Elected Member Briefing - Education Service Workforce Plan for Recovery

About this briefing note

Report by: Gillian Doogan, Service Manager Primary Education

Date: 8 August 2022

Subject: Staffing in schools for session 2022

Responsible Officer: Sharon Johnston, Head of Education and Learning

Publication

This Briefing Note has been published on the Council's website following circulation to Councillors. Its contents may be disclosed or shared outwith the Council. 

Details

Purpose

The purpose of this briefing note is to inform elected members of the workforce planning undertaken by Education Services to support children and families and staff as part of the plan for educational recovery. This is in response to a question raised at the Learning and Families Committee on Wednesday 29 June 2022. 

Briefing information

Background

In academic session 2021/22 additional Scottish Government funding was allocated to Education and Children's Services to support education recovery.

In planning for education recovery, a working group of education staff, including headteachers, educational psychology team, quality improvement officers, business and resources, HR and finance was formed. This strategic staffing group identified ways in which the additional funding should be utilised to best address the needs of children and young people, and staff in schools across Perth and Kinross.

The guiding principles for this plan were to ensure that there were sufficient teachers and support staff in place to cover absence, and to most effectively target staffing to mitigate against some of the impacts of the pandemic on learning and wellbeing. A range of staff were engaged to enhance and support work already in place to address any gaps or areas for development because of the pandemic. The work focussed on the areas of:

• support for families,
• learning and attainment,
• inclusion and
• wellbeing of pupils, families and staff. 

 A plan was drawn up to deliver a range of targeted interventions within schools alongside universal approaches to learning and teaching. This plan involved consideration being given to the staffing required to deliver the desired outcomes along with a training programme for all those involved.

Session 2021/2022

During academic session 2021/22 the plan addressed the following key areas of recovery:

• Support for families
  • New staff roles were introduced to better support families across all sectors. Family learning practitioners were established during 2021/2022 as part of the expansion of Early Learning and Childcare (ELC). Their focused support in communities contributed to the work of educational recovery within ELC settings. Within primary schools, a new post of Community Learning Assistant was created and in secondary schools additional Pupil Care and Welfare Officers were focused on addressing attendance and engagement of identified young people. 
• Learning and attainment
  • It was recognised that learning and attainment was impacted by the pandemic, but that impact was felt most significantly in areas of most disadvantage. It was also evidenced that children who had entered primary 1 had had a very disrupted pre-school year, therefore, to address this, additional support to pupils was provided within Primary 1, and Early Childhood Practitioners or Play Assistants were allocated to schools. This support had a particular focus on socialisation, play and targeting any unmet developmental milestones. A speech and language therapist was engaged to support the Early Years' Service to address areas of language and communication. Play development workers were engaged in schools to support social connection and interaction with peers.
  • A range of targeted interventions were delivered in school to address attainment in reading, writing and numeracy. Additional Covid recovery teachers were appointed in primary schools to deliver these interventions and to build the capacity of staff to work with individual or groups of children. Where necessary these Covid recovery teachers also taught classes within schools when there were staff absences meaning that schools were able to continue to operate. 
  • Within secondary schools, additional teachers were allocated to allow for a targeted approach to raising attainment in literacy and numeracy. 
• Support for inclusion
  • Across primary and secondary schools additional Pupil Support Assistants (PSAs) were engaged to support a range of identified individual, group or school needs. This included support for areas of literacy and numeracy and pupil wellbeing and engagement. Attendance was a key area of focus, guidance was provided for schools to support them to take a staged approach to addressing concerns and additional training was provided by the Educational Psychology team for all schools.
  • The Community Link Worker (CLW) Relink Project, funded from budget motion monies, began in March 2021, and was delivered alongside a range of interventions offered by the CLW team at Primary and Secondary level.  This team also delivered a 6-week programme to address increased levels of anxiety in children and parents during the transition to secondary school. Self-regulation training enhanced the support provided to young people in Secondary Schools.  The reinstatement of additional teachers in Secondary schools funded by a budget motion, has enabled support for learning for young people with additional support needs to be enhanced.  This is addressing the growing number of Secondary school pupils with additional support needs. 
  • Over the last two years there has been a focus on a range of supports for Headteacher wellbeing, including linking with the national 'Place2Be' organisation. The focus for this coming session is on Guidance Teachers and Child Protection Officers, with feedback gathered last term from Guidance Teachers as to their needs and plans are in place to address these.
  • Additional educational psychologist time, alongside representatives from the third sector, has supported mental health work which has included counselling and wellbeing opportunities for care experienced young people facing transitions to post-school, skilled support programmes for children and young people struggling to return to a pattern of attendance, a universal art-based resilience programme and training for staff on managing anxiety.  Work has continued on digital resilience. Throughout this period ongoing work has included the roll-out of the Counselling in Schools programme which is now embedded as a core support for children and young people aged 10 years and over.  
  • The Parenting and Family Learning team delivered a range of programmes and heavily supported the Summer of Play programmes which have been successfully implemented for families across Perth and Kinross.

Planning for Recovery Session 2022/2023

The new Scottish Government funding which increased the number of teachers and support staff in schools on a permanent basis has meant that a number of the posts trialled as part of the plan for recovery in 2021/2022 have now become permanent roles within the service.

Within the Early Years' Service this includes additional play development workers engaged to support in schools along with a continued allocation of ECPs and play assistants in P1. The family support practitioners who were introduced as part of the expansion of ELC will continue to develop their support of children and families in ELC settings.  Across primary schools there will be access to additional permanent teachers who will be able to support with class cover on a locality basis and who are trained to deliver targeted interventions. Community Learning Assistant posts will continue to support children in primary schools and their families on a permanent basis.

In secondary schools, the additional Pupil Care and Welfare Officers will now continue their work on a permanent basis, and the additional teaching resource in place to support raising attainment will remain.  Additional teaching allocation has also been added to guidance departments to ensure a consistent level of support for young people across all schools.

Within the Inclusion Service there are additional permanent teacher posts across primary and secondary schools within outreach and support for learning roles.  The additional PSAs allocated across all sectors is continuing and additional staffing in Intensive Support provisions has strengthened the support for pupils overall.

Additional teaching hours have been provided to Fairview to enable the school to extend the senior phase offer. 

Recruitment continues for additional teachers of Gaelic Medium Education. 

Further work will be undertaken on assessment of need and identification of the most appropriate social and emotional interventions for primary schools, this will be supported by additional educational psychology, community link and community learning assistant staff. Work will continue to meet the mental wellbeing targets of the 'Connected Tayside' Emotional Wellbeing strategy. Counselling in Schools will continue to be supported and regularly evaluated, with plans underway to pilot group work and embedded crisis supports. The newly appointed Suicide Prevention and Mental Health Co-ordinator will continue to work with schools to review support needs, guidance and training requirements to improve practice. 

The work undertaken by Education and Children's Services to develop a clear plan for recovery during session 2021/22 has provided evidence of what is working to support schools and settings to meet the needs of all children and young people. New roles were able to be implemented and evaluated during this past academic session and the impact of those on outcomes was positive. The ability to now recruit permanently to these roles has provided an increased capacity to continue to provide the necessary support required.