Edit: The meeting that was due to discuss this item has been cancelled due to the death of Elizabeth II – as has all council business this week, including Cabinet and full council meetings – though the original report has been uploaded by myself.
A report that was due to be discussed by a council scrutiny committee today has outlined some of the challenges schools in Bridgend county have faced since the full return on in-person teaching as Covid-19 related restrictions were lifted (pdf).
The 2021-22 school year was the first time since the pandemic began that schools were open (almost) all the time for in-person teaching.
One of the main concerns is deteriorating standards of behaviour in schools:
“Pupil behaviour is becoming an increasing concern for schools and for the local authority. There is evidence that behaviour is becoming more problematic leading to increases in both fixed-term and permanent exclusions. The behaviours being witnessed within schools are predominately increases in verbal and physical aggression towards adults and other children along with persistent and disruptive behaviour.”
– Linday Harvey, Corporate Director for Education & Family Support
The number of permanent exclusions in Bridgend doubled during 2021-22, even when taking pandemic school closures into account. There were also 707 suspensions (fixed-term exclusions) of secondary school pupils in the year to April 2022 – which is up on previous years, with 544 being recorded during the last pre-pandemic school year of 2018-19.
There has been a marked knock-on increase in referrals to early help and children’s social services over the last year – usually triggered by the above behaviour issues.
These trends aren’t specific to Bridgend and have been noted across the wider region. It’s partly due to the pandemic, with anecdotal evidence of negative communication and behaviour changes amongst pupils. Extra behaviour management and disciplinary training is being provided to staff.
In a separate move, more schools are rolling out educational psychological profiling (PERMA profile) to help monitor the wellbeing of pupils. 23 schools in Bridgend are taking part so far.
School attendance rates see an up to 8% drop
School attendance has also taken a hit. In 2018-19, school attendance rates at both primary and secondary school levels were above 94%. In 2021-22, this had fallen to 90.1% for primary schools and 86.5% for secondary schools (subject to validation) – again, broadly reflecting national trends.
Some of the proposed measures include additional police truancy patrols during this autumn term, launching “buddy systems” to improve pupil confidence and the development of a new attendance strategy for BCBC (due to be published in December 2022).
