Agenda item

To inform the Corporate Parenting Committee of the work undertaken by the Brent Virtual School and school results for Looked After Children in the 2024-26 academic year. The delay in presenting the report is due to the need for exam results to be ratified.

Michaela Richards (Headteacher, Brent Virtual School) introduced the report, which outlined the activity and impact of the Brent Virtual School (BVS) during the academic year 2024-25 in monitoring and supporting looked after children to achieve the best possible educational outcomes. In introducing the report, she highlighted the following key points:

• There had been a positive increase in the number of young people achieving grades 4 – 9 in English and Maths plus 3 other subjects, at an almost 10% increase for the whole cohort.
• 28% of the Statistical First Release (SFR) cohort (young people who at the time of the report were in care for at least a year from 1 March 2025) had achieved grades 4 – 9 in English and Maths plus three other subjects, which was a substantial improvement on previous years.
• Post-16 education, employment and training (EET) rates were between 77-83%, with 83% being a significant increase on previous years.
• There had been no Permanent Exclusions, in line with the historical trend. There had been a slight increase in Fixed Term Exclusions (FTE) on the previous year, but this was still lower than it had been for the past 3-4 years.
• 105 children had attended enrichment, which was well above 50% of the statutory cohort of 4-16 year olds, as it was recognised that enrichment was equally as important as academic attainment. The activities had a focus on wellbeing, enjoyment and ensuring cultural capital was being provided to children in care.
• Whilst the role of BVS was expanded in September 2024 to include extended duties for all children with a social worker, Michaela Richards advised that Brent had already been doing some of that work since 2021, including direct work, which was not a national requirement but it was recognised that the earlier BVS could intervene the more preventative they could be in terms of children coming into care. This also ensured a relationship was already in place if the young person did enter care.
• In March 2025, BVS employed a SEND Advisory Officer linked directly to the BVS due to the number of children with EHCPs and SEND support needs, and particularly the difficulties in ensuring appropriate educational placements for children with EHCPs not living in Brent. The proposal had been taken through the appropriate senior channels and approved on a trial basis, but there was now agreement for that to be a permanent role due to the impact it had.

The Chair thanked Michaela Richards for the report and then invited comments and questions from Committee members with the following raised:

The Committee commended the results, pleased to see children in care doing well academically despite the barriers they faced.

The Committee highlighted that school attendance had gone down and asked if there was any insight into why that was. Michaela Richards advised that one of the key challenges was the time at which some young people entered care, with some behaviours around non-attendance already embedded. She worked closely with the school attendance team, foster carers and social workers where it was recognised that attendance was a barrier to see what was needed to improve that. Whilst attendance may have dropped, there would be other interventions taking place to ensure that the child received academic support, such as through additional tutoring support provided in the home and ensuring pupil premium funding was put towards additional tutoring where it was clear the child would be out of school for a period of time. In terms of the decrease in school attendance figures, Michaela Richards explained that, due to the small cohort size, the attendance decrease could relate to 2-3 children with long-term attendance issues which would impact the overall figure. The national picture also showed that attendance had decreased on the whole, meaning that some of the factors may not be linked to looked after children but all young people. She assured Committee members that the current academic year had seen attendance improve again.

Brent Care Journeys asked what support was provided to ensure young people did attend education and understood how important and valuable receiving an education was. Michaela Richards expressed that young people did care about their education, but at times where there was a lot of change in their life education may not be a priority at the forefront of their minds. BVS worked to put small steps in place, working with the school, young person and foster carer to ensure that education was minimally disrupted. For example, BVS may negotiate a part-time or reduced timetable for a while. There was also an element of enrichment BVS would look to get the young person involved in, seeing what worked best for the young person and what could be done differently. She confirmed that BVS staff got to know their cohorts very well and had positive, longstanding relationships with young people, which helped those staff support young people to sustain their education.

Brent Care Journeys asked how BVS advocated on behalf of children in care to individual schools, such as for those who had entered care just before their exam period. Michaela Richards advised that BVS did have experience of young people entering care in the lead up to their exam period, and in those situations would write a letter of support to the school outlining that the young person may not be able to sit their exams and the reasons. Sometimes mock papers could be used for the basis of that young person's results. She added that there were times where BVS had put an argument forward and the school or college may not be supportive in the same way, for example, in accepting a college placement where a young person did not have the required grade, but BVS would use the levers they had to advocate as much as possible. It was more challenging for those post-16, which was past statutory age, meaning there were fewer levers to influence.

Whilst recognising the improvement in Key Stage 4 attainment, the Committee highlighted that there was still a number of children looked after not achieving grades 4-9 at Key Stage 4 and asked what their options were for the future. Michaela Richards advised that the government had now invested in funding for post-16 education for children in care, and even when the Council did not have funding it had always supported a young person once they were ready to go into further education if they wanted. For example, a 21-year-old care leaver may come forward to do a course, which the Council would always support, and the Council now had the financial support to do that. In response to how those individuals were followed up, Kelli Eboji advised that there were Personal Education Plans (PEPs) for all care experienced young people, with professionals working with the young person to understand their next steps and ensure they were on track. The Committee asked that future reports expanded on this particular cohort in terms of their journeys and opportunities and included case studies.

In learning that the Council provided support to care experienced young people looking to go into education post-16, Empire Care Leavers asked how that was communicated to ensure young people were aware of that. Michaela Richards advised that this would be done in a bespoke way through the young person’s personal advisor depending on what that young person needed. Kelli Eboji advised care leavers to approach their personal advisors about this who would liaise with the BVS about what could be offered.

The Committee highlighted that the target for children and young people in education, employment and training was not included in the report and asked what that was and how the Council looked to achieve that. Michaela Richards advised that Brent’s target for the last few years was 80%, which the Council would ideally want to be higher than that. The report showed that, during the reporting year, 83% were in education, employment and training, which was beyond the target. Nigel Chapman (Corporate Director Children, Young People and Community Development, Brent Council) added that there was no national target for this metric, but the Council did report to the DfE and could access benchmarking data on that, which showed that Brent performed relatively well compared to other boroughs. Some of those comparisons could be included in future reports.

As no further issues were raised, the Committee resolved to note the report.