Agenda item

The action sheet arising from the meeting of the Education & Learning Scrutiny Committee held on 20th April, 2021 was submitted, whereupon:-

Grants Awarded to Education Directorate

A Member enquired why the amount of funding received for Tredegar Comprehensive School was nearly double the funding received for Brynmawr Foundation School and Abertillery Learning Community.  The Corporate Director of Education said he would look into the variances and report back to the Committee.

In response to a Member’s question regarding how PDG Challenge Advisors would interact and challenge Headteachers, the Corporate Director of Education explained that the Challenge Advisors would work closely with the schools to make sure that there was appropriate use of this funding across the schools and ensure that the resource was used effectively to support those learners who were targeted, in line with the grant criteria. 

A Member referred to the differences shown in the PDG amounts, these grants were based on the number of free school meal pupils within schools and felt that an item could be put forward on the interventions in different schools and how it was helping free school meal pupils progress.  The Member referred to the percentage of free school meals in Blaenau Gwent and enquired if this could be looked at, as he felt that not all free school meal children were having what they were entitled to and this affected grants going into schools.  He felt that information regarding free school meal entitlement was difficult to find on the Blaenau Gwent website and the link for applications should be more prominent.  He also raised concerns that free school meal assessments were now carried out every 3 years.

The Corporate Director of Education said that in relation to the situation around free school meals and the way that is assessed within schools, a lot of work had been carried out during the pandemic which had resulted in a significant increase associated with eligibility around free school meals. The latest position was that in the region of 1,700 children were now entitled to free school meals and the situation was being closely monitored.  The Director advised Members that there was probably a 30 to 40% increase in terms of families and children entitled to free school meals due to the impact associated with COVID around the socio-economic status of the area.  In relation to the Member’s first point, one of the briefing notes outlined some of the areas for potential spend on the Pupil Development Grants so that Members were appraised of the way that resource could be used to support learners both from an FSM and CLA perspective across the school estate.  The Director would provide anonymised information regarding this matter to Members and also ensure that the link for applications for FSM was made more prominent on the website.

In response to a Member’s question regarding what percentage of families were claiming FSM, the Director reported that the percentage was in the region of 30% but stressed it was a fluid situation and subject to change.  The Member commented it was important to engage with those families not claiming their entitlement as this was money that the families, the schools and the Education service was losing. The Service Manager Education Transformation & Business Change said they were working closely with the schools in order to get the message out to parents and liaising with schools when new eligibility came online, they worked closely with both the Benefits and Performance sections and held discussions with schools who in turn picked up the discussions with parents around ensuring they take up their entitlement to apply for FSM.  Regular messages around the eFSM application rounds were circulated via the schools directly, via their parent communication channels, the team also picked up a significant number of calls.  She advised there was a lot of communication, information and plans in place to support those parents and to look to engage newly eligible families.

A Member commented that with so much support in place why families were not claiming their entitlement to FSM, and enquired if it was due to the perceived stigma attached to FSM.  The Director of Education said this could be an issue, however, there were services in place to try to address this issue such as the Catering service who work closely with schools around cashless catering so that the learner was not identified as being a free school meal pupil.  There were also direct payments to families so there was no way of identifying directly those families that were receiving the entitlement.

With regard to direct payments a Member enquired if checks were made that families receiving direct payments were actually paying for free school meals for their children.  The Service Manager Education Transformation & Business Change said that the eligibility was managed in partnership with the Benefits Section, then working with schools to ensure that those pupils were accessing free school meals.  She advised that schools do provide additional support as do Catering when there were financial issues for families.

The Committee AGREED, subject to the foregoing, that the action sheet be noted.