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Click here to view a PDF version of the Portsmouth Education Strategy.
Click here to view a PDF version of the Portsmouth Education Strategy.
This page sets out a three year education strategy for Portsmouth 2020-23.
The COVID-19 pandemic has created significant challenges for all education settings. Contributing to the management of the pandemic and managing its impact on children will absorb much of the energy of education settings over the coming months, possibly years. This is not a reason to hold back from the development of a clear collective strategy for education in the city, however. More than ever, the city needs strong education leadership with clear individual school/settings and city wide priorities, around which all education leaders focus their efforts. We must do all we can to ensure that the education of children in Portsmouth is not a casualty of the difficult demands of this time.
While the strategy sets the direction for the next three years, it outlines specific actions to be taken over the next 12 months so that there is complete clarity on our focus during this period.
The delivery of the strategy will be done under the auspices of the Portsmouth Education Partnership (PEP) recognising the part that all partners of the PEP will play in delivering the nine priorities that are set out in the strategy, and will be overseen by the PEP Strategic Board.
It has been agreed that the Portsmouth Multi Academy Trusts (MATs) Strategic Forum will discontinue and will merge with the PEP Strategic Board to create a single entity. This recognises that two thirds of schools in the city now belong to a MAT with further transfers planned this year, and builds on the strong collaborative working with MATs over the summer to address the challenges posed by the pandemic. MATs have worked with the council and partners to share their processes, practices and expertise,
contributed to work in all areas and have also led and chaired COVID-19 workstreams. All are agreed that now is the time to formalise and extend this approach.
The PEP structures that were established three years ago will remain in place but will now be augmented by a number of other groups which have been established to address the challenges created by the pandemic. These structures are set out below.
Our vision is that through working together we can ensure that:
All children and young people make good progress through education which sets high expectations for them, is infused with restorative high support and high challenge and which is supported through leading edge use of digital technology, empowering them to drive their own learning anywhere.
The shared values and accountability that were agreed three years ago will remain in place. All members of the Portsmouth Education Partnership are committed to:
The nine priorities that form part of the Portsmouth Education Strategy 2020-23 are set out below with details of the boards/groups that will be responsible for their delivery. This page provides a high level summary of the plans that support each priority with cross references and links to other documents and action plans.
PRIORITY | GOVERNANCE | |
1. | Strong leadership and ambition at all levels within individual schools and education settings to improve effectiveness and outcomes for children and young people | School Leadership and Effectiveness Board |
2. | Implement a digital learning strategy for the city that supports learning both at school and at home | Digital Learning and Pioneers Group |
3. | Improve pupil outcomes in literacy (reading, writing and oral) with a high priority focus on early language development | Early Language and Literacy Development Group |
4. | Recruit, retain and grow the best teachers, practitioners and leaders and provide high quality continuing professional development | ITT, Teacher Recruitment and Retention Group |
5. | Ensure all schools and education settings have access to clear and up to date infection control and health & safety information and are able to respond appropriately to local COVID-19 outbreaks | Infection Control and Health & Safety Group |
6. | Ensure all schools and education settings have robust safeguarding policies, processes and culture in place | Portsmouth Safeguarding Children’s Partnership |
7. | Promote emotional health, wellbeing and resilience in education | Children’s Emotional Health & Wellbeing Group |
8. | Ensure all pupils regularly attend school | Behaviour and Attendance Group (BAG) |
9. | Invest in school buildings to create additional school places, focusing on secondary, even more inclusive mainstream schools and a continuum of specialist provision for children with additional needs | School Sufficiency Board |
A central theme of the previous PEP strategy was inclusion and this will continue to be the case for the 2020-21 strategy – creating an educational environment that is welcoming to all children and young people and not giving up on any child whatever their circumstances.
The strategy has strong links with the SEND and SEMH Strategies and these are set out in the relevant priorities, focusing on improving inclusion for all children but with a particular focus on the provision of education for children with SEND and improving outcomes for vulnerable children and young people including children in need, looked after children, children at risk of or already being exploited and/or experiencing the criminal justice system, children receiving targeted early help and other children identified by schools as requiring additional support.
Underpinning the objective of inclusion has been the work around the Portsmouth Inclusion Education Quality Mark (PIEQM) through self and peer assessment in order to identify strengths and areas for development in relation to inclusive practice. Linked to this will the continued offer of support through the Inclusion Outreach Service which started in October last year and will be continuing to offer support for schools if they have any concerns about meeting children’s additional needs. The outreach support is available to all mainstream schools, delivered by a range of professionals from a partnership of services including MABS, Solent Academies Trust, Children’s Therapy Service, and experienced outreach SENCOs from mainstream schools in the city.
The priority in this strategy to improve literacy, with a focus on early language skills, is particular critical to improving outcomes for many vulnerable groups of children and young people. We know that research has shown the clear links between the ability of children and young people to read well and to express themselves in writing and, especially, orally, to the quality of the relationships they are able to make with adults and peers, their success in education and their long term life chances.
The strategy will also have running through it a commitment to engage with schools, other education settings and partners to develop and share anti-racism training and resources in response to Black Lives Matter. A dedicated page for these resources has been developed on the PEP website and can be found here.
Critical to this Education Strategy is a clear understanding of the importance of early years provision and practice upon which future stages of education are built. Well established research continues to emphasise the importance of early childhood education as an essential building block of a child’s future success.
Central to early years success has to be the partnerships between families, education, health and other community sectors. A current priority (originating from the 2019 peer review in Portsmouth) is to ensure sector wide responsibility, commitment and understanding of the strategic approach to support early language development and its impact on the outcomes for children and young people. In order to address the issue, this strategy will have a commitment to consider the early years element within each priority, as it is early years that provides a strong base for lifelong learning and learning abilities, including cognitive and social and emotional development.
A range of key performance indicators will be used to judge the impact of the strategy and each of the nine priorities. They include:
Priority 1: Strong leadership and ambition at all levels within schools and education settings to improve effectiveness and outcomes for children and young people
The leadership of schools and education settings, both at the most senior level but also at all levels, is critical to effectiveness.
Over the last five years there has been a significant improvement in the Ofsted inspection grades for schools and academies in the city, improving at a faster rate than nationally. The quality of early years settings in the city as judged by Ofsted is also encouraging. 92% of inspected schools and 98.5% of early years settings in Portsmouth are currently judged by Ofsted to be Good or better.
At the same time while school leaders, teachers and practitioners in the city work hard and many go the extra mile for children, as Ofsted inspections testify, the city has seen its position in rankings for local authority areas decline across a number of key indicators, to the point where many are significantly out of line with those of comparable areas. This undoubtedly affects the life chances of children in the city.
As a result of the coronavirus pandemic and the cancellation of all end of year assessments and exams there is no published data available in 2020 to determine if the position has improved or worsened. However, whilst the education strategy for 2020-23 and in particular the actions set out for 2020-21, have a somewhat different focus in response to Covid-19, the focus on standards, and in particular attainment and progress measures, should continue given recent trends and the inevitable fact that disadvantaged children will have lost ground to those who are not disadvantaged and this will be most felt in areas like Portsmouth where there are higher levels of deprivation.
Our strategy over the last 3 years to try and improve standards and accelerate progress has been based on a combination of:
Overall, the results over the last three years make it clear that this strategy has not yet succeeded despite the best efforts of our strategic leaders. The improvements made in terms of Ofsted judgements have been welcomed and it is hoped that this will translate into improved outcomes but clearly more needs to be done. The lack of government funding available for school improvement support has not helped, with the exception of short term SSIF and NLE support for schools requiring improvement.
To drive the effectiveness at individual school level which is critical to the success of this strategy we propose that all schools should be asked to review the attainment and progress of children against the benchmark of attainment and progress by schools elsewhere in the country which have similar pupil profiles. This can never be an exact science but tried and tested comparison tools have existed for some time now, for example through the Fisher Family Trust or the Education Endowment Foundation. Many MATs already apply this approach in their leadership and management of their schools. All schools and academies in Portsmouth now need to use these tools to set a target to achieve, as a minimum, the average level of attainment and progress achieved by similar schools elsewhere and to review their plans so that they are clear what detailed actions will be taken, individually and collectively through the PEP, to achieve those targets.
A key focus of the School Leadership and Effectiveness Board will be to organise peer review of schools’ plans, focussing on the schools which are currently not achieving average attainment for their comparison group. All MATs and maintained schools will be asked to commit to contributing to this peer review process. Following peer review the Board will draw up a leadership support programme designed to support schools to achieve the targets, and also advise on where other collective activity is required. This will form part of a consistent expectation around benchmarking and target setting and the importance of external school review, to validate and inform school self-evaluation, in line with principles of high support and high challenge.
Digital learning has a significant potential role to play in helping schools to achieve their targets and is a separate collective priority in this strategy (Priority 2).
The system leadership reforms announced by the Government earlier this year offer another opportunity in terms of what a Teaching School Hub can do for the city (a key partner of which will be the locally based Portsmouth TSA) and future investment by the Government in National Leaders of Education (NLEs) and National Leaders of Governance (NLGs).
Priority 2: Implement a digital learning strategy for the city that supports learning both at school and at home
Home Learning UK’s report Protecting Learning reflects on the experiences of educators, parents and pupils during COVID-19. It credits leaders’ determination and passion to protect learning despite not all schools having the digital infrastructure, devices, experience and confidence to shift at speed to remote learning supported by technology, and considers where different schools are on the continuum of adoption.
COVID-19 has brought the potential of digital technology to effectively deliver remote learning to fore, but exploiting its use is not new and discussions were underway early this year before the pandemic about how a city wide approach could be developed which supported learning both in school and at home and which could ultimately drive improved outcomes in terms of attainment and progress.
The DfE published Realising the potential of technology in education in April 2019, setting out the strategy to ‘support the education sector in England to develop and embed technology in a way that cuts workload, fosters efficiencies, supports inclusion and ultimately drives improvements in educational outcomes’. In December 2019 the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) published Using digital technology to improve learning. This guidance report put forward that the question is no longer whether technology should have a place in the classroom, but how technology can most effectively be integrated in ways which achieve improved outcomes for young people’. Its key message was that to improve learning, technology must be used in a way that informed by effective pedagogy.
In response to the pandemic and the closure of schools and as part of the arrangements that were put in place through the Portsmouth Education Partnership, a curriculum, digital and home learning work stream was established. An early piece of work was to establish some principles for protecting learning for all pupils and what schools would do to support this and advice for parents to support their child’s learning whilst not at school here.
Towards the end of June 2020 a comprehensive baseline survey was undertaken to establish what schools were offering in the way of home learning, what was going well and where the problems or barriers might be and to understand schools’ experience of using digital technology to support home learning. The summary report can be found here. A key finding from the survey was variability and the different stages schools were at with home learning and the application of digital technology to support both home learning and learning in school. Other key findings included: access to devices and internet was variable affecting disadvantage pupils the most; the CPD offer to support digital learning was still in its infancy; assessment and feedback was variable; parental involvement and engagement increased significantly; a wide range of software or websites were being used to support home learning but the monitoring and quality assurance of home learning was mixed; almost all schools had run sessions on online safety.
There appeared to be two natural groups of schools emerging in the short to medium term: those who are well on their way with digital learning and could be used as a digital pioneer or strategy group to drive the agenda forward; and those interested but still at an early point and needing support and who could benefit from the Ed Tech Programme.
Priority 3: Improving pupil outcomes in literacy (reading, writing and oral) with a high priority focus on early language development
Improving early communication, language and literacy development is a key priority for the city. We know that by the age for four, a child from a disadvantaged background has heard 30 million fewer words compared to their more advantaged peers. We know that a child with a poor vocabulary when they are five is more than twice as likely to be unemployed in their thirties and one and a half times more likely to have mental health problems compared to a child with a good vocabulary. There is also significant research linking poor speech and language skills to a range of poor outcomes including offending.
Some of the most disadvantaged children in Portsmouth start school months behind their peers and the gap can grow through their school years. As a result of COVID-19 the likelihood is that disadvantaged children in Portsmouth will have lost more ground in their language development, exacerbating the situation.
Our performance through EYFS and KS1 and KS2 underlines the issue, the latest figures for which are from 2019 due to the cancellation of all assessments and exams in 2020 as a result of COVID-19.
Key performance indicator | % achieving
expected standard |
Gap to national (%
points) |
LA ranking |
EYFS GLD | 70% | 2% | |
EY goals: listening & attention | 87% | +1% | |
EY goals: understanding | 86% | 0% | |
EY goals: speaking | 85% | 0% | |
Phonics Year 1 | 79% | 3% | 141 |
KS1 Reading | 74% | 1% | 99 |
KS1 Writing | 66% | 3% | 130 |
KS2 Reading | 66% | 7% | 148 |
KS2 Writing | 75% | 3% | 131 |
In Early Years there has been a collaborative effort across the city to develop a cohesive communication and language strategy which is helpfully summarised on the co-produced early language on a page.
Other work has included the ‘Read with Me’ project – a collaborative initiative bringing together the School Library Service, public libraries, EY settings, Year R practitioners and parents. The development of communication and language skills underpins this project, but we also seek to foster a love of reading and focus on literacy skills in this project. The roll out of ‘Read with Me’ was hampered by COVID-19, but the intention is to continue this work and be able to monitor and track outcomes of children participating in the 2021 model. The recent launch of ’50 things to do before you’re 5 in Portsmouth’ initiative will help to secure further understanding of the vital importance of all partners working together to promote early language development, making it everyone’s business. Again, the COVID-19 pandemic has prevented us from launching ’50 things’ to the public, but as more local attractions reopen, we are getting closer.
The city has actively supported and promoted the national Hungry Little Minds campaign which was launched in 2018 as part of the government’s ambition to halve in ten years the proportion of children who finish reception year without the communication, language and literacy skills they need to thrive. The campaign seeks to encourage parents and carers to engage in activities that support their child’s early learning and help prepare them for school and beyond.
Schools are strongly encouraged to apply to be involved in the national reception year early language programme for 2020/21 which has been launched to help close the COVID-19 language gap as an additional element in its catch up support programme. The Department for Education will be working with the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) and other partners to scale-up delivery of the Nuffield Early Language Intervention (NELI); a high-quality, evidence-based, 20-week intervention designed to improve the language skills of reception age pupils. The programme will provide schools with training and resources, helping them deliver one-to-one and small-group support for five-year-olds whose spoken language skills may have suffered as a result of the pandemic. As of September 2020, we have 12 schools who have registered to take part in this programme.
Within the primary sector schools have been involved in a Reading Research Project in partnership with the Portsmouth Teaching School Alliance, Thornden Research School and the Education Endowment Foundation. School Improvement funding was released to train and deploy SLEs to work with schools on their own bespoke projects based on proven research and principles from the Challenge the Gap and SEN projects already successfully undertaken through SSIF. The nationally recognised Challenge Partners Excellence for Everyone programme has enabled schools to access a whole school approach designed to deliver transformational support for disadvantaged pupils and provide quality professional development for school staff. Postponed due to the Covid-19 partial school closures both of these initiatives strongly need to continue to impact upon the life chances of our pupils in Key Stages 1 and 2. The 100% assessment pass rate of Key Stage 1 and 2 moderators for Writing highlights that our practitioners understand the standards that pupils need to achieve, the focus must be on the delivery of a quality curriculum by highly effective education staff. In the 2020-2021 school year work on this priority will include twinning with Hastings through the Government’s social mobility Opportunity Areas Programme.
At secondary we know that literacy is key to learning across all subjects and a strong predictor of outcomes in later life. Disciplinary literacy is an approach to improving literacy across the curriculum which should be encouraged. It recognises that literacy skills are both general and subject specific, emphasising the value of supporting teachers in every subject to teach students how to read, write and communicate effectively in their subjects. This guidance challenges the notion that literacy in secondary school is solely the preserve of English teachers, or literacy coordinators. The emphasis on disciplinary literacy makes clear that every teacher communicates their subject through academic language, and that
reading, writing, speaking and listening are at the heart of knowing and doing every subject in secondary school. Secondary literacy is being supported in the city through the active secondary Portsmouth English Network.
Priority 4: Recruit, retain and grow the best teachers, practitioners and leaders and provide high quality continuing professional development
The shortage of teachers, particularly in certain subject areas, has been a significant cause for concern in the city for some years, which has intensified as a result of rising pupil numbers and fewer graduates entering the profession. The PEP made this one of its early priorities and established the ITT and Teacher & Retention Group to lead on this work and drive forward Teach Portsmouth.
The brand has benefitted from tactical marketing campaigns to increase awareness and communicate changes to the recruitment process during COVID-19. One example of this can be seen in the your time to teach campaign which supported initial teacher training providers in the city at a time when the virus had caused uncertainty for recruiting trainee teachers. So far, the impact of COVID-19 on teacher recruitment and retention appears to have been a positive one with schools reporting higher numbers of applicants for teaching and senior leadership posts and initial teaching training providers reporting the same. But the same was true back in 2008 following the financial crisis which led to a surge of new entrants to the profession – within a few years this surge melted away as economic conditions improved.
It is clear therefore that the PEP must maintain the momentum and the work that has formed part of Teach Portsmouth branded activities, events and your time to teach campaign will need to continue and develop in 2020/21 in order to attract and retain the best teachers and leaders for the city.
While COVID-19 has impacted our ability to deliver face to face events like the Teach Portsmouth Recruitment Fair, the PEP continues to adapt what is done in light of declining attendance in recent years. While there is a place for recruitment fairs, the uncertainties around COVID-19 and events has made the Partnership consider digital alternatives including webinars.
Preparations for the Teach Portsmouth Awards continue with the focus on generating sponsorship, compiling long service award entries and securing trophies. As a result of COVID-19 the date has been moved to March 2021.
Whilst recruiting new teachers will continue to be a priority, there also needs to be a continuing emphasis on the retention of teachers. Before the pandemic one third of teachers in Portsmouth did not stay beyond the fifth year and many left the profession altogether. There is a recognition by the government that unmanageable workloads are a key factor in teachers leaving the profession. The impact of COVID-19 and the return to school for all year groups will inevitably test teachers as they grapple with the new arrangements. And further disruption caused by potential infection outbreaks and the move to blended learning could test teachers further. Whilst recruitment might be on the up we cannot afford to take our eye off the issue of retention, teacher’s wellbeing and continuous professional development.
Initial Teaching Training (ITT) is being reviewed. Currently ITT is undertaken either via a higher education institute led route or school-led route. School-led routes include salaried options (School Direct or Teach First) or fee based options (School Direct or School Centred ITT). The proportion of teachers entering the profession via the school-led route continues to rise. The PEP wants to build on the supply of ITT routes and to continue to reach out to other audiences including the armed forces and uniformed services. The city is fortunate to have a range of providers who have been judged to be outstanding by Ofsted.
We also need to recognise the intense pressure senior leaders are under as a result of COVID-19 and the additional responsibilities and workload that has been placed on our senior leaders. Their emotional health and wellbeing will be of paramount importance and the early work done last year to consider how we can better support senior leaders in
Portsmouth will continue in 2020/21.
Priority 5: Ensure all schools and education settings have access to clear and up to date infection control and health and safety information and are able to respond appropriately to local Covid-19 outbreaks
In these unprecedented times the successful implementation of the Portsmouth Education Strategy in 2020/21 will very much depend on how local areas and schools and other education settings manage the risk of infection to ensure outbreaks are minimised in order to avoid significant disruption to children and young people’s education in the city.
The importance of infection control and the need for clear and up to date infection control and health and safety information to schools, other education settings and partners was recognised soon after the national lockdown in March 2020 and an infection and health & safety group was swiftly established, chaired by the Director of Public Health, reporting into the COVID-19 Working Group.
The group was established to ensure:
During the summer term the group responded to the frequently changing DfE guidance and health information by producing checklist and FAQs with practical advice and guidance to help schools to open to a larger group of children from June 2020 and to plan for the full reopening of schools in September 2020. Local outbreak plans have been developed and shared with key partners. These are supported by a communications package which will ensure that schools are able to give consistent messages to all parents which reinforce key messages about recognising and responding to possible or confirmed cases of COVID-19.
The infection control and health & safety group will continue to operate in 2020/21 supporting schools to adhere to the latest guidance on infection control, manage any local outbreaks and minimise further disruption to children’s learning due to possible school closures or bubbles / year groups having to go home to self-isolate.
Everyone has a part to play in managing infection control including:
Priority 6: Ensure all schools and education settings have robust safeguarding policies, processes and culture in place
In the last 18 months two mainstream schools have been judged by Ofsted to be inadequate due to concerns about safeguarding policies, processes and culture. Other inspections have also identified some weaknesses but were not sufficient enough to lead to an inadequate rating as action could be taken on the day(s) of the inspection to resolve any outstanding concerns. Evidence has also emerged from a review of completed Safeguarding and Early Help Compact Audits that some of the judgements made against the standards have been too generous and more rigour is required. Added to this has been the impact of Covid-19 with the vast majority of children being educated at home during the lockdown. Also, there is a strong likelihood of further disruption during the course of 2020/21 and more children having to be educated at home or receive a blended learning offer.
Schools in England are inspected and judged by Ofsted on the effectiveness of their safeguarding arrangements. Schools need to demonstrate that they are meeting their statutory responsibilities (in line with DfE Keeping Children Safe in Education documentation and Ofsted ‘Inspecting safeguarding in early years, education and skills settings’) and that school staff are exercising their professional judgement in keeping children and learners safe.
Areas of concern identified recently in Portsmouth as a result of an Ofsted inspection have included:
Clearly more needs to be done to support schools and other education settings to ensure the lessons from the last 18 months are learnt. Through the Portsmouth Safeguarding Children’s Partnership (PSCP), schools and education settings already have access to a wealth of information, resources and training. This includes:
Priority 7: Promote emotional health, wellbeing and resilience in education
Meeting the emotional health and wellbeing needs of children and young people is crucial, not least in order for them to learn effectively. We believe that the wellbeing of pupils and staff, including that of our school teachers, practitioners and leaders, needs to be at the heart of all that schools and other education settings do.
This work forms part of the Social Emotional Mental Health (SEMH) strategy for children and young people 2020 – 2023. This has a clear-shared intention to adopt a whole system approach to developing and transforming the support for children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing. Fundamental to this approach is the importance of partnership working and that social and emotional mental health becomes ‘everyone’s business’ in the same way as safeguarding has become ‘everyone’s business’ across Portsmouth.
Portsmouth’s strategy for improving wellbeing and resilience in education continues to strengthen the partnership across services and between services and education settings. This work focuses on three areas:
The impact of the coronavirus pandemic has highlighted just how important this endeavour is and in recognition of this a sub group of the PEP Inclusion Group, Children’s Emotional Health and Wellbeing Group, has intensified its efforts over the course of the summer term in 2020 to support the return to school for all year groups in the Autumn and ensure there is appropriate ongoing support in order to meet the anticipated increase in demand for support.
New or increased anticipated needs as a result of COVID-19 are likely to include:
The PEP has produced a local package of resources (available here) to offer schools and other education settings guidance and support to manage some of the challenges that staff, pupils and parents may face in terms of emotional health and wellbeing. To further support this there is a dedicated page on the PEP website.
Action taken in 2020/21 to support schools will link in to the support that is being made available by the government through the national Wellbeing for Education Return; a core pack of training resources that will be made available during the Autumn term 2020 which through the PEP we will tailor and deliver locally to reflect local circumstances.
The establishment of Mental Health Support Teams (MHSTs) in the city to support schools is a key element of this work. Following the successful bid to fund a third team we can now look forward to having city wide coverage with all schools being supported. MHSTs will provide extra capacity for early intervention and ongoing help within a school setting.
The Mental Health Support Teams will:
The Portsmouth Inclusive Education Quality Mark (PIEQM) will support this work through self and peer assessment to identify strengths and areas for development in relation to inclusive practice.
Priority 8: Ensure all pupils regularly attend school
In recent years the city has seen improvements in both school attendance and exclusion rates. In 2019 overall absence and persistent absence in primary schools was reduced and is below that of our statistical neighbours whilst overall absence in secondary schools improved but remains above our statistical neighbours. Fixed period exclusions for primary schools has also improved and is below that of most of our statistical neighbours, however, in secondary the rate has increased in line with national increases. Permanent exclusions across our schools remain very low and well below the national rate.
However, the fact remains that Portsmouth’s pupils do not attend school as regularly as their peers nationally and there is therefore still considerably more work to do to improve school attendance. We know that by not attending school regularly children and young people are leaving themselves vulnerable to risks which can reduce their life chances. For
our most vulnerable young people school will be the only safe and consistent part of their lives. Away from the safety and security of school, young people are more at risk of abuse and exploitation, taking part in criminal activity and missing out on support for special educational needs and mental health problems.
A school attendance action plan is currently in place, the implementation of which is monitored by the PEP Behaviour and Attendance Group (BAG).
A high profile school attendance campaign Miss School Miss Out was launched in 2019 to support this work. This campaign is on hold whilst partners focus on welcoming children back to school following the closure of schools in 2020 due to the pandemic. The council has agreed with Headteachers that the enforcement of school attendance through penalty notices would be an unlikely course of action until at least the October half term 2020.
Whilst schools have remained partially open during the pandemic providing care for key worker children and vulnerable learners and from 1st June and 15th June providing care for Years R, 1 & 6 and Years 10 & 12 respectively, the fact is that the vast majority of children and young people have not attended school or college since March 2020.
The government is expecting all children and young people to return to school and college full-time in September 2020. The focus therefore has been on welcoming children and young people back to school and other education settings, reassuring parents and carers that schools and other education settings have been made as safe as possible and that the risk of infection in an education setting is very low, and targeting those children who are at risk of not returning to school. Details are set out in the key actions below but include: a Welcome Back to School campaign (temporarily replacing the Miss School Miss Out campaign); Welcome Back Plans for those pupils who require additional support; and wellbeing support to schools (refer to Priority 8).
During the pandemic, systems have been established with schools to track vulnerable children and respond to a wide range of issues impacting on families as a result of the lockdown, including RAG-rated child level data on spreadsheets, LA Link Co-ordinators attached to schools and colleges and the Children’s Hub. These systems are being adjusted to focus on returning children to school safely (1).
In addition to the above, there will be a continued focus during 2020/21 on a number of areas that impact on school attendance. This includes work to reduce:
(1) The Children’s Hub has effectively been stood down pending any future local or national lockdown
Priority 9: Invest in school buildings to create additional school places, focusing on secondary, even more inclusive mainstream schools and a continuum of specialist provision for children with additional needs
Ensuring there are sufficient school places in Portsmouth is the statutory responsibility of the Local Authority (LA) but its ability to secure this is reliant on strong collaborative arrangements with schools and multi academy trusts. Through the Portsmouth Education Partnership the city has a strong and stable culture of collaboration which has enabled the LA to ensure there are sufficient school places across the city whilst at the same time improving existing accommodation.
Between 2012 and 2017 the focus has been on expanding primary school places in response to the unprecedented rise in demand fuelled by rising birth rates, inward migration, reductions in the number of children accessing education outside of Portsmouth or accessing independent education and the impact of regeneration schemes and housing developments. In response 1600 additional primary school places have been created since 2012. The birth rate is now falling and as a result surplus capacity is now a feature in Year R and is becoming so in Year 3. A summary of the latest position for primary is given below:
In recent years the focus has switched to expanding secondary school places including three major expansion schemes at Admiral Lord Nelson School, Charter Academy and The Portsmouth Academy with two smaller schemes at St. Edmund’s School and Trafalgar School, which are creating an additional 940 places. All five schemes will be completed by September 2020. Our pupil forecasts show that additional capacity will be needed from 2023 to meet the forecast demand until a surplus capacity becomes available again by 2025. A summary of the position at Year 7 is given below:
Places for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) is a far more complex issue and a very challenging one due to limited capital funding with no obvious source of funding from the government as is the case for basic need funding which covers primary and secondary school places. An increase in special school places also has implications for revenue funding and increasing pressure on the High Needs Block of the Dedicated Schools Grant. The issue is complicated further by the diverse range of needs, the increasing complexity of need and the fact that our existing specials schools and inclusion centres are largely full with limited space for significant expansion.
In light of the above, a SEND and AP (Alternative Provision) phase 2 review is currently being undertaken and will report later in the year which will in turn inform the development of a 3-5 year SEND accommodation strategy.
In the short term works are underway at Redwood Park Academy and Cliffdale Primary Academy to deliver places and improvements to the accommodation; a special free school supporting children with Autism and challenging behaviour will open in September 2022 in Wymering; and a further expansion of Cliffdale Primary is planned using the space that will be left following the re-location of the family contact centre to a new location and bespoke accommodation in Cosham.