Agenda item

To consider a report of the Head of the Virtual School.

Phil Mellen, Headteacher at the Virtual School attended to provide an overview of the work that his team performs and to provide an update on the results they have achieved so far.

He explained that since coming into existence on 1 September 2010, the Virtual School had continued to enable Cheshire East to take an overview of all its Cared for Children and their educational progress. One of the ways of doing this was to work closely with schools and in particular designated teachers. Phil Mellen reported that this assisted in information sharing and for channelling funding in the most appropriate and efficient manner.

Phil Mellen continued to assert that whilst the Virtual School did a lot of work to improve the educational attainment of Cared for Children; a child’s chance of doing well was heavily dependent on the stability of their placement. It was noted therefore, that it was necessary for the Virtual School to work to keep a child in the same school, minimising placement volatility. As a result, Phil Mellen reported that he sat on the fostering and adoption panel to provide an educational point of view to decisions around placement moves.

Referring to an additional sheet which provided a comparison on the educational attainment of Cared for Children in 2010 and 2011, Phil Mellen explained that whilst they obviously looked for improvement year on year, the data was volatile by nature as the cohort numbers were relatively small. As a result, the more telling figures would be a trend of improvement over several years. 

As a final point, Phil Mellen outlined a number of priority actions for 2011-12. These were as follows:

·         Early years

·         Key Stage 1

·         14-19

·         Improving the Personal Education Plan (PEP) format

·         Well-being

·         Establishing an Advisory Board.

A number of questions were asked around the performance figures for educational attainment. It was stated that a big improvement in Key Stage 4 results was required. Phil Mellen agreed but asserted that the trend from precedent authorities was for incremental change rather than for rapid progress. He continued to state that he expected the early intervention work to have a large effect on results over the next five years and that the success of the Virtual School as a concept would have to be judged then.

It was also queried whether the service was worried about the drop in Key Stage 2 results from 2010. Phil Mellen confirmed that whilst this was far from ideal the figure that the service was really concerned about was whether children were making a two level progress between Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 as this was a more accurate indicator of the work of the Virtual School. Attention was drawn to the fact that this had improved since 2010.

It was queried whether the Virtual School provided support for children or young people who were staying with relatives and/or not on a full care order. Phil Mellen explained that it was difficult to identify these children and young people as they were not included on the PARIS system. Having said this, he confirmed that if the Virtual School became aware of such a situation, support would be offered.

Attention was drawn to the aforementioned priority action around the 14-19 age group. It was queried whether there was a mechanism for measuring outcomes such as being in full time education, training or employment. Phil Mellen reported that the Virtual School was working closely with the post 16 team and that an appointment was imminent for someone to track outcomes more closely. In addition, he explained that the Virtual School was building relationships with nearby universities in an attempt to access the ‘wider participation grant’ which universities received from central government. Phil Mellen continued to report that the Virtual School was working to get young people in years 7, 8 and 9 to consider university as an option before choosing their subjects for GCSE’s.   

It was questioned whether the Virtual School had any impact on non-academic areas as well as attempting to improve educational attainment. Phil Mellen reported that the Virtual School, where appropriate, funded activities to do with ‘education’ in its widest possible sense as it recognised that well-being was vitally important to a young persons life.

It was queried whether the Virtual School was doing anything to help Foster Carers effectively challenge the PEP process. Phil Mellen explained that training was provided for foster carers on the educational system so that they could challenge from an informed position and the Committee was also reassured that foster carers would be part of the Quality Assurance process.

As a final point, a number of comments were made with regards to the presentation of data, particularly exam results, in the report. It was suggested that it would be useful to have the following additional information in future reports:

·         The national ‘mainstream’ educational attainment figures for comparison

·         The Cheshire East ‘mainstream’ educational attainment figures for comparison

·         The number of students in each yearly cohort.

RESOLVED –

a)    That the report be noted

b)    That the following additional information be provided in future Virtual School reports:

a.    The national ‘mainstream’ educational attainment figures for comparison

b.    The Cheshire East ‘mainstream’ educational attainment figures for comparison

c.    The number of students in each yearly cohort.