In January 2018, the Secretary of State for Education published the delivery plan for the Bradford Opportunity Area. The plan was developed by the local partnership board. The board brings together local education providers, voluntary sector education and community organisations, employers, Department for Education (DfE) and Bradford Council. The board is led by the independent chair, Anne-Marie Canning MBE, Director of Social Mobility and Student Success at Kings College, London.

 

The Strategic Director, Children’s Services will present Document “D” which reports on the Bradford Plan and its four priorities for action over the next two years and subsequent targets for improvement.

 

The report confirms activity and investment to date, underway, and programmed for the next academic year and beyond. Highlights include: £1.5m for school improvement in at least 25 underperforming schools, with 4 schools already receiving support; just under £1m to establish and run a Centre of Applied Educational Research, leading work to overcome health barriers to learning; and a new £480,000 investment on parental engagement in children’s learning.

 

Recommended-

 

That the progress be noted.

 

                                               (Kathryn Loftus – 01274 434590)

 

In January 2018, the Secretary of State for Education published the delivery plan for the Bradford Opportunity Area. The plan was developed by the local partnership board. The board brought together local education providers, voluntary sector education and community organisations, employers, Department for Education (DfE) and Bradford Council. The board was led by the independent chair, Anne-Marie Canning MBE, Director of Social Mobility and Student Success at Kings College, London.

 

The Strategic Director, Children’s Services presented Document “D” which reported on the Bradford Plan and its four priorities for action over the next two years and subsequent targets for improvement.

 

The report confirmed activity and investment to date, underway, and programmed for the next academic year and beyond. Highlights included: £1.5m for school improvement in at least 25 underperforming schools, with 4 schools already receiving support; just under £1m to establish and run a Centre of Applied Educational Research, leading work to overcome health barriers to learning; and a new £480,000 investment on parental engagement in children’s learning.

 

Members were informed that the programme had 4 key priority areas which were strengthening school leadership and the quality of teaching, parents and place: literacy and learning, improving access to rewarding careers and removing health barriers to learning.

It was reported that Appendix “A” provided a breakdown of key investments and achievements that had taken place and the future work planned across the four priority areas.

 

A representative of DFE who was working with the Bradford Opportunity Area Programme spoke about the positive way Bradford worked with its partners. He felt the programme was promising and would deliver the goals of the four priority areas; there was a development plan in place on how the programme would work which went up to July 2020.

 

The Chair of the Bradford Opportunity Area Board spoke about the positive work of the Board and its Membership.  She reported that Bradford was huge compared to other opportunity areas and that there was plenty of backing and support from the wider community. She asked Members to talk about the Opportunity Area Programme in the Wards they represented.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Members commented on a number of issues which included:

 

·         What was the feedback from the 21,000 young people aged 13-18 that had accessed “meaningful encounters” with employers, through the Careers and Enterprise Company’s work to link schools and employers?

·         In terms of the Board what checks and balances were in place and how did they consider whether a programme was value for money?

·         What was the breakdown of schools and funding in Keighley West and would like to receive information on the young ambassadors?

·         It would be useful to have information on the life skills programme for all wards.

·         Was the programme linking into the voluntary sector and hard to reach young people?

·         Was the work linked to Children’s Centres? Children’s Centres were already aware of vulnerable families, where these children being picked up by the programme?

·         Was there capacity to provide the system-led school support programme?

·         How was the outcomes of the Essential Life Skills Programme being monitored?

·         Pleased with the number of initiatives and funding available for the programme but the literature festival seemed to have a lot of outputs rather the outcomes, would have liked to see a lot more depth on how it would be value for money; would like information on the Bradford Literature Festival Board Members so that local Councillors could work with them.

·         Youth Services were being asked to take on responsibility in a number of areas such as bullying, domestic violence, young peoples mental health etc without having initial training, would like to have details of the young inspectors related to the Essential Life Skills programme.

·         In terms of the system-led school support programme how would it be known on what the schools that were providing the expertise were spending the money on?

·         There was a small window of opportunity to correct the vision of children with lazy eye, will such things be addressed through the Bradford Opportunity programme?

·         Born in Bradford had gathered a lot of information, would the programme make use of that information?

·         Careers was an area that had been neglected in schools, careers advice was usually provided by teachers who did not have sufficient time

·         How did the 8 week summer internship programme work? 

·         Could it have been feasible to provide the summer internship programme to more than 12 young people?

·         Needed to ensure that any programme that was provided was sustainable.

In response to Members comments it was reported that:

 

·         5 million had been proportioned to the number of pupils on pupil premium; it was up to schools on how the money should be spent.

·         The feedback received on the “meaningful encounters” scheme had been positive; the Youth Service had been involved in the Youth Inspectors initiative and talking to young people on how it was helping them.

·         Schools were being asked to provide feedback direct so that it could be passed onto the national evaluators.

·         Value for money would be assessed by looking at how money was being spent and whether a scheme engaged the number of pupils it was supposed to and if it was effective.

·         Schools applied for funding individually; officers would not know until November which schemes would be run by the voluntary sector; activities had to be extra curricula and had to be delivered at school or with school supervision.

·         The focus of the programme was around children aged 5-18 (statutory school age); literature festival involved early years; already had strengths in early years.

·         Essential Life Skills had a strict criteria on the age it applied to ie 5 years and above.

·         There was a set grant criteria for the Essential Life Skills programme which was based on the Bradford Pathways Model.

·         Vulnerable children who had pupil premium linked to them would benefit from the various initiatives.

·         Priority 4 – removing health barriers to learning would have a huge impact on early years.

·         In terms of the system-led school support programme, support would be where possible, be provided by the best “system leaders” (school leaders) from the City, where they had the capacity and skills or by bringing expertise into the city, as required; those providing the support would be matched to schools through a brokerage process, led by the Local Authority and the Regional Schools Commissioner.

·         In terms of the Bradford Literature Festival it was acknowledged that local Members should be involved and any schemes run at the festival had to be evidence based. 

·         Quality assurances were being put in place; first stage of the process included having conversation with schools about their needs; which was an opportunity to look at data and share information with agencies on what support was needed; milestones and outcomes were scrutinised by colleagues; the programme had a series of milestones and individuals could be held to account from that.

·         Grant funding had been secured for Born in Bradford to run a programme called “glasses in classes”. Children were tested and given 2 pairs of glasses if needed one for home and one to be kept in school.

·         Careers had been a challenge for a long time; had a good chance now for collaborative working between schools and employers; it was important to provide right support to schools; national offer for every school to receive better careers enterprise support; through the Careers and Enterprise Companies worked to link schools and employers; this built on and complimented the work of Bradford’s Covenant and the Industrial Centres of Excellence, already working with schools and thousands of young people across the district.

·         The summer internship programme was provided to 12 disadvantaged young people to show them that decent living came from decent wages; young people needed to understand how wages worked.

The Social Media Apprentice for Children’s Services attended the meeting and spoke about the pilot for gathering young peoples voices (Youth Voice) relating to the Essential Life Skills Programme, where young people were told about the programme through social media and some youth provision, 19 young people were consulted, these young people attend  different schools including: Dixons, Feversham, Killinghall and Carlton Bolling and asked a series of questions:

 

1)            Have you heard of the Essential Life Skills programme happening in your schools?

-          Only 1 in 24 young people were aware of this programme taking place in schools, or had heard of essential life skills.

 

2)            Have you taken part in any of these activities?

-          11 out of 24 young people stated that they were aware of these activities. Young people also reported some of the school’s activities hadn’t started yet.

-          13 of 24 young people have not yet taken part in any ELS activities, to their knowledge.

 

3)    What have you thought about these activities?

-          15 of 24 young people did not have any thoughts either way or comments to make about the activities.

-          One young person stated that they were interested in what the ELS activities were and what they are about.

-          Another young person said that they have so far loved these activities.

Finally, young people were asked:

 

4)    Did taking part in these activities provide you with skills and experiences you wouldn’t have otherwise had?

-          None of the young people consulted felt able to respond to this question at this moment in time.

Members were informed that whilst some young people were clearly participating in after school activities, they were not aware that these activities were part of the ELS programme – because of this; these young people were enjoying the activities without necessarily realising/acknowledging the learning they were receiving.

 

The Youth Voice Representative stated that in the future, in order to increase the number of young people getting involved in Youth Voice, the privacy of the account be switched from private to public which would enable more young people to be reached. Members of the Committee supported this suggestion.

 

Resolved-

 

(1)          That the report (Document “D”) and the presentation given by officers and young people be welcomed and that a further update be provided to the Committee in 12 months time to include details of how the Services were being monitored and any initial analysis of outcomes.

 

(2)          That Officers who are able to present evidence based outcomes on the various schemes be requested to attend the meeting when the report is presented to the Committee.

 

Action:           Strategic Director, Children’s Services