Meeting documents

To welcome Dr Rob Hart, Assistant Director, Inclusion and Mr Brian Walton, Head Teacher, Brookside Academy to the meeting for this agenda item.

Note – The Chair will be allowing 1 hour 20 – 1 hour 30 mins for agenda items 6 and 7 to allow for discussion.

The Chair welcomed the following to the meeting for this agenda item - the Council’s Assistant Director, Inclusion, Dr Rob Hart and Mr Brian Walton, Head Teacher Brookside Academy.

The Board received a comprehensive PowerPoint presentation, providing an update on the Inclusion Inquiry which is being led by school leaders as part of the Written Statement of Action (WSoA) and developing an evidence-based understanding of what good inclusive practice looks like and suggestions for improvement. Mr Walton outlined the recommendations from the inquiry: -

·         better signposting of support services across Somerset for all stakeholders to access; 

·         need for better local early intervention strategies;

·         needs to be better behaviour planning and support structures (be preventative rather than reactive);

·         inclusion data should be shared with schools, on the new Schools Data Dashboard, to ensure that evidence based inclusive practice becomes standard;

·         trust building – the cornerstone of the findings – trust and transparency central to children, young adults, parents and Somerset staff when seeking advice / support for SEND or inclusion.

Mr Walton also explained the next steps, to ensure the recommendations become a reality: –

·         establish governance arrangements - where the recommendations will be held and embed them into the work plan;

·         continue with repeated communication messages and recommendations, sharing and celebrating good inclusive practice;

·         link the recommendations in with on-going activities across Somerset to identify those already being addressed and any gaps;

·         start proactively seeking opportunities to listen to all voices.

The Chair thanked Mr Walton for the excellent presentation and that it was good to hear about the involvement of young people in the inquiry and also welcomed the use of the word ‘earlier’ intervention. He also said that sharing of data proposed in this will help to build trust.

The Board then discussed the presentation and the following issues were highlighted: -

·         governance question – will be role for all organisations and currently the governance structure is through the WSoA;

·         data dashboard – there will be training for governors for example, which will be key and need to be transparent across the system;

·         what are the outcomes from the Inquiry work / how make it count for children and young adults? There is a great deal of work happening across Somerset and key is bringing all it together;

·         what are plans / how will ensure listen to all voices, including protected characteristics? This has been recognised and identified and will be taken forward.

On behalf of the Board the Chair thanked Mr Walton for attending the meeting and said that he would welcome a visit to the school to see the work being done there.