Education Scotland
Foghlam Alba
Summary of the follow-through
evaluation of the educational
psychology service
A report by HM Inspectors
The City of Edinburgh Council
27 March 2012
Page
1.
The inspection
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2.
Continuous improvement
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3.
Progress towards meeting the main points for action
2
4.
Conclusion
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1. The inspection
HM Inspectorate of Education (HMIE) published a report on the inspection of
The City of Edinburgh Council in December 2009 which included an evaluation of
The City of Edinburgh Council Educational Psychology Services (EPS). Following
the inspection, the service prepared an action plan indicating how they would
address the main points for action identified in the original HMIE inspection. An
interim report on the service’s progress was published by HMIE in February 2011.
HM Inspectors (HMI) revisited the service in February 2012 to assess the extent to
which the EPS was continuing to improve the quality of its work, and to evaluate
progress made in responding to the main points for action.
2. Continuous improvement
Since the inspection report of December 2009 and the interim follow-through
evaluation published in February 2011, there has been significant strengthening of
the structure and leadership of the service. A permanent full-time leadership team,
including a principal educational psychologist (PEP) and four deputes (each with
responsibility for an area team) is now in place. In addition, two area principals
(1.7 full-time equivalent) are providing mentoring to recently appointed deputes and
carrying out valuable work for the service and for Education Children and Families.
The PEP works well with the other members of the leadership team. Together they
have reflected carefully on the recommendations from previous inspection reports.
They have put in place an action plan to ensure that these are systematically
addressed to secure improvement.
The work of the service is now aligned much more closely to the Council’s strategic
objectives and educational psychologists’ skills are being used very effectively to
support the change management process within Education Children and Families.
The service has been particularly influential in raising awareness in schools of the
needs of young people who are looked after by the local authority and has worked
very well with others to promote the improvement of their literacy skills. The service
has been successful in supporting the implementation of the children’s service
delivery model to ensure that young people have a say in important decisions about
their lives and that they get the right help at the right time. A stronger focus on
transition planning led by educational psychologists has contributed to higher
numbers of young people in the city going on to positive destinations when they
leave school.
The service is now proactive in seeking opportunities to utilise psychologists’
professional skills to work with others to improve outcomes for Edinburgh’s young
people. Psychologists are making appropriate use of the key areas identified in the
HMIE publication Educational psychology in Scotland: Making a difference published
in 2010 to drive improvements in their work. In particular, the service is providing
stronger support in the implementation of Curriculum for Excellence across the city
and its research function is helping to shape policy and practice in relation to specific
groups of learners. Education Children and Families are increasingly using
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educational psychologists’ skills when planning and implementing important
improvements in processes to support young people at risk of missing out.
There is far greater awareness within Education Children and Families of the value
added to its work by high quality educational psychology skills. Suitable
arrangements are now in place to ensure that the EPS reports regularly on its work.
These arrangements are helping educational psychologists to demonstrate the
quality and impact of their work.
Features of good practice:
•
Educational psychologists are working very effectively to support an important
change management process within Education Children and Families. They
are successfully raising the profile of the needs of children at risk of missing out,
including those looked after by the local authority. The service has been
particularly influential in promoting the children’s service delivery model which
ensures that children and families are fully involved when important decisions
are being made about their lives.
More detailed information is available from the principal educational psychologist
(PEP).
3. Progress towards meeting the main points for action
The initial inspection report published in December 2009 identified four main points
for action. The interim follow-through report published in February 2011 confirmed
encouraging progress and reported on improved management of the service.
HMI confirm that the service has continued to make significant improvements to the
quality of its work.
Through leadership at all levels and in partnership with key stakeholders,
develop a clear direction for the service.
The service has established and embedded a clear vision for its work and this is
shared by almost all staff. The leadership team has been successful in using the
vision to provide greater clarity and direction for staff. The new management
structure is providing more effective leadership and direction and roles and
responsibilities are now better defined. Communication within the service has
improved considerably and there is a greater sense of accountability and
transparency in the service’s decision making.
Almost all staff are contributing effectively to improvement planning and are highly
motivated to develop professional leadership roles. Helpful mentoring and
appropriate support and challenge are helping staff to build their confidence in
fulfilling the service’s aims and objectives.
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The service has now established a planning and reporting cycle which is fully aligned
with Council planning arrangements. This is providing better opportunities for the
service to demonstrate the value it is adding to the Council’s strategic priorities.
Education Children and Families and the service recognise that it will be important to
keep these arrangements under review.
Partners within the Council are now more engaged with the service and have a
better understanding of how the EPS can assist them in achieving their targets. The
service is now working more collaboratively to drive continuous improvement. The
service should continue to use the expertise of officers of the Council to improve
further the quality of its improvement plan and to enhance performance reporting by
ensuring effective use of evaluative information.
Plan for continuous improvement to allow the measure of performance over
time.
The service has made further progress in planning for continuous improvement.
Staff have worked well together to develop a helpful Quality Management and
Improvement Framework and standards and quality reporting is now carried out
against agreed objectives. Psychologists and other key stakeholders recognise the
impact of the synergies between developments in the service and elsewhere within
Education Children and Families on making a difference to children and young
people in Edinburgh.
The service is making use of some available data to demonstrate positive trends
over time in some important areas of its work. Examples include the reduction in the
numbers of children and young people placed in specialist establishments outwith
the authority.
The evaluative components of the team plan are now more focused. This is helping
to promote the collection and collation of data which in the future should allow the
analysis of trends over time. The service recognises the need to ensure that it
continues to identify additional data sets to enable it to extend its measurement of
improvements in performance over time.
Develop challenge within the service to improve consistency of practice.
High quality professional relationships within the leadership team are based on
regular communication, respect and trust. These relationships are helping to
promote the culture of professional challenge and high expectation which now
characterises the service. There is a clear system in place to challenge educational
psychologists in relation to the quality of the service they deliver. This is matched by
a helpful team approach to sharing skills and providing coaching and support.
All members of the leadership team play a key role in delivering support and
challenge to each other and to the wider team. This is helping to improve
consistency of practice.
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Education Children and Families senior managers including the Executive Director
now have regular scheduled links with the service. These links are helping to track
the progress being made with objectives set in the team plan and to identify any
areas of slippage.
The service’s improved Professional Review and Development policy and its robust
approach to Service Level Agreements are driving more consistent practice across
the team. Psychologists are increasingly confident about delivering across the
Currie functions and levels.
The leadership team should continue to monitor the effectiveness of the service’s
arrangements for support and challenge. This will ensure that the drive for
continuous improvement is sustained.
Develop processes of self-evaluation with all staff to monitor performance and
improve outcomes for children and young people.
The service has now made very good progress in this area. Educational
psychologists are now making much better use of the national performance
framework to inform their approach to self-evaluation. A wider range of stakeholders
are being consulted about service improvement and more robust evidence is being
gathered over a longer period of time to evaluate progress.
There is a growing evidence base and this is beginning to show early signs of impact
and positive outcomes for selected groups of stakeholders. For example, the service
can show from their evidence that their work on deferrals has reduced the number of
requests made by parents to retain their children in nursery.
Almost all staff have a better understanding of the purpose of self-evaluation and are
more aware of the need to identify the impact and outcomes of their work. The
service has continued to expand its evidence base to better inform self-evaluation.
It is now better placed to identify gaps in the data it is gathering and to compare its
performance to that of other services.
The service needs to continue to strengthen its systems for collecting, analysing and
triangulating data to demonstrate continuous improvement and better inform
improvement planning.
4. Conclusion
Since the original inspection, Education Children and Families and the leadership
team have made significant improvements to the service to enable it to better meet
the needs of children and families across the city. The service continues to have a
much clearer sense of direction and its work is aligned to the Council’s strategic
objectives. Educational psychologists’ skills are being used successfully to support
the work of Education Children and Families. The service is proactive in seeking
opportunities to work with others to utilise psychologists’ professional skills to
improve outcomes for young people at risk of missing out. The service should
continue to strengthen its arrangements for self-evaluation and should adapt its
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approach to improvement planning in line with scheduled changes by Education
Children and Families. It should ensure that it is using all available data sources to
allow it to demonstrate the difference it is making over time.
In the light of significant improvements in the quality of the service and the capacity
of the leadership team to drive continuous improvement, there will be no further visits
in relation to the original inspection. The District Inspector/EPS Link Inspector will
maintain regular contact with the service to provide support and challenge and to
gather evidence for the Shared Risk Assessment process.
Clare Lamont
HM Inspector
27 March 2012
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If you would like to find out more about our inspections or get an electronic copy of
this report, please go to www.educationscotland.gov.uk.
Please contact us if you want to know how to get the report in a different format, for
example, in a translation, or if you wish to comment about any aspect of our
inspections. You can contact us at enquiries@educationscotland.gsi.gov.uk or write
to us at BMCT, Education Scotland, Denholm House, Almondvale Business Park,
Almondvale Way, Livingston EH54 6GA.
Text phone users can contact us on 01506 600 236. This is a service for deaf users.
Please do not use this number for voice calls as the line will not connect you to a
member of staff.
You can find our complaints procedure on our website
www.educationscotland.gov.uk or alternatively you can contact our Complaints
Manager, at the address above or by telephoning 01506 600259.
Crown Copyright 2012
Education Scotland
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