Peter McNamara is head teacher of a virtual school of 360 children in the care of Salford City Council.
His job is to look after the education of all the school-age children in the care of the authority as if they were on one school roll, despite the fact they are actually spread over as many as 120 ‘real’ schools all over England.
As one of the original 11 authorities piloting the virtual school scheme from 2007-2009, his school is now well established and he can point to real achievements: an improving set of primary school results; the best GCSE results they’ve ever had for looked-after children; and a halving of the number of children who have had 25 or more days off school in a year.
“We have had a dramatic improvement in attendance,” says McNamara. “I’m pretty confident that’s a direct result of what we’ve done [as a virtual school]. Attendance is a good proxy indication of progress because if children are in school the continuity of education means they are likely to be making progress. A high level of absence is an indication of disengagement with school.”
But he also thinks the national measures of success for looked-after children are misleading: “We have a lot of youngsters achieving success that doesn’t get measured, for example a person might get a vocational qualification which isn’t recorded on the national data set, but it is still progress and achievement. We need more intelligent and sophisticated measures of progress because I do think at the moment they are potentially misleading.”
He thinks the achievements of looked after children should not just be compared with all children nationally: “I would like to compare them with youngsters from the same socio-economic group but equally you need to look at progress over time and comparison with local authorities which are our statistical neighbours.”
He has 50 students doing GCSEs this year and he will be looking at how they have progressed over time and since coming into care: “We also look at destinations, [another] measure of progress. We’ll be measuring how many got five A*-C GCSEs including English and maths, but also how many got five not including English and maths, and how many got vocational qualifications.”
It can be difficult to understand exactly what a ‘virtual school’ can do for a child when it doesn’t see that child every day, but the answer lies in the close monitoring of data - such as on attendance or exclusion - for these children, much as a parent would. “At the core of a virtual school is the information management system,” says McNamara.
He says the authority has 200 looked-after children being educated in roughly 60 Salford schools. The other 160 children are out of authority – as far afield as Surrey, Durham, Cumbria and Yorkshire - and could be spread over another 60 schools.
“So potentially you have 360 kids in 120 schools so clearly to act as a virtual school you need really good up to date accurate information on attainment, exclusions, attendance etc. Then you can do your best to support youngsters no matter where they live.” He gets monthly attendance reports from his schools and a daily email from an agency which is employed to monitor the attendance of the children who are being educated out of authority, summarizing attendance or exclusions.
“We monitor the data and if the graph is going up for an individual we intervene,” he says. “This very close scrutiny and monitoring raises these issues and concentrates minds.”
One to one tuition - one of the things in the government’s national strategy for increasing educational attainment - is one thing he can put in place. He believes it’s an effective and affordable tool for improving progress, which can be implemented for children whether they live in or out of the authority.
“At key stage 4 we currently fund private tuition in English and maths for any child who agrees to engage with it and who is likely to benefit from it,” he says. “We also complement a national programme of one to one tuition in English and maths for youngsters who are below age-related expectations or, for more talented children, below expectations for what they could achieve.”
He gives an example: “One pupil who is now in year 6 has received three blocks of one to one tuition and he’s heading for level 4 at key stage 2 which is the national average. When he was seven this child was well below average, with his scores below the lowest measureable level of attainment. One to one tuition is believed to be a key feature in accelerating that child’s progress,” adds McNamara.
Another commitment in the national strategy is a personal education allowance promised to all looked-after children who are at risk of not achieving the expected levels of attainment. “Through the budget and personal education allowance we make sure that any requests for school trips or extra groups are sympathetically considered,” adds McNamara. “I can’t think of any recently that have been turned down.”
McNamara liaises closely with all the professionals involved in a child’s care, including educational psychologists, working on cases on an individual basis. He calls it a “collaborative” or “federal” model, rather than a top-down management system.
He meets with the designated teachers from all the schools in the local authority every term for training. “Generally speaking all roads lead to the social worker,” he says. “They’re the key people in this process. Of all the variables which influence the way a virtual school operates – numbers, geographic considerations etc – a very important variable is the turnover of social workers.”
They are lucky in Salford to have a fairly stable team of social workers, he adds.
The children themselves do not necessarily understand they are part of a virtual school, although McNamara does meet them, either individually at their care meetings, or in groups when he attends meetings such as that of the corporate parenting panel. There is also an annual awards ceremony for achievement, so the concept of the virtual school is becoming more widely known.
In Salford the virtual school looks like a success. Simply having one person dedicated to concentrating on the education of the children and young people in the care of the local authority, and noticing when they need extra support, is having a visible effect on their achievement.
The Who Cares? Trust,
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