1. education
2. school

Shaping Solihull
Minutes of the Strategic Accountability Board
Wednesday 26th November 2014, 1.30pm
Merstone/Forest Oak
PRESENT:
GUESTS:
APOLOGIES:
MINUTES:
Item
1
Caroline Brooks
Antoinette Fisher
Jenny Godsall
Phil Leivers
Tracey Lord
Lynda Mackay
Terri Mason
Julie McCarthy
Louise Minter
Amanda Mordey
Jacque Nicholls
Sue Nolan
Chris Palmer
Mark Pratt
Derek Sheldon
Cllr Joe Tildesley
Deb Wilson
Sally Hodges
Sadie Walker
Lynn Clark
Julie Cobley
Mark Mitchell
Jane Watts
NUT
Governor, Dorridge Primary School
Knowle Primary School
Head of SEIS and Principal Adviser, SMBC
Alderbrook School
Governor, Knowle Primary School
Kineton Green Primary School
Coppice Junior School
Streetsbrook Infant & Nursery School, Chair
Forest Oak/Merstone School
Headteacher of Dickens Heath & Chair of Synergy
Daylesford Infant School
Assistant Director, Learning & Achievement, SMBC
Headteacher of Ulverley School and Chair of Primary Partnership
Forum Chairman
Cabinet Member for Education, Skills and Culture
Yorkswood Primary School
Director of Children's Services
Sports Development and Facilities Officer
Marston Green Junior School
Governor, Yorkswood Primary School
Langley Primary School
Schools Forum Secretary
Action
UPDATE FROM DCS
Serious Case Review
A double murder trial is currently taking place over a small child who died
in Solihull two years ago. A serious case review has been carried out
and it will be published next year. The authority is working closely with
the safeguarding board and police about dealing with the consequences
once the trial finishes. Please refer any media interest to SH to ensure it
is managed centrally.
CSE
The regional campaign to raise CSE awareness has been launched.
Solihull has one of the highest numbers of CSE cases because we have
more refined ways of identifying affected children. We are being sited as
a good practice authority. Nick Page is taking the lead for the region on
CSE and will be working with police to set up a panel to deal with this.
Children’s Social Care
The restructure was carried out to reduce the number of managers and
deal with work load issues, and also manage within new and challenging
budgets. It was designed to help keep experienced staff in the future by
improving the career pathway. It is anticipated that the new service will
be in place in January 2015.
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Early Help
A third Assistant Director, Tina McGrath has been appointed on a
temporary basis to lead the LA’s Early Help Strategy.
As it currently stands the working model is that Early Help Services will
be delivered on a locality based model with areas being broken down into
team collaborative areas (if possible based on school collaboratives)
each with its own manager.
A planning workshop is taking place on 10th December and it is hoped
that the service will go live in July 2015. In the meantime, statutory
services will continue to be delivered.
SH confirmed that this information may be shared with school
collaboratives but please be aware that there are sensitive issues for staff
involved in the changes.
Employment Apprenticeships - Post 14
Chris Palmer is taking this forward to establish consistent delivery across
the borough with clear routes and opportunities. TL suggested that it
would be good to involve students to hear their opinions.
SH left the meeting.
2
WELCOME AND APOLOGIES
LM welcomed new members, Antoinette Fisher and Councillor Joe
Tildesley, to the meeting.
Apologies had been received from Lynn Clark, Julie Cobley and Mark
Mitchell.
Lynn Clark had contacted LM about possibly stepping down. DW will
follow this up with Lynn at the next collaborative meeting.
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DW
MINUTES OF PREVIOUS MEETING
The minutes of the meeting held on 1st October 2014 were agreed as a
true record.
Matters Arising
Councillor Joe Tildesley commented that the issue of youth
unemployment needs to be addressed within the next 12 months, with
the percentage of unemployed 18-24 year olds in the borough higher
than the national figure. He is currently visiting secondary schools and it
is clear that there is a gap between what is actually going on and what
the council thinks is going on.
An update from CJT will be added to the SAB agenda as a standing item.
CJT wants to put forward a motion for Birmingham money to follow pupils
from there who attend school in Solihull. He has written to the Secretary
of State for Education and, if agreed, it will then go to parliament.
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LM
Terms of Reference
The SAB Terms of Reference have been amended to state that
membership of SAB involves a commitment to attend all six meetings for
the full duration of those meetings. If a member misses three
consecutive meetings it is likely they will be asked to step down. The
Terms of Reference were agreed.
JG, DW
Partnership – Membership of Steering Group
MP has received replies from Evolve, Synergy and Mosaic about
supporting primary partnership. JG and DW will follow up with Unity and
Rural collaboratives.
MP
MP is organising speakers for the conference and requested feedback on
those he had booked so far - which were approved. It was suggested
that MP contact Mark Mitchell about a speaker on coaching for
leadership. MP will also contact Nick Page about speaking on Early
Help.
Assessment – Including Funding
LM reported that, as agreed, Collette Higgins and Donna Wright had
been commissioned to develop an assessment tool for English and
Maths that can be used across the local authority.
The overall cost is £11,000 and LM proposed that collaboratives will be
charged on a per pupil basis as follows:
Evolve: £2056
Mosaic: £1865
Rural: £1857
Synergy: £2266
Unity: £2962
The charge includes additional training days for assessment and
Maths/English leaders.
Everyone agreed that they were happy with the costs. PL will inform DW
and CH to take this forward.
LM circulated paperwork and the group was asked to not send this
information outside the local authority.
PRU Update
DW reported that the PRU/Auckland Centre management board is
collaborative supported and, following their first meeting, they had set
time aside to discuss admission criteria. They are trying to establish
managed moves for as many pupils as possible and they need a buy in
from all primary schools. There will be a referral panel and they want to
avoid schools having to permanently exclude children in order to access
provision. The board is also discussing support on transfer from primary
to secondary.
DW will provide future updates through SAB SEND.
4
VULNERABILITY THRESHOLDS
PL reported that Adam Scott is reviewing vulnerability thresholds. PL is
obtaining head teachers’ views on both the current and proposed
guidance prior to a review meeting.
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Att
JW to circulate the documents to all schools requesting feedback to PL
by 2nd December.
JW
There was a brief discussion about DART and issues about
confidentiality. LM had received a referral via the fax and others had
found it impossible to follow up issues that schools have raised with
DART.
5
LA UPDATE
Staffing Update
CP reported that the head teacher at Damson Wood Infant School has
left and Kay Luther-Jones is the acting head.
Di Fellows has left Lyndon School and Abid Butt is the acting head
teacher.
CP was meeting the Department for Education about the future of the
schools the following day.
Operation Recognise
There had been two attempted abductions near Alderbrook School.
Although police had arrested a man, he was later released because the
police had concluded that he did not do it. The police have issued a
photo-fit which CP will email to SAB. CP stressed the importance of
reporting these incidents but also the importance of not creating a state
of panic and issuing independent messages about individual incidents.
Any messages need to be agreed with the police to ensure they do not
interfere with the investigation.
Concern was expressed that the local authority is not always clear what
its expectations are in respect of these communications and explicit
instructions are needed. It is not always clear to schools when to send
messages to parents and CP clarified that anything with Operation
Recognise on it needs to be distributed to parents.
6
LIVING WELL PROGRAMME
Sadie Walker introduced the ‘Eat Well, Move More’ programme
(previously known as the Family Weight Management Programme). It is
being funded by Public Health and runs from January 2015 to March
2018. It is targeted at 4-16 year olds who have been categorised as
overweight or obese. The referrals are made through health
professionals and the programme is free of charge. It is broken down
into three areas:
4-6 Years Service
The team will engage with six schools over a year and these will be
targeted in areas of higher obesity rates.
Initially, a member of Solihull Active will meet with a point of contact
provided by the school, the school nurse and someone from Key Stage
One at the school prior to running the sessions. The school is also asked
to assist with sending out consent forms to parents.
The team will then go in to the school for a term where they spend an
hour a week for four weeks with a class size group of children. The
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CP
group would comprise of a mix of children who have been identified as
having weight issues, inactive children and those who would benefit from
healthy lifestyle support. A family member has to commit to continue for
eight one hour after school sessions following the initial four weeks.
7-11 Years Service
This programme is run in a community setting out of school, generally
between 4-6pm. There will be a ten week rolling programme in the north
and one in the south. The children are referred by health professionals
and schools can contact the school nurse to refer children.
JN felt that there would be greater scope if the whole school was
educated rather than a group as it would capture all the children you want
to include and more, without stigmatizing the issue. AM agreed and sited
‘Food Dudes’ as being very powerful.
SW stated that the programme will be piloted during the spring term and
then reviewed and she will take their feedback to Public Health. AM and
JN offered to take part if the whole school was involved and SW asked
them to email her.
AM/JN
12-16 Years Service
This programme involves one-to-one appointments at a convenient time
and place for that young person and will be tailored to meet each
person’s needs.
MP commented that the whole programme could be integrated in to the
Early Help agenda.
Att
All comments and feedback are appreciated. Please contact Sadie at
solihullactive@solihull.gov.uk or tel: 0121 704 8207. JW to circulate a
copy of the presentation.
Sadie also reported that Solihull Active is launching a project in April to
encourage women and girls to get more active. Please contact Sadie if
you would like more details.
7
LA UPDATE
Schools Websites
CP reported that Sally Hodges had received a letter from Nick Gibb
expressing increasing concern about maintained schools who may not be
fully complying with regulations, particularly on websites. This letter has
been sent to local authorities nationally, not just Solihull. The letter states
that the DfE is likely to inspect schools whose statutory information is not
on the website.
Medicines in School
Natasha Chamberlain will attend a forthcoming SAB meeting.
Peer to Peer Support
Part of SAB’s remit is to move towards and establish peer to peer
support. PL is setting up a working party with collaborative input.
LM had attended an end of year advisors’ meeting and felt, subject to
agreement from schools, that there should be collaborative
representation at these meetings. This would be part of the peer to peer
support and collaboratives could then work with the schools. Peer to
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peer support could be done across the collaboratives or from within them.
PL is following up on this.
JG commented that the diocese has a scrutiny board for church schools.
She felt it is important for schools that are outstanding to be free to
choose for themselves to help other schools.
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COLLABORATIVE DATA
LM circulated attainment data for key stages one and two and requested
comments relating to implications for cross collaborative working.
MP felt that the format, which breaks the data into collaboratives, is
useful for working on a supportive programme.
LM agreed to produce a sheet providing data on progress.
LM
MP will contact Collette Higgins and Donna Wright to invite them to lead
a discussion about progress at the primary partnership conference.
CP left the meeting.
9
REPORTS
Schools Forum
 DS reported that they are pursuing fairer funding. He has written to
two MPs with the intention of getting the issue heard by the
government.
 SAB and Schools Forum are working together much better and real
issues within collaboratives are being fed through to Forum.
 AM understood that the speech and language therapy funding
proposal has now being withdrawn.
 It was confirmed that DS’s report on cost priorities facing schools has
been circulated to all head teachers and governors.
 Alison McWilliam had asked LM to bring up representation on Forum.
It was agreed for AMcW to formally inform Roberta Narroway that she
will be replaced as she has not attended Forum for so long. Mark
Pratt agreed to take her place.
 JW to ask AMcW to check vacancies for the Rural collaborative so
they can reconsider their representation with, potentially, Jenny
Godsall attending as a representative for a primary academy.
 Forum is able to have named substitutes for its members. All to
confirm who the named deputy is at the next collaborative meeting
and let LM know.
SAB SEND
 A survey on Dyslexia (both diagnosed and undiagnosed) had been
carried out and this is being progressed further by mapping out the
children by individual schools and collaborative. This will help
establish needs across the borough and ascertain whether a Dyslexia
ARC is needed at Widney School. The results will be reported back
to SAB SEND in January.
 SISS are working on the Local Authority Inclusion Policy. They will
be requesting feedback from all schools.
 The work group dealing with School SEND Policy is going well.
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AMcW
AMcW
All
School Improvement
 LM proposed that collaborative reports are done once a term in the
second half of each term. This was agreed.
 The SAB Safeguarding group no longer meets because another
group has taken this over.
 All to check with their collaboratives that people are signed up for
Safer Recruitment Training.
 It was confirmed that the Revised Child Protection Policy was sent
out in November 2014.
 LSCB: LM reported that the number of schools attending initial case
conferences and core meetings was poor. Simon Stubbs had agreed
to let her know which schools are not attending. The following points
were noted:
 Meetings sometimes happen during school holidays when people
are away.
 The school nurse or police often do not turn up.
 School nurses do not attend unless it is relevant.
 Schools often attend several support meetings about one child to
give and receive the same information at each meeting. One
meeting should be sufficient.
10
ANY OTHER BUSINESS
CB stated that the Managing Allegations Against Employees Policy will
be circulated to schools. One of the appendices has a useful check list
about the suspension of employees.
11
DATE OF NEXT MEETING
The next meeting is at 1.30pm on Wednesday 21st January 2015 at Sans
Souci.
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All
Att