In this edition, I explore the Children’s Wellbeing and School Bill, Ofsted’s consultation on the new report card system and what great governance looks like. Intrigued? Then read on….
The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill is a proposal for new laws that aims to improve children’s welfare and education. The bill aims to address issues like safeguarding gaps, disparities in education, and challenges for vulnerable students.
Key features
- SafeguardingThe bill introduces enhanced safeguarding measures, including:
- A unique identifier for each child
- A register for children who are not in school
- Multi-agency safeguarding panels that include education and childcare agencies
- EducationThe bill aims to improve education standards and ensure every child has access to a good school. This includes:
- Free breakfast clubs for primary school pupils
- Limiting the number of branded uniform items required
- Social care: The bill aims to improve social care and reduce the number of children missing education. This includes:
- Requiring local authorities to offer families a group decision-making meeting before taking a child into care
- Allowing the Secretary of State to cap the profits of children’s homes providers
The bill also aims to:
Make sure families can get help when they need it.
Remove the automatic right for parents to educate children at home in certain circumstances.
Allow local authorities to intervene if a child’s home environment is unsafe.
Great governance – reciprocity when challenging attendance.
Ofsted released its annual report in December 2024. The report highlights:
- a continued focus on tackling low attendance of pupils, especially our pupils with SEND and disadvantage;
- a growing interest in decisions around part-time timetables;
- recruitment and retention of staff and staff wellbeing;
- high ambition for pupils with SEND.
So, what does this mean for effective governance? It is our role as school leaders to ensure that our governors are provided with information that empowers them to hold the school to account. With this in mind we need to consider the reciprocity in governance. By reciprocity, I mean that information flows up to governors and also back to the school, providing a feedback loop where a professional discussion takes place that benefit both governance and school with equal poise. Let us consider the power of great governance reciprocity with regard to attendance:
- Provide governors with data that outlines trends in attendance so that they can clearly view the groups of pupils whose attendance is vulnerable and challenge where improvements are not being made;
- Ensure governors are clear about the actions being taken to challenge low attendance and know the language and pivot point for defining persistent absence;
- Be clear about how the school ensures that pupils at risk of safeguarding concerns whose attendance is also low are carefully monitored and supported to be safe;
- Question the decision-making for any pupil on a part-time timetable. Ask if this poses a greater risk to the pupil and what the school is doing to mitigate these risks. Check that there is a keen interest in increasing the time spent in school and that both the family and the Local Authority agree that this is in the best interest of the child.
- Engage in visits to the school to speak with leaders involved in attendance and ask to see practice undertaken, this may include joining a Flo on an attendance visit, observing an attendance interview with a parent, or visiting an assembly that celebrates positive attendance.
- Write up the evaluation of your visit or monitoring activity with clear action agreed by school staff. Share this at the governing body meeting and report back when action has been met or not met.
OFSTED – Report cards and toolkits – a new broom sweeps through the sector.
Ofsted’s chief inspector initiated the consultation on the new report card proposal.
The TES has written a really helpful summary of the proposals and you can take a look here. The article affirms that Ofsted is planning to inspect schools on a new five-point grading scale relating to 11 areas in which schools could receive a judgment when it launches its report cards later this year.
Ungraded inspections will also be dropped and subject deep dives will be scrapped.
In addition, no inspections will take place for the first half-term of the next academic year to allow for training. Inspections are planned to start in November.
As part of the proposals, OFSTED states that they are renewing their approach to inspections and improving how they share what they find on inspection, with four key improvements:
- New ‘toolkits’ to help leaders understand their strengths and areas for improvement.
- More transparent and collaborative relationships with the sectors we inspect.
- Better consideration of local context and circumstances.
- Different approaches for different types of education providers.
Here is a link to a Schools Week article: https://lnkd.in/e42SgAJD
The consultation lasts for 12 weeks and you can respond here: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/improving-the-way-ofsted-inspects-education
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