Local Authorities are responsible for arranging suitable full-time education for permanently excluded pupils, and for other pupils who - because of illness or other reasons - would not receive suitable education without such provision.  Full-time education for excluded pupils must begin no later than the sixth day of the exclusion.  Local Authority maintained provision for this purpose is known as a Pupil Referral Unit.

 

The Strategic Director, Children’s Services will submit Document “M” which provides information about the Pupil Referral Units in Bradford.

 

Recommended-

 

That an update report on the progress of the District Pupil Referral Unit be presented to the Committee by April 2019.

 

                                                            (Marium Haque – 01274 439255)

 

 

 

Local Authorities were responsible for arranging suitable full-time education for permanently excluded pupils, and for other pupils who - because of illness or other reasons - would not receive suitable education without such provision.  Full-time education for excluded pupils must begin no later than the sixth day of the exclusion.  Local Authority maintained provision for this purpose was known as a Pupil Referral Unit.

 

The Strategic Director, Children’s Services submitted Document “M” which provided information about the Pupil Referral Units in Bradford.

 

It was reported that in Bradford and District there were five PRUs:

 

·         Park Primary (in BD5 West Bowling) for pupils in key stage 1 and 2, aged 5-11 years;

·         Ellar Carr (in BD10 Thackley) for key stage 3 and 4 pupils aged 11-16 years;

·         Central (on two sites one at Jesse Street BD8 Fairweather Green and Aireview BD18 Saltaire) for key stage 3 and 4 pupils aged 11-16 years;

·         District (BD4 Bowling) for key stage 3 and 4 pupils aged 11-16 years;

·         TRACKS (BD18 Shipley) a key stage 4 provision for young people with social anxiety and social and mental health needs.

 

In addition there were two hospital schools that provided education for children and young people staying in hospital; these were Education in Hospital Airedale and BRI.

 

The Deputy Director of Education and Learning reported on the figures for Permanent and Fixed Term Exclusions to date which were provided at Appendix 1 of the report.  She reported that work was ongoing to ensure appropriate provision was in place for children with Education Health Care Plans.

 

Members were informed that the District Pru was inspected in March 2017 and was found to be inadequate and requiring Special Measures to improve and subsequently given an academy order.

 

It was reported that since the inspections findings a number of actions had been taken to improve provision and to enable the PRU to be in a position where an academy transfer could be agreed with an appropriate sponsor.

 

The Interim Head teacher of the District PRU attended the meeting and spoke about the progress made which included:

 

·         Building works had taken place over the summer to make a separate visitor and student entrance, and this had helped to improve safety.

·         A number of other improvements had been made not only to on–site safety, but also safeguarding practices the curriculum, teaching and learning and leadership and management.

 

·         Early morning calls and collection continued to work well and was having a significant impact on attendance.

·         There was a more intensive focus by all staff on safeguarding students.

·         As a result, behaviour had improved and there were reduced incidents of inappropriate and aggressive behaviours and the high levels of anxiety previously displayed by a number of students and attendance had improved.

·         He was leading on making improvements to the quality of overall provision and the management committee were holding the leaders and managers to account.  The Achievement Officer had made a very positive contribution and this had been clearly acknowledged by the Head Teacher and the management committee

·         The PRU was now making good progress towards the removal of Special Measures and had improved considerably since the last Ofsted monitoring visit.

·         There was now a crisis room for one to one support.

·         There was pastoral management in place.

·         The curriculum offered was now more varied.

·         Help was given to students to prepare cv’s

·         Afternoon teas were held with local residents and feedback was received from the local community.

·         Parental engagement at parents evenings was 100%; parental aspiration was being raised too.

·         There was now a one day vocational offer.

·         A Hair and Beauty salon had been built on site.

·         Music Technology was a one day option too.

·         Systems the PRU had in place were now robust.

·         Children were getting value for money for the education being provided.

·         The biggest change was the subjects being taught by specialists.

·         All students were offered PE, skating, ten pin bowling etc.

·         The Children that left were provided welfare visits and offered a summer scheme.

·         Early transition to Bradford College provided which helped students to enrol early.

·         NEET figure had gone down to 5.34% from 6%.

 

Members commended the enthusiasm of the Interim Head Teacher of the District PRU and the progress being made.

 

Members commented on the following:

 

·         Were students with challenging behaviour advised that such behaviour would not be tolerated in employment?

·         It was extremely important to provide the right support to children attending PRU’s; some children had mental health issues and not just behavioural issues; some children had been to 10 different schools or out of education for a long time.

·         Needed to work with schools to stop children being excluded.

·         How were PRUs governed?

·         When children were placed in PRUs was every effort being made to get the child back into mainstream schooling?

·         Had pupil attendance in the District PRU improved in the last 15 weeks?

·         Needed further information in relation to PRUs; important funding changes would change the nature of PRUs; permanent and fixed term exclusions; a lot of the children did not live anywhere near a PRU; needed a wider report on PRUs.

·         Concerned about children that had been out of school for a length of time.

·         Worked with families whose children had been excluded, were mainstream school staff being trained up to address the number of children being excluded.

·         Did children who returned to mainstream schooling after being excluded transition into mainstream school appropriately or did they end up back in the PRU? Was their sufficient support provided to these children?

 

In response to the comments raised by Members it was reported that:

 

·         The PRUs offered the same standard as schools did in supporting the pupil to build resilience into the curriculum.

·         A negative picture was painted of PRU’s; work of the PRU’s was being promoted.

·         Parental engagement at parents evenings was 100%; parental aspiration was being raised too.

·         It was disappointing to see the number of children being moved from school to school; schools should have confidence to meet the needs of children but sometimes PRU was the right place for some children for short periods; not in the interest to move children to different schools; work was taking place with schools, classroom teachers, SENCO on how best to meet the needs of children with low level behaviour issues.

·         PRUs had a governing body and operated similar to schools.

·         Needed to look at better support in getting the children back into mainstream schooling; biggest challenge for the child was the stigma of being in a PRU.

·         The national attendance of a PRU was 66.1%, the attendance of the District PRU was 74.1%.

·         Needed to do multi-agency work to get children back into school.

·         Reducing the District PRUs published admission number helped drive the changes forward with more multi-agency work which had a positive impact on young people.

·         There were opportunities to improve the process to integrate children back into mainstream schooling.

·         The progress of children that were permanently excluded was tracked; if a child was excluded fixed term then the child was the responsibility of the school they were excluded from.

 

Members commended the work undertaken to make improvements at the District PRU. 

 

Resolved-

 

(1)       That the Committee thanks contributors for their informative and passionate presentations.

 

(2)       That an update report on the progress of the District Pupil Referral Unit be presented to the Committee by April 2019.

 

Action:           Interim Strategic Director Children’s Services