Transforming lives through learning

1. The inspection
2. Continuous improvement
3. Leadership and management of the service
4. Impact on stakeholders
5. Conclusion
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1. The inspection
HM Inspectorate of Education (HMIE) published a report on the inspection of
Midlothian Council Educational Psychology Services (EPS) in June 2010.
Sometime after the inspection, the service prepared an action plan indicating how it would address the main points for action identified in the original HMIE inspection report. Interim reports on the service’s progress were published by HM Inspectors of
Education in September 2011 and April 2013.
HM Inspectors (HMI) revisited the service in February 2014 to assess:
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the extent to which the EPS was continuing to improve the quality of its work;
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the quality of the service’s leadership and management; and
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the impact of the service on its stakeholders.
During the inspection, HMI worked in partnership with the Education, Communities and Economy Directorate and the EPS on a carefully-planned programme of activities. These were designed to build on the service’s self-evaluation and to promote organisational learning.
Significant changes since the interim follow-through visit in 2013
Further organisational restructuring has taken place within Midlothian Council and the EPS is now located within the Education, Communities and Economy
Directorate. The transfer of line management of the service to the Head of Service
(Education) is now complete and the entire EPS has relocated from neighbourhood bases to a central location within the council.
2. Continuous improvement
In the past year, the EPS has made significant improvements to the quality of its communication with stakeholders. It has put in place a user-friendly website and psychologists now produce high-quality materials summarising key psychological concepts in accessible form. A helpful Service Level Agreement (SLA) has been developed and this is enabling the service to embed a cycle of plan-do-review and ensure that its work is focused on improving outcomes. Psychologists are now more successful in ensuring that findings from educational psychology research and literature are impacting positively on the work of the council through a stronger presence on strategic working groups. Examples include the raising attainment group, numeracy policy and practice and supporting young people with social, emotional and behavioural needs. The service is increasingly contributing to the successful implementation of Curriculum for Excellence through its work on learning to learn which is underpinned by a sound national and international evidence base.
The Principal Educational Psychologist (PEP) has continued to lead the development of the service’s quality framework and this is helping to maintain momentum in driving up standards. The service now places a much stronger emphasis on reflecting on the quality of its work. As a result, psychologists are
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becoming increasingly aware of what they do well and what they need to improve to make the greatest impact.
Features of good practice:
1. Research and Development at Education and Authority levels
Psychologists collaborated with the council’s Business Transformation staff to undertake a high quality analysis of the journeys of five children who were placed in residential schools outside the authority. The work is being used to transform systems and processes to focus on desired outcomes for Looked After and
Accommodated Children and to develop staff confidence and understanding of the impact of the decisions which they make.
2. Supporting Professional Development - a partnership approach at Authority level
All educational psychologists in the service are trainers in the full range of
Growing Confidence courses and are jointly delivering Confident Staff, Confident
Children with colleagues from education, health and social work.
3. Promoting evidence-based approaches in education
The service has taken a strong role in disseminating and ensuring easy access to key research. This allows it to promote evidence-based approaches across a wide group of stakeholders. This includes the service leading a professional reading group as part of the Headteacher Professional Learning Programme.
(Details of these pieces of work are available from the PEP)
3. Leadership and management of the service
The Director, (Education, Communities and Economy Directorate) and the Head of
Education are ambitious for Midlothian’s young people. They articulate a clear vision for education in Midlothian and have given significant attention to the role that the
EPS can play in delivering their vision. As a result they have high but realistic expectations of the EPS and there is far greater synergy between the aims of the council and the work of educational psychologists. The PEP leads the EPS team very well. She is highly aware of national developments in educational psychology and of good practice in other services. She successfully models very effective practice within the service and has put in place appropriate arrangements to support professional development, share good practice and to tackle underperformance.
The PEP has encouraged psychologists to reflect on their professional leadership.
As a result, they are now taking greater responsibility for aspects of service improvement and delivery and, overall, they are keen to develop their practice and to promote the work of the service more widely. The service is continuing to strengthen its approach to self-evaluation and it has recently produced an insightful document which reports accurately on the quality of its work. A stronger policy framework and far greater consultation with stakeholders are helping the service to ensure that its improvement planning is now more outcome focused. We have asked the
Education, Communities and Economy Directorate to ensure that it maintains arrangements for appropriate support and challenge of the EPS to enable the
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service to sustain and develop further the significant improvements which it has made.
4. Impact on stakeholders
Psychologists are highly skilled in their communication with parents and parents report very positively on the quality of advice and support they receive from the service. This is particularly strong for those children and young people who require additional support with their learning. Headteachers report very positively on the quality of the psychological service which they now receive. SLAs and greater clarity about time allocation to individual schools are helping to provide more consistency in service delivery and greater transparency in relation to the services which the EPS can provide. There is scope for the service to demonstrate more clearly its impact on school improvement by aligning SLAs more closely with the school improvement planning cycle. The range of educational psychology which the service now delivers has increased significantly. There has been an appropriate refocusing from a casework based service to one which provides a broader range of advice and consultation, assessment, intervention, research and staff development. The service is now successfully disseminating research findings to influence casework decisions as well as policy development. The service is skilled at identifying opportunities for making effective strategic use of casework. For example, its work on individual case studies to track individual children’s experiences of the educational and care systems is now being incorporated into staff training and policy development.
Improved interagency working by the EPS is impacting positively on children, young people and the wider community. For example, the service is working with partners to deliver very effective training in Confident Staff, Confident Children. Very effective initiatives by the EPS, including the Spotlights series are helping to validate educational practitioners’ practice and giving them confidence to continue delivering preventative services such as parental involvement activities and supporting Growth
Mind sets. We have asked the service to place greater emphasis on making explicit the links between the high quality psychology which it is now delivering and
Curriculum for Excellence.
5. Conclusion
The EPS shares the strong ambition for Midlothian’s children and young people expressed by the Director (Education, Communities and Economy) and the Head of
Education. The PEP provides very strong leadership and direction to the service and she is successfully promoting increased coherence and more consistency of practice amongst the team of educational psychologists. The team demonstrates an improved sense of common purpose, with individual members increasingly willing to assume responsibility for aspects of the work of the service. Overall, there is more high quality, evidence-based educational psychology being developed and practiced and this in turn is impacting positively on a wider range of stakeholders.
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The service has improved its work considerably since the last visit by HMI and we have identified the following key strengths:
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greater ambition for Midlothian’s children and young people and a clearer vision for education in Midlothian;
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strong leadership of the PEP and the pace at which she has driven improvements in the service in the past year;
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increased coherence amongst the team of educational psychologists and far stronger partnerships with stakeholders; and
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much closer alignment of the EPS with the work of the council and increased synergy with council objectives.
In taking forward its improvement plan, we have asked the Education, Communities and Economy Directorate and the service to:
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ensure that arrangements for the line management of the EPS remain stable and that appropriate support and challenge are in place to assist the service to continue on its improvement journey;
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explore approaches to improvement planning which are forward and outward looking, link to the council’s Single Outcome Agreement and take account of best practice from outwith Midlothian; and
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continue to develop and embed the SLA and keep the policy framework under review.
As a result of the significant improvements outlined in this report, we will make no further visits in connection with the inspection of 2010.
Our Area Lead Officer will work with the education authority to identify aspects of the
EPSs work for inclusion in its Partnership Agreement with Education Scotland. The findings from this follow-through visit will be shared with the Local Area Network as part of the Shared Risk Assessment process.
Clare Lamont
HM Inspector
18 March 2014
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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
If you would like to receive this report in a different format, for example, in a translation you can contact the administration team on 01506 600311.
If you want to give us feedback or make a complaint about our work, please contact us by telephone on 0141 282 5000, or email: complaints@educationscotland.gsi.gov.uk
or write to us, addressing your letter to The Complaints Manager, Denholm House, Almondvale Business Park,
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.
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