PA0220

Written evidence submitted by the Canterbury Academy

Context
The Canterbury Academy is part of a small multi-academy-trust, comprising provision from 0-19 through from nursery provision to sixth form, with accompanying PRU provision and SRPs in autism and speech and language.  Due to time constraints, this response is focussed on the experiences of the secondary phase (11-16).

The school is a comprehensive school within a selective (grammar) area. The local area is also well supplied with private school provision. The school’s catchment is drawn from a wide area with some pockets of deprivation, and it is located within a large social housing development.  The school’s PPG percentage is around 30%, somewhat above the national average. 

Patterns of persistent absenteeism
School attendance data, including the tracking of disadvantaged groups is tracked using FFT’s Aspire software and is accountable via a senior member of staff. Further monitoring is conducted by the school’s senior SENCO.
Our data consistently shows 2 particularly clear key areas of entrenched absenteeism; FSM/PPG and pupils with an EHCP.

FSM/PPG

• The attendance gap between PPG and non-PPG = 7.8%

Whilst there has always been a stubborn attendance gap in this area, there is a clear increase in persistent absenteeism in this group since Covid19. The impact of this is greatest in year 11, pupils whose education was disrupted during the particularly socially formative years in year 8 and 9.
Attendance staff report that across this group, school refusal behaviours have intensified. The school is lucky to have retained support, SENCO and attendance staff for many years, who bring cross-generational knowledge of our families. They note that low attendance follows family patterns.

Factors causing persistent absences in PPG cohort.

• Parental attitude: our school notices family patterns among white working-class families, involving anti-school attitudes and a rush to engage children (particularly boys) in working and earning from around age 14.
• The urgency to work has been heightened by the cost-of-living crisis.
• Pupil mental health
• Post covid – school non-attendance somewhat normalised among families.
• Post covid school avoidance contributes 3% of overall persistent absence.
• Waiting times for CAHMS now in excess of 2 years, heading towards 3 years
• Parents with already weak links to education find it harder to engage whilst waiting for CAHMS
• Loss of parental confidence because of focus on mental health and long waits for intervention
• Parent mental health
• Tendency to project their own concerns and pathologise their children
• Lack of a sense of community
• Barriers to engaging with school. Class/language/confidence.

What we do to support our PPG pupils
In addition to engaging with statutory enforcement measures, at the Canterbury Academy we have recently undertaken a radical approach, creating a mentoring programme between form tutors and ALL PPG families. This involves structured conversations between school, pupil and parent, discussing all aspects of school life and offering support where possible. Some barriers to this programme include difficulties engaging the hardest to reach families, staff confidence in tackling some of the big issues raised and staff workload creating difficulties with high-quality follow-up.

To address the mental health aspects, the school has recently engaged with Place to Be to offer early mental health interventions and a range of other in-school counselling is available. It is too early to measure the impact of this.

What we need

• Evidence-led strategies driven and supported centrally
• Current fragmented market of consultants and vested interests creates mistrust and confusion among school staff and parents.
• Early family intervention and programmes promoting trust and engagement with education, involving education and local schools early in the process and smoothing transitions between key-stages.

EHCP pupils and attendance

• 10% gap between whole-school attendance and ECHP pupils

There is a considerable overlap with PPG disadvantaged groups, so the issues can be hard to isolate, however the attendance team note that pupils with an EHCP are presenting an increasing attendance challenges to the school.

Parents are increasingly keen to secure an EHCP in preparation for the transition from primary to secondary school. Alongside this increase, there has been an increase in EHCPs making specialist provision recommendation.  This then creates a cascade of problems for pupils and schools

• Highly restricted specialist provision places in local area so children placed in “inappropriate schools”.
• Leads to persistent absenteeism and parental endorsement of this.
• A sense that the system has failed them
• A few year 7 and 8 students have been unable/unwilling to attend the school since transition from primary to secondary. These students remain on roll, skewing attendance numbers.
• Apparently arbitrary nature of specialist provision accepting/refusing pupil transfers – one student with a specialist provision EHCP struggling on in mainstream because 8 schools have assessed her as not suitable.
• Disconnected nature of specialist provision and lack of local authority “clout”.  – Mainstream schools are legally obliged to take pupils – SRPs have little accountability on their policies. Many older children/teems with an ASD diagnosis and challenging behaviours are deemed “not suitable” without further recourse.

What we do

The ethos of the Canterbury Academy is determinedly inclusive. Through a creative use of curriculum and partner provisions, parents are generally confident that their children will be welcomed and supported by our school.

The school has partnered with specialist provision providers across the spectrum of needs, with small but important provisions in speech and language, autism and sensory needs. We provide in this vein, as our tagline promises: As much as possible, as often as possible, for as many as possible.

For our enrolled children who we fill cannot engage with school, but might benefit from home tuition, resources and tutoring are provided to support home education. No framework or ring-fenced funding is provided centrally for this approach, and our SENCO feels sometimes overwhelmed at having to
 

What we need

• Evidence-led interventions, supported and promoted via central government

• Review of appropriateness of EHCP/SRP decisions.
• Expansion of specialist SRP provision to meet EHCP legally recognised needs.
• Review of accountability measures which include children forcibly allocated to inappropriate schools, then included in their bottom-line attendance figures, creating perverse incentives.

February 2023