PEP and Pupil Premium
Workshops
May 2014
Virtual School for Cared for Children
Cheshire East Council
Agenda
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Welcomes and Introductions
Aim and objectives
Local Authority perspective and priorities
PEP process – duties of schools and others
Data collection systems
Action planning
Break
Sharing of school practice
Quality Assurance
Next steps and agreed actions
Aim and Objectives
Aim
 To ensure that the PEP process operate in a
consistent and high quality manner and leads to
excellent support and improved achievement for
cared for children.
Objectives
 Shared understanding of the responsibilities and
operational issues regarding PEPs
 Know how use of Pupil Premium should be
reflected in the PEP
 Recognise how PEP quality can be assessed and
improved
Role of the Designated Teacher
 ‘Duty to promote the Educational Achievement
of looked after children’
Achieved by
 Removing barriers to admission
 Monitoring progress – academic and social
 Reviewing attendance and exclusions
 Ensuring additional (SEN or GAT) are met
 Check that school policies do not hinder
 Review impact of teaching and learning policies
 Utilise Pupil Premium to support achievement
 Making the PEP a clear record and plan for each
child
PEP overview
 Basic information should be provided by SW/VS
 May be written by DT with other staff
 Provide history of education, support and
impact
 Identify educational needs and use of PP
 Include short/long term actions and milestone
 Facilitate the views of the child
 Include rigorous monitoring procedure
 Identify accountability for making plans happen
The PEP is a ‘living’ document. It provides
continuous record of the child’s educational
progress and aspirations and reflects the
individual planning on how to support them.
Key changes and impact
 Responsibility of VS to monitor and track
progress, supporting and challenging schools to
find new ways to meet each child’s needs
 VS now assess each case and identify the
support needs of the child
 Support will be targeted and available for those
in greatest needs
 Greater focus on action planning and monitoring
 PEPs to be held each term from Sept
 VS may not attend every PEP meeting but will
provide information and support where needed
and is available throughout.
Data collection systems
What is data??
 “Data beats emotions”
 “Errors using inadequate data are much less
than those using no data at all.”
 “It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has
data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit
theories, instead of theories to suit facts.”
 “What gets measured (and clearly defined) does
get done.”
Why do we need to collect the
data?
 90,000 cared for children nationally and growing
 350+ cared for children in Cheshire East
 Close the gap – “the educational achievement of
looked after children as a whole remains
unacceptably low”
 Up to 50% of Cheshire East children receive their
education in provision/schools outside the
boundaries of Cheshire East
 Like any good parent the Local Authority needs
to know exactly how our children are
progressing/what their educational targets
are/how we can help them
Cheshire East
 Local authorities are parents to these children.
Virtual schools are at their most effective where
corporate parenting is strong and challenges
and supports the virtual school effectively.
 In Cheshire East - Children’s Services are
committed to improving the educational
achievement of all cared for children.
Nationally - England
 OFSTED and the Government/Department for
Education – all authorities have to report on
educational performance of their cared for
children.
 Outcomes for children looked after by local
authorities in England
 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/out
comes-for-children-looked-after-by-localauthorities-in-england-31-march-2012
So what do we collect?
 Early Years – information on the EY PEPs
 KS1 – KS3 – information on KS1/KS2/KS3 PEPs
Section B
- Welfare Call termly collection on
Reading Writing and Maths plus questions about
whether the pupil is making nationally expected
progress in English and Maths
- record on spreadsheet to report to
Corporate Parenting
- report KS2 results to DfE
So what do we collect?
 KS4 – information on KS4 PEP Section B
- termly collection on GCSE/KS4 courses and
subjects plus questions about whether the student is
making nationally expected progress in English and
Maths
- record on spreadsheet to report to Corporate
Parenting
- report to DfE KS4 results – entered for
GCSE/number of A* - G/number of A* - C/ number of
A* - C including English and Maths
What do we need from
providers/schools?
 Accurate assessments of child’s
levels/progress/development
 Requests for information returned as promptly as
possible
 Termly returns (Data Return) plus information
recorded on PEP updates 3 times per year. The
termly returns (Data Return) will be the VS data
sweep.
 Precise target setting
 Interventions to assist
improvement/progress/development
The role of the Designated
Teacher?
– information and data
 Liaise closely with Data Manager at school
 Liaise closely with the Heads of Department/subject
staff/class teachers of the Cared for Children on roll
 Challenge staff/question staff about how the student
can be helped to improve/what interventions are
needed/details about areas for development or
improvement
The role of the Designated
Teacher?
- PEPs
 An effective PEP can be used to asses the impact of
the teaching and learning and progress towards
targets
 Provide detailed information for the PEP –
attendance/subject staff comments/FFT B/current
levels or grades/target levels or grades/most likely
levels or grades/level of entry
 Ensure a log of interventions is kept
 Ensure barriers and actions are recorded on the PEP
Section A and review the actions at next PEP
The role of the Designated
Teacher?
- the student/child
 Support the pupil/student to understand
targets/interventions/expectations
 Ensure the pupil/student feels secure with his/her
learning
 Ensure targets, aspirations and expectations are
appropriate to the individual student’s abilities
 Stress to the pupil/student the importance of
progress rather than raw grades
The role of the Designated
Teacher?
- you are so important
 You are the vital link between subject staff/class
teachers
 Never underestimate how important you are
 Contact the Virtual School if ever you think we may
be able to help
 Thank you for ALL you do.
The most valuable commodity I know of is information
Gordon Gekko, Wall Street (1987
Promoting the Educational
Achievement of Looked after
Children and Outcome
Indicators
 https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/upl
oads/attachment_data/file/276468/educational_achie
vement_of_looked_after_children.pdf
 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/outcom
es-for-children-looked-after-by-local-authorities-inengland-31-march-2012
Quality Assurance
To Quality Assure the PEPs we asked the following
four questions:
 “To what extent is the PEP filled in completely and with sufficient
detail to allow a conclusion about the child’s experience to be
drawn?”
 “How appropriate are the actions to support the progress of each
child and are they sufficiently detailed so that the impact can be
monitored?”
 “Based on the information provided, is the school responding
appropriately to meet the needs of the child?”
 “Using the information provided and your professional judgement
how you would RAG rate the educational experience of the child
and therefore the level of support needed?”
Quality Assurance
Activity :
 In pairs Quality Assure two PEPs from your Key
Stage.
 Feedback comments.