CELCIS Education Conference: outlining the journey taken by Aberdeen City Council in establishing a Virtual School to support improvement in attainment and achievement of all Looked after Children with a key focus on the use of data and partnership working.

1. Aberdeen City Council
Integrated Children and Family Services in
partnership with Sport Aberdeen
How establishing a Virtual School can support
partnership working to improve wellbeing outcomes
Thursday 16th May
2019

2. The Virtual School – Established December 2015
Philosophy
•A need to improve the attainment, attendance and long term
outcomes of care experienced children and young people
•A need to better understand vulnerabilities of whole population of
care experienced children and young people
•A need to be better placed to address established or emerging
patterns and trends by ensuring that a key officer had oversight and
was able to inform strategic work
•A need to better meet our Corporate Parent duties

3. Roles and Responsibilities
1. To make sure that there is a system to rigorously track and monitor the
attainment of children who are looked after
2. To ensure that all children who are looked after have a robust and effective
plan that supports access to appropriate and timely support and is in keeping
with the Children and Young People’s Act
3. To champion the educational needs of looked after children across the
authority and those placed out-of-authority
4. To line manage a team of Education Support Officers supporting Looked After
Children
5. To provide support and advice to schools and to the service and advocacy for
children and young people who are looked after

4. Corporate Parent Duties
It is the duty of every corporate parent, in so far as consistent
with the proper exercise of its other functions -
•(a) to be alert to matters which, or which might, adversely
affect the wellbeing of children and young people to whom
this Part applies,
•(b) to assess the needs of those children and young people
for services and support it provides,
•(c) to promote the interests of those children and young
people, 4

5. •(d) to seek to provide those children and young people with
opportunities to participate in activities designed to promote their
wellbeing,
•(e) to take such action as it considers appropriate to help those
children and young people-
•(i) to access opportunities it provides in pursuance of paragraph (d),
•(ii) to make use of services, and access support, which it provides, and
•(f) to take such other action as it considers appropriate for the
purposes of improving the way in which it exercises its functions in
relation to those children and young people. 5

6. Key priorities of the National Improvement Framework
•Improvement in attainment, particularly in literacy and numeracy
•Closing the attainment gap between the most and least disadvantaged
children and young people
•Improvement in children and young people's health and wellbeing
•Improvement in employability skills and sustained, positive school-
leaver destinations for all young people
6

7. The Journey So Far - Summary
Year 1
• Data Cleanse
• Raising awareness
• Building relationships
• Establishing partnerships
Year 2
• Building the partnerships
• Influencing policy
• Developing guidance
• Developing tracking and
monitoring - OOA
• Influencing strategic direction
Year 3
• QA Calendar
• New partnerships and
expansion of established
partnerships
• SQUIP
• Pilot projects

8. The Importance of Robust Data
•System to ensure data was accurate (Care First / SEEMIS / Virtual
School database – Who are our Looked After Children
•Procedure for informing schools of Looked After status / changes /
transitions – Where are our children
•Systems for tracking and monitoring – How are our children doing and
what do they need
8

9. What was the data telling us?
•Points of transition (increased exclusions / decreased attendance)
•CYP missing out on physical activity
•Working with others / making friends was a challenge
•Lunchtime / After School opportunities were available – barriers to
engagement
•Many CYP were not experiencing success
•Many CYP had low self-esteem and lacking in confidence
•Some CYP were putting themselves at risk
•Many CYP were struggling to self-regulate
9

10. What did we do?
Start of partnership between
Virtual School and Sport
Aberdeen
Joint planning phase –
where are the gaps in
service provision, what are
our aims.
Joint recruitment process.
Getting Started! Developing
relationships with children,
young people. Starting 1-2-
1’s.
Seeing some results
- Reflection of journeys of
our young people
- Sport Aberdeen
memberships
Successful joint funding
applications and increase in
capacity of LAP.

11. From the
Virtual
School – LAP
Partnership
Aberdeen
Champions
Board
ACE &
Who
Cares?
Scotland
Young
People’s
Grants
(LCT)
Active
Schools
locally and
nationally
Social Work &
Education
partnerships
Third
Sector
Partners
Working on
SQA
Qualifications
and training.

12. What our other partners are saying
•https://youtu.be/bcUJwGObZEk
What our children and young people are
saying
12

13. “Working within the stables has made
me feel important as I feel that I am
achieving and am responsible on that
day for looking after the horses.”
• Andrew, aged 17
• Living in Residential Care
• High risk behaviour impacting on school
attendance therefore attainment and
achievement.
• Now?
• Horse riding and BHS course nearing
completion.
• Volunteering with Active Schools
• Aiming for a career in coaching

14. “I get to meet new people, I am
gaining experience coaching and
getting qualifications”
• David, 15
• Placement breakdown leading to
residential care
• Learning disabilities, limited social skills
and challenging behaviour in school and
home.
• High risk of out of authority move.
• Now?
• Volunteering x 2 per week
• Part of an I Can Lead Course with peers.

15. • Ryan, 7
• Impacted by neglect, domestic abuse and
parental substance misuse and further neglect
within kinship placement.
• Unmet needs – not able to fully engage in
school, resilience, mental and physical health,
poor peer relationships, poor sense of identity
and self. Leading to increasing support prior to
move to foster care.
• Now?
• Had consistent experiences of success
supported by trusted adult.
• Continued weekly horse riding with ongoing
visits from LAP worker.
I don’t like it….I LOVE IT!!

16. I like getting up horse riding,
it’s so much better than
school, best part of my
week.
• Amy, 14
• Edge of care, not attending school.
• Lack of experiences of success and
achievement.
• Now?
• Slow progress with inconsistent attendance
however since being awarded with her first
riding ribbon, attendance at lesson has been
100%.
• Using positive experiences to build relationship
with new social worker

17. The So What?
Corporate Parent Duties
(a) to be alert to matters which, or which might, adversely
affect the wellbeing of children and young people to whom
this Part applies,
•(b) to assess the needs of those children and young people
for services and support it provides,
•(c) to promote the interests of those children and young
people,
17

18. •(d) to seek to provide those children and young people with
opportunities to participate in activities designed to promote their
wellbeing,
•(e) to take such action as it considers appropriate to help those
children and young people-
•(i) to access opportunities it provides in pursuance of paragraph (d),
•(ii) to make use of services, and access support, which it provides, and
•(f) to take such other action as it considers appropriate for the
purposes of improving the way in which it exercises its functions in
relation to those children and young people. 18

19. 19

20. Quantitative and Qualitative Data Collection
Individual Impact
• Reduction in exclusions
• Increased Attendance
• Improved wellbeing
• Increased attainment
• Increased opportunities – Care experienced young people and their families
• Positive destinations – next steps
20

21. Future Planning
• Data analysis and focus on supporting CYP
to use their gym memberships through
partnership with ACE.
• Continued growth of the Project
• Looking at key groups – looked after at
home and kinship.
• Early intervention with Action for Children’s
Priority Families Project.
• Development of links with Active Schools
teams across the country.