Covid sparks sharp rise in number of children being home educated in Peterborough

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought a sharp rise in the number of children being home educated by their parents in Peterborough city councillors have been told.
Jonathan LewisJonathan Lewis
Jonathan Lewis

Education in Peterborough is under severe pressure at the moment – that was the message from Jonathan Lewis, Service Director (Education) for the city council.

in a new report this week.
He told members of the authority’s Children and Scrutiny Committee at their online meeting this week (November9): “I don’t think anybody would doubt the issues that face educators in the city at the moment and the challenges they face going forward.

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“The amount of work that’s being done is there to ensure that our early years schools and colleges remain open.

“Education is under significant pressure at the moment and the area I am most concerned about currently is elective home education.

“I’ve given you figures on the amount of positive C-19 cases that we’ve had in Peterborough, and that situation remains challenging very much in line with the national figure.

“That said, not a single school has been forced to close as a result of C-19; something which my team and I and the educators of the city can be very proud of.

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“But, even with lockdown now happening, we still have a long way to go – I remain positive and I’ve done a lot of work with our school leaders so that relatively speaking we’re in a better position than many other parts of the country.”

Cllr Nicola Day, who is a teacher, asked: “You mention your concerns about elective home education, what future impact will there be on the education of these children if no resources are provided to parents from the Department of Education (DfE)?”

Mr Lewis replied: “I’d love to say that the government were going to give us some more resources, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.

“What we’ve done is to automate the process for parents making that referral with schools now being able to fill in an online form.

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“There are currently 487 children in elective home education in Peterborough, and while the numbers are slowing at the moment, lockdown will see a new increase.

“This represents a whole new scenario for us in terms of support networks for the children and explaining the responsibility that the parents are undertaking when they make the decision to home-educate – it’s not for all parents, and a few have already chosen to put their children back into school.

“We’ve looked at a bid for more capacity and what would help would be a timely meeting where schools, parents and the local authority could discuss exactly what it takes to elect to home-educate.

“We have no mechanism to check up on children at home and the education they’re receiving; but I think that we’re looking at all the various solutions to this and other challenges associated with it.

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“To be fair, if this had happened at the beginning of September, I don’t think we would’ve coped with the numbers that have come through – we know that Ofsted will be checking up on us and we need to monitor children as much as possible; but it remains a real concern.”

Cllr Lynne Ayers, Cabinet Member for Children’s Services, Education, Skills and the University, added: “Certainly elective home education is a matter which has deeply worried us over the past few months.

“Cllr Simon Bywater of Cambridgeshire County Council and I have attended the East of England Education Network which is attended by quite a lot of the counties around us, and the prospect of trying to do something about elective home education, and making sure there are more powers and hopefully funding for local authorities to cope with this was much mentioned.

“I have to say that I was very surprised when I first realised there isn’t even a central register of every child who is home educated, and very few schools appear to be explaining properly to parents the consequences of elective home education for their children – for example, if they choose to take their child out of a school, they will receive no additional resources thereafter, and they may not be allowed to return that child to that school at a later date.

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“Essex County Council have produced a very good report covering the subject of home education which we can all learn from; and I want you to be assured that we as your local authority, obviously in discussion with Jonathan Lewis, will be looking into that in some depth.”

Cllr Terri Haynes, also a teacher, asked: “You mention in the report there having been 145 C-19 cases so far, and obviously schools were always going to become hotspots with children coming from all over the place.

“But can you give us a generalisation of how schools are coping with the situation as the moment with zoning, masks and all the prevention measures that have been recommended?”

Mr Lewis responded: “Children only spend an average of 13% of their time in schools, so the rest of the time they are vulnerable to C-19, as are we all – and that risk is outside of our control.

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“We’ve been working really hard to flag to parents the importance of their role in managing the situation.

“My perception is that, relative to other local authorities with whom I’ve been in conversation, we’ve done incredibly well.

“While we have seen a few concentrations of cases, not a single school in Peterborough has had to close yet as a result of C-19.

“All schools had already had mask rules in place before it became law, zoning rules, the use of cleaning materials all of these measures have been well observed.

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“We’ve had lots and lots of meetings with the heads of schools to ensure that their risk assessments are up to date and valid, and we’ve not had a single concern yet with any of those.

“As before however, the problem is resources for those who elect to educate their children at home.

“While all of our schools are ready with printed material for the children to use, we don’t have enough laptops for all who want them, and there is no sign of any money coming forth to buy more – so at this time we’re looking for any support we can get from outside bodies who may be able to provide us with more computers for children to use at home.”

Cllr Lucinda Robinson, also a qualified teacher, asked about the availability of educational psychologists: “With no money to recruit additional educational psychologists for schools are statutory assessments being done by specialist teachers?

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“I’m sure that everybody is working very hard under extreme circumstances, but what is the impact going to be on children is their twenty-week assessments are not being carried out by professionally trained EP’s?”

Mr Lewis said: “I think the impact is we cannot do as much preventative work as we would like.

“Rather than pushing a child into a statutory process, if an educational psychologist can work proactively with a family and a child from a very early date, there can be impacts, there can be avoidance of needing to go down that process and supporting them in other ways.

“We are diverting our resources into the statutory process which we’re required to do, but I would like to see more whole-school training, I’d like to see more work for challenging children who are at the edge of an education or care plan or in the care system who need this support.”

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Cllr Heather Skibsted, who is a private English Language teacher and a school Governor, asked: “One of the emerging challenges you mention in your report seems to be creating a quality plan for remote learning which is also manageable, especially in a scenario where some pupils are at home and others are in school.

“This means supporting Headteachers who are under enormous stress at the moment as best as you can, and I would like to know how you are doing this?”.

Mr Lewis responded: “We’ve written to all Chairs of Governors with advice on how best to support Headteacher wellbeing, for the maintained schools we’ve made available our employer assistance programme and have provided councillor support with most contacted at least once a month by our team to ensure there are no problems that we’re missing.

“We also have very good ‘cluster arrangements’ in the city where yet another tier of support is available – but this is a big issue and I don’t want to play it down at all, as we all know the strain the Headteachers are under at this time”.

Members acknowledged the pressure that the educators of Peterborough are working under at times, and applauded the work being done in the report.

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