22 April 2015 weekly update

Dear Colleagues

Appointment of Director of Education Planning and Access

As you may know the current Director of Planning and Access, Kevin Shovelton, retires at the end of May. I would like to thank Kevin for all his good work in Kent in securing sufficient new school places and new schools and his leadership of services for admissions, fair access and special educational needs, including the work of the Area Education Officers.

I am happy to let you know that Keith Abbott has been appointed as the new Director. We will shortly be securing a replacement for Keith's current role as Director of School Resources and Finance. 

School Attendance Referrals

The latest DfE published attendance figures (March 2015) show that Kent schools' overall attendance has improved from 94.7% in 2013 to 95.8% in 2014.
Primary schools in Thanet, Dartford and Swale achieved the most improvement in attendance, while attendance rates in Secondary Schools increased most in Tunbridge Wells, Dartford and Gravesham. 

As attendance, nationally and in Kent is improving, our attendance data is still less good than the national average. For the period covered by this data, total absences were 4.7% compared to 4.4% nationally, which places Kent near the bottom of our eleven local authority statistical neighbours. Our persistence absence rate was also higher, at 4.2% compared to 3.6% nationally. 

6.2% of Secondary School pupils were persistently absent in the 2013-14 period, compared to 5.2% nationally, while persistent absence in Primary School was 2.3%, compared to 2.1% nationally. The Secondary persistent absence rate in Kent was the worst of our statistical neighbours. There is wide variation between districts. For example, the highest rate of Primary persistent absence was 3.2% in Dartford, compared to the lowest which was 1.7% in Ashford. For Secondary persistent absence the highest rate was 9.4% in Swale and the lowest was 3.8% in Dartford.

In the past three years, Kent County Council has issued 8809 school absence related Penalty Notices as part of our effort to improve attendance. The number of Penalty Notices per thousand pupils issued by KCC is among the highest in the country.  Our recent review of the Education Welfare Service found Kent EWOS were spending upwards of 60% of their time doing Penalty Notices. While Penalty Notices have their place among a range of measures to tackle poor attendance, there is a worrying mismatch between our high usage of this penalty and our lower than average attendance rates. 

At the same time there is a high correlation between persistent absence and exclusion and the likelihood of becoming home educated. In many cases the root causes are due to family and social issues and these cases need to be addressed through an Early Help Notification.  

For all absences the most common reason recorded (67%) is illness and medical appointments, while family holidays in term-time represent only 5.9% of total absences in Kent.

Clearly high absence rates, and particularly cases of persistent absence, have a significant impact on pupil outcomes and school performance. Therefore it is one of our priorities to continue to work with schools to improve attendance, certainly to a level that is above the national average.

As you are probably aware the Inclusion and Attendance Service is now part of Early Help and Preventative Services. We have re-structured the service and from now on every school will have a named School Liaison Officer who will process straightforward attendance cases, including Penalty Notices.

Where a case is not straightforward and there are family and social issues, it should be referred to Early Help for more in-depth casework and family support. 

I attach the new Attendance Referral Pathway (DOCX, 75.2 KB) and the Referral Form (DOCX, 28.9 KB). These are available on KELSI also. Through this referral pathway, the pupil absence cases that do not have underlining family problems will be allocated straight to the designated School Liaison Officer for appropriate legal action, including Penalty Notices and Parental Prosecution.

The new Area Lead Officers for Inclusion and Attendance are:

• Cathy Edwards – West Kent
• Melanie Higgins – East Kent
• Heidi McGee – South Kent
• David Boyd – North Kent

The new process outlined above will be effective from Monday 11^th May. From that date every school will have a designated School Liaison Officer for attendance.  In the meantime, please continue to refer cases to the current Education Welfare Officers.

If you need further clarification about the school referral pathway and related attendance issues, please contact Ming.Zhang@kent.gov.uk  Head of PRU, Inclusion and Attendance Service.

I hope this is helpful.

Patrick Leeson

Corporate Director, Education and Young People's Services