Monitoring and Tracking Vulnerable Social Care Groups through Foresight
This is a guest post kindly written for us by Adela Kay, Assistant Headteacher: Children with a Social Worker at Aspire Virtual School, London Borough of Barking and Dagenham.
Most people reading this will be aware of Pupil Premium, Free School Meals, and SEND as common indicators of vulnerability found on all school MIS systems. Since 2021, there has been growing interest in the educational experience of a broader group of vulnerable children, including those on child protection plans, children in need plans, and post-looked-after children, among others.
Consistency in Flagging Vulnerable Groups
There is now an expectation that schools and local authorities monitor and track various vulnerable groups. While some vulnerabilities are already identified by school MIS systems, there is a lack of consistency across systems for flagging the different social care groups. Having worked with the social care vulnerable cohort, I am acutely aware of the difficulties in identifying these children. The recent Government briefing Keeping children safe, helping families thrive raises the issue of consistent identification across services and suggests a Single Unique Identifier to simplify monitoring across all services and schools.
Challenges of Manual Identification
In the absence of a Single Unique Identifier, formulating my ‘list’ has been and remains very time-consuming. I manually share with borough schools the children we believe to be in their institutions, but this system is prone to errors even with double and triple checking. Identifying which school they attend is particularly problematic in the autumn term when the most recent census information precedes their transition in September.
Working with Pupil Pathways, we have created social care flags linked to the children’s UPNs, ensuring that the flag stays with the child when/if they move schools.
Importance of Identifying Children with a Social Worker
In August, the government updated the statutory guidance around monitoring and tracking social care cohorts, explicitly indicating that Local Authorities are expected to track, monitor, and support their attendance. Once flagged by Foresight, we can filter and sort the different groups to identify their attendance, exclusions, and other vulnerabilities.
The extended role within virtual schools also includes tracking and monitoring EverCIN children for six years following their last involvement. Pupil Pathways have added flags to include this longitudinal group in our data, which is invaluable for schools, especially where the MIS system does not internally flag the children.
Supporting Pupils
The cohort of Children with a Social Worker faces common educational challenges that, once highlighted, can be addressed. Without identification, these challenges can be masked as a lack of ability or poor behaviour. Once identified, we can ensure that provisions are suitable for their needs, and staff are trained to manage attachment and trauma, which may present as challenging behaviours.
Identifying these children allows us to reconsider exclusions, particularly for child protection children where home may pose safeguarding risks. In some cases, day one rather than day five provision may be necessary, or ideally, exclusion can be avoided altogether, although this is not always possible.
Conclusion
To conclude, I urge you to consider following:
- How do you flag children in your borough or your school who have been known to social care? Is there someone in borough who does this role? Do they have access to Pupil Pathways?
- How do you pass those flags on to schools when they move?
Find out more about our collaboration with Adela, supporting her work to track and monitor EverCIN pupils across London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, in this case study.