West Lancashire
Education Partnership Officer
Claire Fox
Period
Summer 1 - May 2024
Priority
Support the development of school-to-school support networks in West Lancs – specifically small and rural schools.
Intended Outcomes
To facilitate discussion of the importance of whole school ethos and multi-agency working; particularly relating to early help approaches.
To improve access to local knowledge, information, funding, CVFS organisations, experiences, and good practice.
To strengthen school to school support underpinned by local and national drivers.
To enable the group to have a mechanism for addressing challenges they are facing via TASS Locality Group and have relationships with wider partners to offer solutions.
Activity last period
Network meeting held May 24, attended by head teachers from TARDIS cluster, CFW, West Lancs Borough Council, Health, LCC attendance team & communities team, along with community groups.
The group discussed how there has been significant progress in terms of delivery or planned delivery of support for children and families within the northern parishes via Family Hubs.
Agreed that a baby clinic will commence at the end of May at Hesketh Bank.
Trauma Informed training was delivered to TARDIS by the VRN.
VR Headset training shared with the school cluster and details of education lead (VRN) shared to support embedding trauma informed practice within policy and procedures.
Planned activity next period
Secondary rep from Tarleton Academy to attend the next meeting in the Autumn term, re: transition.
Police rep to attend the next meeting as schools feel better communication with the neighbourhood team and primary schools is needed.
More community reps have been invited to attend the next meeting.
Dates for the next academic years meetings to be established and smaller subgroups if required to progress the work.
Impact so far
The schools, along with key partners have expressed how effective the network has been in delivering an increased offer to families. The CFW team have engaged with the local community and positively brought them along with the network to aid their understanding of what we are trying to achieve and have agreed to host some groups which will benefit local families.
Exit Strategy
Although initially it was felt that this network was more Family Hubs focused, there are elements that require a TASS response to explore solutions and the group welcome the meeting being led by EPO for the rest of the academic year.
Priority
Explore the pathways of support for young people who are not/at risk of not being in education, employment and training (EET) in West Lancashire.
Intended Outcomes
To explore the number of young people across WL who are NEET (Not in Education Employment or Training) and develop a pathway of support, advice and guidance to improve their outcomes.
Activity last period
EPO made a visit to West Lancs college who are also exploring their young people who drop out of college with no information as to their whereabouts.
EPO met with West Lancs council NEST team (Network, employability, Skills and training) to understand their role.
EPO met with LCC Post 16 lead and Participation Relationship Manager re: data and how this could benefit the local council and help to target specific areas of West Lancs with higher numbers of NEET young people.
Planned activity next period
Careers event (autumn term) to include secondary careers leads and key partners who offer advice and support to young people around aspirations and employability/training.
To provide the group with some data in relation to NEET/Not known young people to target specific areas of West Lancs and offer advice and support.
EPO to align this work with existing NEET drop in based at The Zone/Targeted Youth.
EPO to link the West Lancs team into the TARDIS network – to explore employability in northern parishes.
EPO to establish who the careers leads are in the secondary schools and discuss the transition process.
Impact so far
This piece of work is in the early stages of gathering the correct data, aligning existing work and connecting professionals.
Exit Strategy
By utilising existing networks and teams who offer advice, guidance, and support for young people post 16 and creating effective connections, pathways will be sustained. This workstream will be discussed during the last locality group this academic year and continue into 24/25.