Consultation on Changes to the Teaching and Learning Provision (TLP) Service

Overview

Why is East Sussex County Council changing the Teaching and Learning Provision service?

There has been a shift in the balance of the work of the service due to a significant rise in numbers of electively home educated (EHE) children and also a rise in the number of these who have vulnerabilities. This has increased the amount of time required to work with other agencies to safeguard children. Additional support for Gypsy, Roma, Traveller (GRT) pupils is provided by other services with ESCC. It is necessary to make changes in order that the statutory duties of the local authority are met and there is the best use of available resources.

The needs of the service users have changed over time which means there must be a review of service delivery to ensure the service continues to operate within its available resources.  This review has led to a change in how the offer is delivered.

Why your views matter

TLP currently has three main areas of work:

• to provide teaching support for sick pupils
• to provide additional educational support for pupils from a Gypsy Roma traveller (GRT) background
• to support families who have elected to home educate (EHE) their children.

Proposed changes

Electively home educated (EHE)

We propose to create a lead post and two new EHE Officer posts to hold the EHE case load. This will create greater capacity to manage the EHE caseload. It will also provide more capacity for the remaining managers to manage the caseload of sick pupils and remove the duty from teachers to hold an EHE caseload, enabling them to focus on teaching sick pupils

Sick Pupils

We propose to focus the teaching offer to sick pupils to the statutory offer:

• Focusing on delivery of three core subjects; English, Maths and Science. The service will no longer teach Religious Studies and Food Technology to GCSE level. We are prepared however to maintain a database of subject specialist  and coordinate additional provision, if funded directly by schools

Gypsy, Roma, Traveller (GRT)

We propose to change the Teaching and Learning Provision for GRT pupils from direct support to one of advice and guidance to schools. Additional support for GRT pupils is already provided to schools through Inclusion Special Educational Needs & Disability services.  Staff in these services have developed skills in working with pupils from GRT backgrounds and, therefore, the need for a separate offer is no longer there. We also propose to discontinue GRT pupil progress data in schools and home school liaison, and this work will remain the duty of the school.

The delivery of GRT history month will fall within the broader responsibilities of ESCC for celebrating diversity. TLP will continue to provide advice and guidance to schools via online materials and one central course a year.

How to take part in this consultation:

This consultation runs from 11 September 2019 to 7 October 2019.  We will do all we can to make it as easy as possible for everyone to have their say. 

There are several ways you can give your views:

• by completing the questionnaire online here
• by printing a copy of the questionnaire from here and returning it to us
• by contacting us to request a paper copy of the questionnaire using the details below

Completed surveys can be posted back to us at: Equality and Participation Team, County Hall, St Anne's Crescent, Lewes, BN7 1UE

If you or someone you know would like assistance completing this, please email:

equalityandparticipation@eastsussex.gov.uk

or call:  01273 482302

and someone can assist with arranging a phone call to help people to complete the survey.

If you have a question about this consultation or need a copy of the information in a different format or another language, please contact us.