Estudio sobre el origen de la Gnosis

135 Overall, the authority’s work for promoting social inclusion and the wellbeing of pupils has shortcomings in important areas. The various ‘arms’ of the SLLS do not work together well enough to raise standards for all children and young people. Senior managers in the School Improvement and Achievement and Inclusion ‘arms’ meet together to determine specific aspects related to inclusion that school improvement advisers should follow up in their visits to schools. However, there is not enough liaison, collaboration, sharing of information and jointly-planned visits between, for example school improvement advisers, education welfare officers, educational psychologists and SEN staff that would ensure a more co-ordinated approach to tackling key issues. Improving attendance and behaviour are key factors in raising attainment in secondary schools. Strategies for improving attendance and behaviour have so far been largely ineffective in addressing the poor rates of attendance and exclusion in secondary schools.

Meeting statutory duties and the needs of specific groups of pupils and young people

136 Officers and elected members show a strong commitment to improve educational outcomes for looked-after children. However, despite this commitment, progress in improving outcomes for looked-after children and young people is too slow. In 2006, over 20% of looked-after children aged 16 in Cardiff schools left all forms of

July 2008

education and training without any recognised qualifications, compared to 18% in Wales as a whole. Outcomes for looked-after children in 2006 were lower than those in 2005 in key stages 2, 3, and 4. Though a slightly lower rate than the national average, 12% of looked-after children experienced at least one change of schools during 2006-2007.

137 The authority has not yet implemented a corporate parenting strategy. However, elected members, senior managers, partnership organisations and children’s representatives have made a commitment to produce this strategy by March 2009. 138 The authority has set up a school liaison team to raise the achievement of

looked-after children. Staff plan well with colleagues in children’s services and the Education Psychology service to meet the needs of looked-after children. The team liaises closely with schools to make sure they give a good level of priority to

looked-after children. This has led to improvements in the relationship with teachers who have a responsibility for looked-after children and has improved the educational focus for children who are looked after in the authority’s residential units.

139 Field work staff in children’s social services and education services co-ordinate out-of-county placements for looked-after children well. Even so, the authority does not monitor the educational achievements of these pupils well enough. Therefore, the authority does not know how well providers are addressing the educational needs of these pupils.

140 The SLLS child-protection team implements its role within the Local Safeguarding Children’s Board (LSCB) appropriately. The team plays a full role in developing policy and promoting good practice and helps build capacity within schools to improve their child protection arrangements.

141 The Gipsy Traveller education service has built good relationships with the Gypsy Traveller community. This helps pupils to access learning and recognise the benefits they can gain from education. The service has set up parents’ groups that help parents gain the skills to support their children’s learning. In addition, the service has set up an on-site playgroup and has helped young people gain vocational

qualifications in childcare and outdoor pursuits. The service monitors the attendance and achievement of children and young people from the Gypsy Traveller community effectively and produces an annual report. This work has had a positive impact and there is an improving trend in pupils’ achievement.23

142 The Ethnic Minority Achievement Service (EMAS) provides good support to schools to improve their capacity to help pupils from minority ethnic communities. The service supports teachers and teaching assistants well to improve their skills in helping pupils acquire and improve their language skills. In addition, the service has developed assessment tools for school-based staff and mentoring schemes for key stage 4 pupils, as well as English classes for parents of pupils in a few primary schools. The service has established three projects that offer useful personal support to pupils in both primary and secondary schools.

23

143 Outcomes for pupils from minority ethnic communities are lower in comparison to those achieved by other pupils. Between 2005 and 2007, pupils from ethnic minority communities achieved outcomes that were lower than those of white UK pupils in all core subjects at key stages 1, 2, and 3. The gap in achievement, in this period, increased in most subjects. In contrast, pupils from minority ethnic communities have significantly improved their results at key stage 4. In 2007, 46% of minority ethnic pupils achieved 5 or more GCSE at grades A*-C, compared to 28% in 2005. However, this is still four percentage points below the results achieved by other Cardiff pupils.24

144 The authority and schools are too dependent on the EMAS to raise the achievement of pupils from minority ethnic communities. EMAS is responding to this challenge by reviewing how it supports schools and increasing resources and the expertise of staff in schools to improve outcomes for minority ethnic pupils. Despite this approach, the authority has no overall strategy that pulls together a range of services to improve outcomes and raise the achievement of pupils from particular minority ethnic

communities. This is an important shortcoming given that 22.7% of the total school population in Cardiff come from minority ethnic communities.

145 The SLLS makes poor use of the data it has available about attendance, exclusions and referrals to school action plus, for example, in relation to specific groups of pupils. It does not use this data well enough to challenge, target support and intervene in schools that have poor attendance, high exclusions and a high number of referrals to school action plus.

Support for attendance

146 Attendance in secondary and special schools in Cardiff has been consistently below the average for Wales and is one of the lowest in Wales. In 2006-2007, only one local authority in Wales and one in England had a lower level of attendance in secondary schools.25 Attendance in primary schools in Cardiff has remained at about the Wales average over the last four years. The authority has the highest level of unauthorised absences in Wales in both primary and secondary schools. In

2006-2007, Cardiff had a higher level of unauthorised absences in secondary schools than all other local authorities in England and Wales.

2003-2004 2004-2005 2005-2006 2006-2007

Primary

schools26 _Attendance Unauthorised

absences Attendance Unauthorised absences Attendance Unauthorised absences Attendance Unauthorised absences Cardiff 93.3% 1.4% 92.8% 1.6 92.3% 2.0% 92.7% 1.9% Wales 93.2% 0.7% 93.1% 0.8% 92.5% 1.0% 92.5% 1.0% Rank 13th 22nd 13th 21st 13th 22nd 15th 22nd 24

Cardiff Council: The Performance of Cardiff Schools 2006 and 2007

25

Source: DCSF, SFR05-2008, Pupil absences in schools in England, 2006/07

26

Sources: National Statistics: SDR 20/2005 (R), Absenteeism from Primary Schools in Wales, 2003/04; SDR 25/2006, Absenteeism from Primary Schools in Wales, 2004/05; SDR 24/2007, Absenteeism from Primary Schools in Wales, 2006; SDR 23/2008,Absenteeism from Primary Schools in Wales,2007

July 2008

2003-2004 2004-2005 2005-2006 2006-2007

Secondary and special

schools27 Attendance Unauthorised

absences Attendance Unauthorised absences Attendance Unauthorised absences Attendance Unauthorised absences Cardiff 89.0% 3.3% 89.3% 3.3% 88.9% 3.4% 89.4% 3.7% Wales 90.6% 1.7% 90.6% 1.7% 90.2% 1.7% 90.7% 1.8 Rank 22nd 22nd 20th 22nd 22nd 22nd 21st 22nd

147 The authority adopted a new strategy for improving attendance in schools ‘Missing Education, Missing Out’ in 2006. To date, the strategy has had a very limited effect in influencing schools to improve the attendance of their pupils, although a small number of schools have made attendance a priority and have achieved significant improvements as a result. Overall, attendance in 11 of the 20 secondary schools was below 90% in 2006-2007, and attendance in 13% of primary schools was below 90% in the same period.28 While seven of the 20 secondary schools have improved their attendance figures in the last two years, attendance at four other secondary schools has decreased in that period.29 Since September 2006, Estyn inspections of Cardiff schools show poor grades for attendance and punctuality. Forty-five per cent of schools inspected (primary, secondary and special), received grade 3 (good features outweigh shortcomings) and 12.5% received grade 4 (some good features, but shortcomings in important areas) for those aspects of the inspection relating to attendance and punctuality.

148 Schools do not work well enough with the authority’s Education Welfare service and the Achievement and Inclusion and School Improvement ‘arms’ to monitor and support the attendance of their pupils.

149 The Education Welfare service operates a casework model to encourage individual pupils and families to improve their attendance. The service prosecuted a significant number of families over the last year for not sending their children to school. The School Improvement ‘arm’ has taken suitable action to identify those schools where there is good practice for improving attendance and promote effective strategies to help all schools improve their practice. However, links between the School

Improvement and Achievement and Inclusion ‘arms’ and the Education Welfare service are not robust enough to capitalise on this work. The Education Welfare service does not link well with other ‘arms’ of the SLLS to share information and develop a strategic approach that is well co-ordinated, monitors attendance data and targets resources, support and interventions to schools appropriately. This is an important shortcoming.

Support for behaviour in schools

150 Since September 2006, outcomes from Estyn inspections of schools in Cardiff show that most schools provide appropriate support for pupils whose behaviour impedes their progress and that of others. The authority has worked well with primary schools to reduce permanent exclusions from 19 in 2003-2004 to three in 2006-2007.30

27

Sources: National Statistics: SDR 107/2005 (R), Absenteeism from Secondary Schools in Wales, 2004/05 and 1998 – 2004 (Revised); SDR 143/2006, Absenteeism from Secondary Schools in Wales, 2005/06; SDR 163/2007,Absenteeism from Secondary Schools in Wales,2006/07

28

Cardiff Council: Improving attendance – Conclusions and recommendations from link visits in 2007-2008. June 2008

29

Based on figures provided by Cardiff County Council

30

However, it has yet to influence, successfully, secondary schools to reduce the number of pupils that they permanently exclude.

151 Permanent exclusions from secondary schools were well above the average for Wales in the period between 2003-2004 and 2005-2006. National statistics show that in January 2006, the latest year for which comparative data is available, Cardiff was ranked 18th out of 22 local authorities for the rate of permanent exclusions from secondary schools per 1000 pupils31. The authority’s rate was 3.0 compared to the national rate of 1.9. The authority’s own statistics show that the number of

permanent exclusions from secondary schools remains high.32

Permanent exclusions 2003-2004 Permanent exclusions 2004-2005 Permanent exclusions 2005-2006 Permanent exclusions 2006-2007 Nursery 0 9 0 0 Primary 19 18 9 3 Secondary 64 66 66 56 Special 4 2 4 4 Total 87 86 79 63

152 The authority has worked well with secondary schools to re-integrate 20

permanently-excluded children and young people into new schools in 2007-2008.33 The appointment of an exclusions officer has helped the authority to negotiate new placements with schools and co-ordinate appropriate packages of support for young people.

153 The authority has been unable to influence schools to reduce the use of fixed-term exclusions in recent years. The authority’s performance relating to short fixed-term exclusions was the worst in Wales over the last two years for which comparative data is available. On average, one secondary school pupil in eight received a fixed-term exclusion lasting five days or less. Fixed-term exclusions, lasting no more than five days, from primary schools increased by 8% between 2004 and 2007. In secondary schools, fixed-term exclusions rose by 5% in the same period.34

Fixed-term exclusions of five days or fewer from secondary schools (rate per 1,000 pupils)35

2003-2004 2004-2005 2005-2006 Cardiff 89.5 125.6 131.6 Wales 56.3 69.7 70.7 Rank 20th 22nd 22nd 31

SDR 32/2007, Exclusions from Schools in Wales 2005/06 National Assembly for Wales

32

Cardiff Council: The Performance of Cardiff Schools 2007

33

From statistics provided by the Exclusions Manager at Cardiff Council

34

From statistics provided by Cardiff Council

35

July 2008

154 The rate of longer fixed-term exclusions compares a little more favourably with the Wales average but has not improved over time while the number of such exclusions across Wales has fallen.

Fixed-term exclusions of six days or more from secondary schools (rate per 1,000 pupils)36

2003-2004 2004-2005 2005-2006 Cardiff 11.9 11.7 11.9 Wales 8.2 9.9 9.0 Rank 17th 15th 17th Fixed-term exclusions 2003-2006 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 2003-2004 2004-2005 2005-2006 2003-2004 2004-2005 2005-2006 Length of exclusion

Rate per 1,000 pupils

Cardiff Wales

Five days or less Six days or more

155 However, the authority and schools work well to minimise disruption to the continuity of pupils’ learning resulting from fixed-term exclusions as schools exclude pupils for relatively short periods of time. The authority compares well against other authorities in Wales in this respect. The average number of days lost due to fixed-term

exclusions between 2004 and 2008 decreased in primary schools from 3.47 to 2.70 but increased slightly in secondary schools from 3.06 to 3.27.37

156 The authority’s Extended Opportunities programme has improved outcomes for young people between 2006 and 2007. Participants in the programme improved their attainment and attendance and made good progress into further education, training or work. However, there is not enough alternative provision available for the children and young people educated outside of school. As a result, too many

children and young people who are educated outside of school do not receive their full entitlement to learning. Too many children and young people involved with the

36

Sources: National Statistics: SDR 29/2005, Exclusions from schools in Wales, 2003/2004; SDR32/2006, Exclusions from schools in Wales 2004/ 2005; SDR 32/2007, Exclusions from schools in Wales 2005/2006

37

Health and Exceptional Circumstances service38, the Exceptional Provision Panel and the Keeping in Touch project39 only receive a few hours of education a week. 157 The authority has generally good processes in place to identify children and young

people not in school or at risk of being lost to education. It has established an Exceptional Provision Panel to identify children and young people not in school and to monitor their inclusion in education outside of school. Most pupils who have been permanently excluded from school are referred to the panel within one month, but a very small number of children and young people are not referred to the panel for longer periods.

158 The Exceptional Provision Panel brings together staff from various units to make sure that vulnerable young people access alternative programmes of learning. Panel members have a good understanding of the needs and situations of individual young people. Panel members combine their expertise well to organise appropriate

alternative provision for these young people. The authority works well with a range of services, voluntary organisations and training providers to create alternative learning programmes for young people educated outside of school.

Additional learning needs (ALN)

Grade 3: Good features outweigh shortcomings