Issue - meetings

To consider the report of the Head of School Improvement and Inclusion.

Consideration was given to the report of the Head of School Improvement and Inclusion which was presented to provide opportunity for Members to scrutinise attendance data for Blaenau Gwent at Primary and Secondary school level for the academic year 2020-21 and the first half-term of the academic year 2021-22.

The Head of School Improvement and Inclusion spoke to the report and highlighted the main points contained therein.

The Chair referred to reducing exclusions and felt that reducing exclusions would not help attendance and may hinder it, he felt it was important to keep control of schools, especially returning after COVID, as pupils needed to feel safe in school and Headteachers should only use exclusions as a last resort.  He also enquired regarding data for Elected Home Educated pupils (EHE). 

With regard to reducing exclusions, the Head of School Improvement and Inclusion felt the report referred to the ambition around prevention, getting in early to ensure that young people were supported before they reach crisis point and possible exclusion.  With regard to the EHE numbers, there had been an increase and the Officer would provide exact figures to Members in due course.  She advised that the Welsh Government was focusing more on EHE learners and had undertaken a review of support to enable local authority intervention to check processes that parents had put in place. 

A Member commented that it was important to know the reasons for non-attendance and that Officers were now focusing on this.  He felt that Blaenau Gwent was performing well on pupil attendance in relation to the national figures, however, there had been a drop in pupil attendance in July and felt this may be due to parents taking their children on holiday early and enquired if a national study had been undertaken on this issue.

The Head of School Improvement & Inclusion said that the drop in pupil attendance for July probably resulted from parents taking advantage of the relaxation of COVID restrictions to take holidays.  The Welsh Government was commissioning a report which was still awaited and she felt it would be interesting to see if the same reason was given across Wales for the fall in pupil attendance.  She advised that they were not allowed to issue fines to parents at the moment as there was a need to support families and their well-being.  However, there were some young people who had persistent absenteeism before COVID, and some families used COVID as a legitimate reason not to send their children to school and these reasons could not be challenged.  

The Committee AGREED to recommend that the report be accepted and endorse Option 2; namely that the report be accepted as provided.