APPENDIX 55
Memorandum submitted by Blackburn with
Darwen Borough Councils
Blackburn with Darwen wish to submit
the following written evidence in response to the invitation of
the Right Honourable Keith Vaz MP
Blackburn with Darwen responded to Government
Office North West (GONW) for the number of children deemed not
to be receiving an effective education. We reported 6 children:-
One male child aged five from a transient
family. The family have left their current address and we have
forwarded the child's details to the Local Authority to which
we believe the family were moving. As we have not had a reply
from that Authority we could not guarantee that this pupil was
in receipt of effective education.
We reported five children whose parents
had not returned from extended leave. There were three male children
aged, five, 10 & 10, and two female children aged eight &
nine. None of these children were considered to be at risk of
forced marriage but were considered by us as probably not receiving
an appropriate education as their parents have not informed us
of the name of the school they are attending on the Indian subcontinent
during their absence from the United Kingdom.
Blackburn with Darwen has a large Asian
heritage population. We have successfully worked with schools,
families and mosques to significantly reduce the number of schools
days lost to extended leave. Parents applying for leave have their
details registered on our Extended Leave Database including their
return date as stated on their air tickets. Parents and pupils,
where age appropriate, are provided with telephone contact details
in case of difficulties. If the child does not return on the date
agreed contact is attempted with the family to ascertain the name
of the school the child is attending. If we do not receive the
name of the school we consider the child "not to be in receipt
of appropriate education".
FORCED MARRIAGES
Blackburn with Darwen is sensitive to
the potential of forced marriages, although we have had no contact
from the forced marriage unit to indicate that this is a particular
issue for Blackburn with Darwen children and young people. Indeed,
we understand that the Forced Marriage Unit does not currently
collect statistics on cases on the basis of British Local Government
areas.
To address the issue we:
— Have a Forced Marriage Protocol
as part of the LSCB suite of policies and procedures
— Include training on Forced
Marriages in basic Child Protection training for school staff
— Act as the single point of
contact for schools expressing concerns about the potential for
forced marriage
— Liaise with the Forced Marriage
Unit on behalf of any school/professional expressing concern.
Safeguarding is one of our key priorities
and we:-
— Have recently dedicated a
Headteacher meeting to scoping issues and support for schools
— Are holding a "Safeguarding
Week" in October 2008
— Are developing a resource
database for schools
— Funded a Child Protection
Officer based with Lancashire Council of Mosques for 3 years to
work with the community and Madressahs on child protection issues
— Have commissioned research
on the reasons for the low take up of services from BME communities
— Are holding a conference for
Independent Sector Schools on children protection issues
— Provide children protection
training for Independent Schools and FE settings
— Have issued all settings with
a Safe Recruitment Toolkit
We welcome the decision of the DCSF to
work with the Forced Marriage Unit to develop materials specifically
for schools which are tailored to young people. When the resources
are available we will disseminate these to schools as part of
further awareness training. We also welcome the move to mandatory
training for all staff.
The protection of our children and young
people is our highest priority and so we would be pleased to receive
any intelligence which government department have which would
assist us in carrying out our duties. We will be happy to work
together on issues relating to forced marriage.
CHILDREN MISSING
AN EFFECTIVE
EDUCATION
Blackburn with Darwen believes that close
monitoring of all children and young people not receiving an effective
education significantly supports the safeguarding agenda.
To strengthen this we have:
— Protocols in place where all
professionals notify any child they believe not to be in education
to us
— Have established enhanced
monitoring of elective home education by creating an extended
officer group who undertake more regular monitoring particularly
of the quality of educational experience offered by home educating
parents. This has resulted in us not moving to issue any school
attendance orders since this process was strengthened
— We have a children missing
from education protocol with our neighbouring Local Authorities
and this is in the process of being updated following the recent
guidelines
As you are aware the DCSF has a national
database onto which Local Authorities place the details of any
pupil who leaves their area. Receiving schools are expected to
contact their local authority anytime they receive a pupil from
out of area. From experience the second part of the process may
not always be robust.
We would support a national initiative
which addressed the issue of effective use of this school to school
database, and clarity about the link between school to school
and contact point would be helpful. A process which used information
from, for example the benefits agency, would ensure that only
those pupils who are genuinely "missing" have their
details recorded and those children who may be `at risk' are therefore
quickly and clearly identified.
March 2008
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