Agenda item

In accordance with minute No. 18 of the previous meeting of the Local Admissions Forum held on 17^th March, 2005, the meeting considered the content of a draft protocol for sharing hard to place pupils.  The protocol had been drawn up following guidance from DfES and at present only applied to Secondary Schools.   The main aim of the protocol was to give a more equal distribution of these pupils to Secondary Schools. 

The document included an Appendix relating to a Rotherham Secondary School’s approach to the reintegration of permanently excluded pupils and the arrangement for managed moves, whereby a child who may be in danger of being permanently excluded is offered a trial reintegration programme into a receiving school. The system on Managed Moves was already in place (agreed in 2002) and the Acting Head of Inclusion Support Services has been requested to provide a progress report.

The draft protocol was to be considered by Secondary Head Teachers at a meeting to be held on 6^th October, 2005 who would then need to sign up to this document.

There appeared to be very little problem in Rotherham but there are cases each year where pupils either cannot get into schools quickly and come to appeal, or as had happened in several other Authorities, where lots of schools are full, and children  who are hard to place were being placed in schools with surplus places.  These could be vulnerable children or children with challenging behaviour. which could add to the problems at those schools.

The LEA had an existing policy for children in public care and those who had been permanently excluded and it was believed there would not be too many additional children affected by it, but it did mean that some vulnerable children may get into a school quicker than they would have done before.

The meeting expressed some minor concerns regarding the policy and raised the following issues:-

(1)        The possible reorganisation of classes as a result of additional pupils being          taken on roll.

(2)               The financial implications for schools – do these children bring resources with them?

(3)               What constituted a “full” school?

The meeting was informed that some of these children were presently gaining a place at the appeal stage.  These children were in the transfer groups.

Although DfES had asked that the number of previously permanently excluded pupils should not be allowed to exceed a percentage of the total number of pupils in the year group as a result of this protocol, they had not given an indication of what that figure might be.  This would also be discussed at the Secondary Head Teachers’ meeting.

Advice was given regarding what could happen if the Secondary Head Teachers disagreed with the protocol. The policy could be amended or the DfES could impose a policy on the LEA.

Agreed:-  That, whilst some Members of the Local Admissions Forum had reservations, the draft policy be agreed, subject to the agreement of Secondary Heads and the situation monitored for one year and a further report submitted to this Committee.