My report to Council

Posted By: Zulfiqar Ali
Date Posted: 23/07/2009

Thank you Mr Mayor for the opportunity to report to the Council the latest developments on various matters relating to the Children Schools and Families Portfolio.

Learners & Young People’s Service

Provision for pre-school children continues to be an area of strength and staff in the Sure Start Team are working closely with the Regeneration Service to make sure that childcare is available for families when they are looking for employment. Child poverty is an important issue for the Borough and joint working such as this is important in helping families.

Plans for the Phase 3 children’s centres are underway and, once they are completed, all families will be in reach of a children’s centre or a base delivering services on an outreach basis.

Working closely with secondary headteachers, we have developed a protocol to avoid, in most instances, permanent exclusion. Through an agreed process of managed transfers, we have been able to ensure that students whose places in school have broken down can have a fresh start. At the time of writing, since Easter there has been just one permanent exclusion from secondary schools and it is anticipated that at the end of the school year the number will be down by about 20 on the year. Staff are now working with primary schools to look at how to develop similar approaches for the younger children.

Secondary schools have also benefited from the development of Targeted Youth Service Panels. Based in a secondary school but chaired by the Youth Service, these are multi-agency panels that co-ordinate packages of support for young people who are at risk of disaffection. This is early intervention and so far is proving to be effective and valued by agencies as well as the young people.

The strength of joint working in the Youth Offending Team has been recognised by Osted who inspected the arrangements for ensuring that young offenders have access to education, training and employment. The location of an Education Welfare Officer and Early Break in the same building as the YOT was seen as good practice and comments made noted that there was a good commitment and drive from YOT and that there were effective working relationships. As this was a pilot process by Ofsted, there will not be a published report but, even so, it is a very positive outcome both for the Youth Offending Team and the young people.

School’s Service

During the last school year 2 in every 5 of the schools inspected have been judged to be outstanding for overall effectiveness. This is well above the national average.

Hollin Primary School was placed in Special Measures at the end of last year. We are very pleased that the quality of provision for pupils is improving. The last HMI monitoring visit judged the school to have made satisfactory progress since the Spring. The work of the Acting Headteacher and new Interim Executive Board was judged to be good, as was the support provided by the Local Authority.

The recent investment in improving provision for some of our children with the greatest need has been recognised. All 3 of our new co-located Special Schools, Newlands, Springside and Redwood, received a very positive OFSTED report - Good, with Outstanding Features.

The BSF Procurement is progressing with the designs of the two sample schools Hollingworth and Siddal Moor finalised, the ICT offer and partnering proposals from each bidder agreed. Final Bid submissions will shortly be evaluated with a cabinet meeting to decide on the preferred bidder to deliver the full BSF Programme. It is anticipated the contract will be signed by the end of the year with construction commencing in January 2010, the original target date

Almost 80% of our schools are delivering or signposting to Extended Services and activities, working in partnership in local areas. This is increasing access to facilities and provision as well as quicker access to specialist support services, if needed.

Members may have seen recent media reports regarding initial proposals that were approved in June by the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families for the amalgamated Balderstone Technology College and Springhill High School to become a National Challenge Trust School in 2010. This new Trust School is the only one in Greater Manchester to be announced in this round, and one of only 7 nationally. This status will see the new school partner up with the successful Middleton Technology School, the new Rochdale Sixth Form College and the Council to raise the educational standards at the new school and improve GCSE results. The next step is for a School Improvement Plan to be drawn up for the next 2-5 years. The name proposed by the New School Governing Body is Kingsway Park High School, this is subject to approval at Rochdale Township Committee on 8th July 2009.

Children’s Social Care

Number of children coming into care have steadied. At the 31st March 09 the number had grown to 413. It stood at 416 at the end of June 09.

The Safeguarding Practice Review commissioned by the service via an independent children’s social care specialist has been completed. This rigorous in depth review has identified a number of important areas of improvement both in practice and management. Action has already been taken to address essential front line practice improvements.

We have completed our restructure of Children’s Social Care thereby creating specialist service teams serving the needs of children in care and vulnerable children living in the community. This new structure provides a greater focus for improvement and integrates our staff working with those groups of children more effectively. The expectation is that as a result of these changes the service to children and young people and their families will improve.

An assessment centre and interviews to start the new Head of Service took place on 6th/7th July.


Councillor Zulfiqar Ali