17 November 2016 weekly update

Dear Colleagues

Following the recent Headteacher Briefings I think it may be useful to summarise some of the key messages. Download the presentation (PPTX, 1.1 MB) from the Briefings.

Firstly the County Council is taking steps to integrate all of Children’s Services into one Directorate, which will mean Early Help and Social Care working in a more joined up way. From January 2017 we will be starting to implement plans (from April) for a single front door with one referral form for all notifications and referrals to Early Help and Social Care. This new central referral unit will decide what level of support cases need, and this information will be shared with schools. We will issue new guidance on this for schools in the New Year.

We are moving forward with the plans to create an Education Services Company, which will operate on a shadow basis from next April, and will operate as a separate legal entity from next September. We aim to ensure Headteachers have a large say in how the company operates by having representation on the Board of the company, and representation on a new Education Partnership Board that will oversee all education services going forward.

At present we propose that the following services would be delivered as part of the new company:

• School Improvement
• Governor Services
• Outdoor Education
• Early Years and Childcare Service
• Educational Psychology
• Skills and Employability Service
• Community Learning and Skills Service
• the Education Safeguarding Team
• EduKent traded services.

The following services will continue to be delivered directly as core statutory services by KCC:

• Fair Access and Admissions
• SEN
• Early Help
• School Place Planning
• the work of the Area Education Officers.

We believe the new company provides the opportunity for schools to have a greater say in how services are delivered, for the services to be more sustainable for the future and for the company to bring more income into Kent by trading with other local authority areas and schools beyond Kent. For more information please contact Graham.Willett@kent.gov.uk, Director of Education Quality and Standards.

The priority to have more resources for, and different ways of working to support, the Mental Health and Emotional Well-Being Strategy is moving forward. From next April there will be a new offer of support for emotional well-being, including mindfulness training and resilience hubs, provided through Public Health, plus a re-commissioned CAMHS offer, the implementation of the new Headstart programme and through the work of the Education Health Needs Service. For example, there will be CAMHS workers in our Early Help units and mental health workers who will work directly with schools. Watch the short video made by young people about the new Headstart programme, which provides £10 million of Big Lottery funding to Kent schools to support improved emotional well-being of children and young people. All of this work is delivered through Early Help and Preventative Services. For more information please contact Stuart.Collins@kent.gov.uk, Director of Early Help and Preventative Services.

The latest version of the Education Commissioning Plan will be available shortly. This sets out the plans, by District, for the increase in school places that we need to deliver over the next four to five years. The growth in pupil numbers continues to be very significant, with an expected increase in Primary numbers by 8000 between now and 2020, and an increase in Secondary numbers of 15,000 by 2022. Therefore we will need to continue to expand school places and develop a number of new schools to deliver 34 forms of entry in Primary schools and 53 new forms of entry in Secondary schools by 2019-20. To deliver this large increase in provision we need more Kent schools to be able to sponsor new schools. For more information please contact Keith.Abbott@kent.gov.uk, Director of Planning and Access or your Area Education Officer.

We are about to issue a revised SEND Strategy for Kent which is designed to build on the positive work achieved so far. The next stage of the strategy will focus on developing more specialist provision and support for pupils with ASD, speech and language needs and emotional and behavioural needs in mainstream and Special schools; increasing the effectiveness of High Needs funding and the LIFT process on pupils’ learning and progress; improving the availability of health funded therapy services and the involvement of Health Visitors in early identification; improving transitions from the Early years and from Primary to Secondary; increasing the provision and opportunities for SEN learners post 16, including apprenticeships and access to employment; reducing the over representation of SEN pupils in exclusions and persistent absence; and doing more to increase parental engagement and confidence in the SEN process and the provision for their children.

At present we are spending over £200 million on SEN in Kent, including £24 million on SEN Transport and £20 million on out of county placements. Both of these should reduce so that the funding can be used in more productive ways. We have increased High Needs funding by around £20 million in the last couple of years and at present 47% of pupils supported in this way do not have an Education Health and Care Plan. This is positive and we aim to achieve more through using the resources in this way and having higher impact through earlier intervention and easier access to additional funding without going down the statutory assessment route.

To ensure there is better take up of High Needs funding in Secondary schools we propose to complete the new applications in Year 6 so that the funding is agreed for pupils when they arrive in Year 7. We hope this will be more helpful. For more information please contact Julie.Ely@kent.gov.uk, Head of SEN.

On School Funding, we expect to know the outcomes of the DFE’s consultation on a new national funding formula shortly, and the DFE plans to publish decisions on new funding arrangements in the New Year, for implementation in 2018. We anticipate no change until 2020 to the on-going trend over 7 years so far of providing flat cash settlements for schools. However we expect Kent schools to gain slightly from a new funding rate as part of a new national formula.

The recent consultation on a new funding formula for Early Years provision would mean slightly less funding in Kent for all providers of early years childcare and nursery provision, which is a concern.

For more information please contact Simon.Pleace@kent.gov.uk, Finance Business Partner for Education and Young People’s Services.

I hope this is a helpful summary of some of the key points covered in our recent series of Headteacher Briefings.

Patrick Leeson, Corporate Director Education and Young People’s Services