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  • Agenda item
  • Agenda item

    Alex Gamby and Sue Smith, KCC

    Minutes:

    The Chair welcomed the guest to the committee and a short introduction was given by Members.

     

    Q – Please introduce yourself and odder and outline of the roles and responsibilities that your post involves?

     

    Alex Gamby (Head of Early Years and Childcare) and Sue Smith (Early Years and Childcare Equalities and Inclusion Manager) both from Kent County Council were in attendance for this item.

     

    Q – Please can you explain why the Early Years Pupil Premium (EYPP) was introduced and its main purpose?

     

    The Early Years Pupil Premium was introduced in April 2015 to provide extra funding for 3 and 4-year-old children who had been in care or adopted from care, or for children whose parents were in receipt of certain benefits. The EYPP provides an additional £302 a year for any child who received 15 hours of the Early Education Entitlement.

     

     

    Q – What strategies and interventions has the Early Years and Childcare  Service employed in order to promote and support the attainment of vulnerable pupils in Kent.

     

    KCC’s Early Years and Childcare Service has supported this initiative by:

     

    ·         providing up to date information at Early Years and Childcare Briefing and Networking Sessions and through  termly (six times a year)  Early Years and Childcare Bulletins

    ·         identifying one member of the Early Years and Childcare Service’s Equality and Inclusion Team to gather information and support when necessary, offering visits to settings in the early days of the funding

    ·         providing a dedicated page on KELSI (please see link below) supporting settings to:

    o   supporting settings to encourage parents to apply for this additional funding

    o    looking at research and national information from organisations such as the Education Endowment Foundation

    o   Gather and disseminate effective practice  for using the EYPP

     

    http://www.kelsi.org.uk/early-years/equality-and-inclusion/early-years-pupil-premium

     

    ·         adding an EYPP filter on the Kent Progress Tracker

    ·         developing an Intervention Tracker which will enable settings to identify which interventions are having the most significant impact (available from October 2017)

    ·         monitoring Ofsted reports to identify when the use of additional funding is mentioned as a strength

    ·         monitoring up take and FSM Early Years Foundation Stage Profile gap data

     

     

    Q – To what extent has Early Years Pupil Premium funding been effective in narrowing the attainment gap between vulnerable children and their peers in Kent How does this compare to the national picture? Please provide data and figures.

     

     

    The Early Years Foundation Stage Profile data for 2017 is the first year that the EYPP funding will have been available for the children entitled to the funding. The FSM gap  reduced from 20% to 10.1% in 2017 but it is impossible to directly attribute this reduction to the funding at this stage. Further analysis of the Kent districts with the most positive results will enable us to identify what has been put in place to make such a positive outcome.

     

    Q - Is it all funded by KCC?

     

    The government already provided extra funding for school-age children (Pupil Premium) and through the provision of free entitlement places for eligible two-year olds (approximately 40%). The EYPP ensured continuity of support from funded two year olds through to the schools pupil premium.

     

    Free Early Education and Childcare can be delivered through a range of private and voluntary sector providers including childminders, childminders as part of a childminder agency, maintained schools with a nursery class and independent schools. Section 9 of the Childcare Act 2006 gives KCC powers to ensure that any providers (except the governing bodies of maintained schools) with whom they enter into a financial agreement, meet the needs of the requirements imposed on them. It allows KCC to withdraw funding if providers fail to meet the contractual conditions contained within this agreement.

     

    For two, three and four-year olds, KCC will fund places for children attending any provider including childminders rated ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted or fund places at any childminder registered with a childminding agency judged ‘effective’ by Ofsted if a parent wants their child to take up their free place at that provider It will also fund providers newly registered with Ofsted, until their first full Ofsted inspection judgement is published. Providers are strongly encouraged to engage with KCC’s quality improvement programme (or that of its agents) in order to ensure a ‘good’ judgement at their first inspection

     

    In terms of training, Kent CPD Online was part of KCC’s offer to support the continuing professional development and training of the children's workforce. It is an online searchable directory and booking system for professional development and training opportunities. It is being developed to ensure Kent has a highly skilled and professional children's workforce, including multi-agency partners, able to support the achievement and development of all children and young people in Kent, particularly the most vulnerable in our society.

     

    Q - Does KCC help with application?

     

    The setting to which a child belongs will ask the parent to give permission for their eligibility to be checked when completing the parental declaration form if they wish to claim EYPP. The form states:

    ‘I confirm that the details I have supplied are accurate and true. I give permission for the early years provider named in this agreement to complete an application for EYPP on my behalf.’

    It is not compulsory to sign the EYPP part of the form but if the parent does not agree, the child’s setting could lose out on £302 a year which could be used to support the child’s individual learning.

     

    Q – We never get the figures to where we want to be, is this due to financial pressures or more work that could be done with the parents?

     

    Alex Gamby said that there was a national issue around the level of funding for free early education. The  two-year-old staffing ratio was higher than that for three and four-year-olds . There was a campaign called ‘Champagne Nurseries, Lemonade Funding’ that aimed to raise awareness of the effects of the low funding rate for providers and the potential consequences of the doubling of ‘free hours’ from 15 to 30 per week for eligible children. The campaign asked the Government to consider fairer funding for all providers and establish a system that would support parents.

    The Early Years and Childcare Service Markets Free Entitlements however local outreach was the responsibility of the children centres. The committee was reminded that whilst eligible parents were targeted, there would still be available places not used as some parents chose to remain at home with their children.

     

    Q – How are you engaged with those parents in the more affluent areas to ensure all children are given equal opportunity?

     

    Alex Gamby informed the committee that work around local outreach for the free entitlement for two year olds sat within the remit of Children Centres in Early Help. The Children centres encouraged eligible parents to take up their entitlement. Health visitors also  explained to them how the  entitlement works and how they could apply for it.

     

    The Early Years and Childcare Service’s, Enhancing Family Involvement in Children’s Learning (EFICL) toolkit was an award winning product that contained a range of resources that helped practitioners evaluate their practice but also put into place new strategies to increase and enhance the involvement of families in their children’s learning.

     

    Integral to the EFICL Toolkit is the free Smarterplay APP  which helped parents to access ideas, resources and locations to explore with their children.

     

    In terms of the costs, settings  in  more affluent areas meant that premises costs were likely to be higher, as the cost of living  and  staffing costs.

     

    Q – What is an acceptable distance for parents to travel

     

    Alex Gamby advised the committee that the government used the term ‘pram-pushing distance’. A common issue however is that parents within the same community wanted their children to go to the same pre-school or nursery and there may not always be sufficient vacancies in that specific setting. Anecdotal evidence indicated that parents would often rather wait for a space to become available within their opted choice rather than have their child attend an alternative setting. Some families preferred that their children remained at home.

     

    Q – is there flexibility within the system to offer parents a trial of that centre or give them the option to attend just one morning a week?

     

    Alex Gamby said that a child could take up any proportion of the free entitlement. Sue Smith added that whilst best practice would suggest that most settings advise a minimum of 2 sessions, there was flexibility offered to parents.

     

    Q - How are you addressing the hard to reach communities, in particular, the Romany and Gypsy communities?

     

    Alex Gamby assured the committee that all programmes were wholly inclusive but sometimes more targeted activity was require.

     

    Inclusion Support Service Kent (ISSK) is a traded service which provides specialist support, training, advice, coaching and mentoring to schools, settings and professionals working with children, young people and communities.

     

    The main focus is on raising the achievement and improving the engagement, wellbeing and inclusion of vulnerable learners specifically Minority Ethnic pupils, Gypsies, Roma or Travellers and those with English as an additional language (EAL).

     

    Research shows that Gypsy, Roma and Traveller (GRT) children are most at risk in the education system, they continue to have the lowest achievement and attendance of any ethnic group in all key stages across schools  in Kent.

     

    Over the past few years there has been an improvement, but the gap was still unacceptable and significantly high.

     

    ISSK incorporates The Virtual School for GRT pupils. They provide advice and guidance for teaching and support staff to help raise the achievement and inclusion of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller children and young people in our schools and settings. We can also advise on parental and community engagement.

     

     

    Q - is there anything that can improve the effectiveness of closing the attainment gap?

     

    Alex Gamby said that recruitment and retention within the Early Years and Childcare  workforce remained a huge challenge. Instead of using £302 for one child, settings and collaborations could combining the funding thus allowing more flexibility in terms of what could be done with the money to enhance the children’s Early Years experience.

     

    Q - What are parents advised to use with their children at home?

     

    ·         Sing nursery rhymes

    ·         put mobile phone away and have face to face conversation with parent.

    ·         Smarterplay app for parents

     

    Q - on a global issue Kent is seen as ‘dumping ground’ for different  ethnic groups, a range of socio-economic groups and has its troubles with cohesion. How will Kent become the figure head and how will this be implemented long term?

     

    Alex Gamby said that the quality of Early Years  provision in Kent was moving between 97-98%, and that they were ahead of the national figure.

     

    Within Gillie Heath’s team and the Early Years and Childcare service –support is offered to ensure children are being fully included regardless of their ethnic backgrounds or socioeconomic group. They are encouraging settings not to line boys and girls up separately and offered training in diversity, as well as literature and books on same sex families. The team treated every family, whatever their configuration, equally to ensure best possible outcomes.

     

    Q – If you had £1000 per child what would you do?

     

    ·         Increase the hourly rate for all free entitlements 

    ·         Support settings to release staff to attend the training, .

    ·         Have a skilled practitioner to go into each setting and model the learning required within the workplace

    ·         65% of providers work in collaborations. Support more settings to join a collaboration

    ·         A pilot launched in Dover Grammar Schools was encouraging young people to become communication champions. Those taking part were developing a greater awareness of the importance of speech and language particularly as they were contemplating a career in childcare, it would also support them if they become parents in the future. If this proves successful, then the programme would hopefully be rolled out across the county.

     

    Q – How is Ofsted involved in Early Years and Childcare?

     

    Ofsted should review each setting and ask how the funding contributed to the effectiveness of the setting however this was not consistently applied.

     

     

     

     

    Supporting documents: