sessions, including de-briefing forms, to help monitor if there are any common issues in an area;

 

(n)  some young people have behaviour plans which if not successful, consideration is given to purchasing external expertise to help support the young person and help address the issues. The voice of young people is listened to regarding where, when and how they want sessions to be presented, but the expectations of young people to what can be provided has to be managed;

 

(o)  there is an attempt to bring young people from different backgrounds, faiths and ethnicities together and it can work very well. If young people find something they enjoy in an environment in which they feel safe, they are more willing to travel to access it;

 

(p)  with potentially further cuts to budges and services, it is vital that that the City Council and the voluntary sector work together to be creative and co-ordinate play and youth services which provide the best value for money. Sustainability of services is the only way to increase capacity.

 

(q)  the City Council has a commitment to offer play/activity to every child in the City for 2 hours every week but it is no longer possible for the Youth and Play Team to specifically provide inclusion workers to engage with young people with special educational needs and disabilities. However, a ‘Disabled Children’s Team’ will be in place within the next few months. Young people are constantly encouraged to learn new skills and consider careers through the ‘Love your Future’ programme which includes visits from ‘Futures’ and the armed forces. It is one of the objectives of the Service to raise the aspirations and the achievements of young people.

 

RESOLVED to

 

(1)  thank Councillor David Mellen, Aileen Wilson and Jean Case for their informative presentation;

 

(2)  note the report and presentation regarding the current offer from the Youth and Play Team.

 

19.

Provisional Data on Attainment pdf icon PDF 108 KB

Report of the Corporate Director of Resilience

Minutes:

Sam Webster, Portfolio Holder for Education, Employment and Skills and Sarah Fielding, Director of Education, delivered a presentation on provisional attainment data for Nottingham City pupils.

 

It is noted that whilst all data is invalidated, the overall results are positive. Information is yet to be received for Key Stage 2 pupils to the end of September and Key Stage 4 pupils to the end of October but the overall final results and analysis will be presented to the Committee at a future meeting.

 

The following points were highlighted:

 

(a)  there has been a clear improvement across the board on the last year’s results;

 

(b)  there are 17 areas of assessment for early foundation stage pupils, including personal, social, emotional and physical development, communication and language as well as maths and literacy. At 65.5% Nottingham is much closer to the national average of 69.3% achievement;

 

(c)  with regard to phonics which are tested at the end of Year 1, pupils have 40 words to read, both real and phonic, and are expected to achieve 32 correct answers. In 2015 Nottingham was ranked last of 150  education authorities but this year is expected to be ranked 142;

 

(d)  For Key Stage 1 pupils, in reading 66.5% Nottingham pupils achieved the expected standard against the national average of 74%. In writing, 58.2% of the pupils achieved the expected standard against national average of 65.5%, which is a narrower gap than in previous years. In maths, 67.9% of pupils achieved the expected standard, against the national average of 72.6%. The improvements in maths are very pleasing and can be attributed to focus initiatives and targeted interventions;

 

(e)  Key Stage 2 pupils have narrowed the gap in reading writing and maths to only 3.2% from the National average, which could raise Nottingham’s ranking in 2016 from 141/150 in 2015, to 109 in 2016. In Grammar, punctuation and spelling (GPS) Nottingham may rise 3 places to be ranked joint 116th/150. In reading, 59.9% of Nottingham pupils achieved of the expected standard against the national average of 65.7%, potentially raising a Nottingham from 143/150 in 2015 to joint 129/150 in 2016. In writing, 70.7% of Nottingham pupils achieved of the expected standard against the national average of 74.1%, raising the ranking from 148/150 in 2015 to potentially joint 129/150 in 2016. In maths, 68.7% of Nottingham pupils achieved of the expected standard against the national average of 69.8%, which could raise the ranking from 108/150 in 2015 to 79/150 in 2016;

 

(f)  Key Stage 4 pupils are predicted to have achieved 52.2% of the expected basic standards against the national average of 59.2%, which is a rise of 6.5% on 2015 achievement. Progress 8 figures have shown improvements whilst Attainment 8 figures are yet to be confirmed;

 

(g)  Pupil Outcomes

(i)  80% of children are in schools judged ad ‘good’;

(ii)  Primary and Secondary School attendance exceeds the national average;

(iii)60.5% of eligible 2 year olds are accessing free nursery provision;

(iv)breakfast clubs are established in all but one of the 75 primary schools;

(v)  186 Governors have attended some level of training at the Governor Academy;

(vi)the ‘Daily Mile’ challenge will start in September 2016;

(vii)  45% of schools have signed up to ‘Opportunity Notts’;

 

(h)  Areas for future progress have been identified as:

(i)  driving the Education Improvement Board strands of focus, including literacy, maths,  transition, teacher retention;

(ii)  reducing advisory support for Academies;

(iii)in depth monitoring and tracking of performance data for all groups;

(iv)delivering ‘Continuing Professional Development ‘ to all age ranges;

(v)  further developing relationships with Ofsted, the Department for Education (DoE)  and the Regional School Commissioner;

(vi)expanding school improvement traded services.

 

Following comments and questions from the Committee, the following comments were made:

 

(i)  with regard to tracking the impact of early intervention, all schools track the achievement and progress of each child in detail and introduce interventions if a child starts to fall behind. It is in the interests of teachers to ensure that all children achieve the best they can;

 

(j)  Ofsted inspectors are tasked with inspecting standards to a structure specified by the Department for Education (DfE) and do a good job but there isn’t any consideration of the broader issues such as raising aspirations and ensuring that young people are work ready;

 

(k)  some young people come from families where no one works and their aspirations are very low so Nottingham City Council has introduced ‘ASPIRE’ which brings schools and local businesses together to help raise the aspirations of young people. This approach would be beneficial at a National level. The majority of teachers in the City have made a pro-active choice to work in Nottingham due to the specific challenges which differ from other areas. The City needs to attract the very best teachers to work in the most deprived schools. The pupil premium does not adequately address that need; 

 

(l)  there is a known issue that the parents of many good and achieving primary school pupils move their children to county schools for their secondary education which then skews the achievement levels of the City. If achievement was gauged on where a child actually lived, not where they attended school, Nottingham’s achievement would be ranked much higher;

 

(m)  national rankings for GCSE results won’t be available until January 2017, but an update can be provided to the Committee once they are confirmed. Generally Nottingham doesn’t do well on GCSE results and was ranked second from the bottom last year. There has been a significant drop in achievement since vocational subjects are no longer included in the comparative statistics. This is focus on academic subjects at the cost of vocational affects urban areas more than rural areas;

 

(n)  there aren’t any particular cohorts of young people who do particularly well or badly in specific areas of the City. Overall white British males have the lowest achievement levels whilst achievement of minority groups is really good. Last year 37.8% of white British males achieved 5 good GCSEs whilst for BME the achievement was 46.1%.

 

 

 

RESOLVED to

 

(1)  review the finalised achievement figures at a future meeting once available;

 

(2)  invite the Regional Schools Commissioner for East Midlands and Humber to a future meeting of the Committee to enable the Committee.

 

20.

Programme for Scrutiny pdf icon PDF 155 KB

Report of the Corporate Director of Resilience

Minutes:

Rav Kalsi, Senior Governance Officer, updated the Committee on the work programme:

 

(a)  An invite will be made to the Regional Schools Commissioner for the East Midlands and Humber to attend a future Committee date.

 

RESOLVED to agree the work programme.