Minutes:
Sarah Hammond (Director Integrated Children's Services (Social Work Lead)) was in attendance for this item.
1) Mr Long (Cabinet Member for Education and Skills) said said the rapidly changing guidance to schools from the Department for Education to the evolving Covid emergency had required Education officers to work through Christmas to provide much needed advice and support to Kent schools. All mainstream primary and secondary schools were to remain closed to all except the children of critical workers and vulnerable children. Special Schools and Pupil Referral Units remained open to all pupils as these fell within the vulnerable category. A school survey revealed that there were 5162 vulnerable children and 16,340 critical worker children and it was expected that the numbers would rise. The definition of vulnerable includes those without adequate access to online learning, and this was also starting to have an impact.
Early Years Settings, in line with government guidance, remained open to all pupils and had 13,899 in attendance which had dropped from the attendance level in December which was just over 27,000. Childminder numbers however remained stable. The government had responded to concerns about the funding for Early Year Settings which had been based on attendance figures and funding would reflect around 94% attendance.
Schools had a statutory duty to deliver remote learning with the minimum criteria set by government. There was a mix of both live and recorded teaching sessions as well as set time to complete tasks and assignments independently. KCC were providing advice and support to schools to ensure that they delivered the best education possible in the circumstances. Ofsted were to inspect schools where there were significant concerns about safeguarding or the quality of remote learning.
Secondary schools were to prioritise home learning to exam year groups and other year groups would be included as resources allowed.
KCC distributed laptops and tablets to all our children in care. The DfE had provided 3563 devices and 502 4G routers to Kent and these were deployed to all children with a social worker and vulnerable Year 10 children within maintained schools. Academies had their own allocation. The DfE aimed to deliver 1million devices by the end of the academic year.
In response to questions from Members, it was noted:
· Early Years providers should not be asking parents to keep their children at home. It would only be expected that this would happen if there were insufficient staff to open to all children.
· There should be an element of direct delivery of education from schools online.
· Kent’s schools had been encouraged to issue free school meal vouchers to eligible families, rather than food parcels but individual schools made their decisions locally about how to deliver the free school meals.
· Schools were surveyed regarding devices for learning to identify gaps. Improvements were being made to access to devices and WiFi connections to support children’s education.
· Period poverty was not within KCC’s remit and therefore, information on this issue was not held.
2) Mrs Chandler (Cabinet Member for Integrated Children’s Services) said despite unprecedented pressures on the Social Work Team face, all families with an assigned Social Worker had been contacted to ensure that families continued to receive the correct level of support and assistance. KCC had continued to ensure that all families were provided for through the help and support of the Social Work Team.
KCC had only received 6 new Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children (UASCs) over the festive period which was considerably lower than previous years, however, this was a result of the closed border to France.
Covid-19 testing was being conducted at reception centres which had helped to reduce the number of UASC kept in quarantine and had allowed for a speedier transition. There had been a reduction in the number of UASC as a large cohort transitioned to Care Leavers on 1 January 2021.
The SEND Strategy Consultation was ongoing and 185 responses had been received, 48% from parents or carers of young people with SEND. 90% strongly agreed or agreed with the vision and 80% strongly agreed or agreed with the priorities. The full outcomes of the consultation would be brought to a future meeting.
In response to questions from Members, it was noted:
· Emphasis was put on safeguarding of children during the pandemic. Measures had been put in place to allow home visits to vulnerable families; guidance had been issues with regard to priorities, risk assessments were adhered to and appropriate PPE was provided for staff as well as for families who wished to wear PPE for visits.
3) Ms Hammond gave an update on behalf of Matt Dunkley, Corporate Director – Children, Young People and Education. Excellent work had been done by the Out of Hours Service, which covers Children’s and Adults’ services for Kent and Medway. Lessons had been learned from the first lockdown and there was a sharp focus on maintaining face to face contact with vulnerable children not having contact with professionals.
It was noted that the Out of Hours services had worked throughout the pandemic and the Christmas period, and had provided an excellent service for Children’s and Adults’ services across Kent and Medway.
The Toy Scheme which had been rolled out during lockdown for disabled children was to be expanded more widely. Activity boxes for families were to be provided to families whose children were not able to attend school.
Staff resilience and morale remained high. However, there were a reduced number of staff available to work in the community and redeployment options were being considered.