Governance Conversation on Attendance, Safeguarding, SEND and Young Carers

17th November 2022

Thank you for joining us at our re-launched popular Governance Conversations, it was great to see so many governors, trustees and governance professionals from across Norfolk. We looked at the national picture within Norfolk’s context. Chris Snudden, Director of Learning and Inclusion, Norfolk Children’s Services introduced the event and provided an update of the Norfolk educational landscape, the priorities and challenges and the vital role of effective governance and leadership.

Kelly Waters, Senior Adviser in Norfolk Schools Safeguarding Team joined us and we looked at the newly published Working together to improve school attendance and how Norfolk is responding and what we as governors need to do. As you can see from Kelly’s slides Norfolk is above national for absence rates and persistent absence for both secondary and primary education. 

Working together here in Norfolk for all schools is necessary to improve attendance for all children. Visit our attendance page for more information and key signposting and Norfolk Schools Attendance for updates, news and toolkits. We would strongly encourage governors to use the Norfolk Schools Attendance Practice Checklist to help support the embedding of a culture of school attendance. 

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Kelly then shared the key updates from Keeping Children Safe in Education 2022 including the expectation of safeguarding and child protection training for governing boards. A review of the Safeguarding Self Evaluation findings was shared and it was noted that there needs to be good supporting evidence to support the self-assessments. See Norfolk Schools Safeguarding Forms & Templates page for more information. NGN developed a page with our safeguarding colleagues with the national picture Norfolk context approach NGN Safeguarding which provides information and key signposting. We discussed the importance of having an annual approach to the governance of safeguarding which also supports workload for our school leaders.

NGN’s Vice Chair Alison Woodward shared some key information for governors on SEND including the autumn refresh of the Norfolk Area SEND Strategy and shared that NGN was involved in the development of the strategy following the Norfolk Area Ofsted and CQC SEND Inspection in March 2020. We worked in partnership with our colleagues in education, health and social care as well as parent groups and of course children and young people with SEND. We would recommend that all in governance read the strategy as supporting SEND at all levels and working together is essential for all children in Norfolk. This is why we are working on our Let’s Connect Norfolk approach, so that we can build a network of robust governance while sharing best practice and strengthening how Norfolk works together to support all children and young people. Visit our SEND page for more information and signposting.

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NGN is championing and raising awareness of Norfolk’s Young Carers, we welcomed Belinda Jones, Awareness and Voice Team Manager who provided governors with an overview of young carers and how and why they need to be supported. Belinda also shared that from January 2023, young carers are being added to the school census return for the first time and how this will be coded on the returns. We would ask all governors to get their school to sign up to the Young Carers Challenge Norfolk and if the school is already signed up, assign a governor champion for Young Carers. 

Thank you to all who attended and spoke at our Governance Conversation the recording of the event will be available soon.