What is the Virtual School?

Norfolk Virtual School for Children in Care and Previously in Care is part of the Family Help and High Needs service. We are based within Norfolk Children's Services department.

Our role and what we do

Our team of advisers work with:

Children and young people
Schools and other educational settings
Social care teams and carers

to help improve the educational journey and outcomes for children in care, from early years to the end of Year 13. We also offer support and guidance to care leavers and the staff supporting them.

This is achieved by:

Ensuring children have the best possible education to enable them to realise their potential
Ensuring effective transition between school or other providers
Quality assuring all Personal Education Plans (PEPs)

Video overview of the Virtual School

Norfolk In Care Council asked for a short video giving information about the Virtual School. We worked with a young person who edited the script, composed and performed the music, provided the voiceover and was involved in every stage of the production. Watch the video overview of the Virtual School.

The role of the Virtual School Head

The Virtual School Head is Keeley White. The Virtual School Head is the statutory lead (Children and Families Act 2014) within the local authority. They have responsibility for ensuring that arrangements are in place to improve educational experiences and outcomes of children in care and young people. This includes those placed outside of the county.

The Ofsted inspection framework for local authority services to children in care has clear expectations of the information that will be available to inspectors. These expectations strongly influence both the organisation and work planning of the Virtual School.

Statutory responsibilities

Monitor attendance, track progress data and attainment for all Norfolk Children in Care
Manage the DfE Pupil Premium Plus Grant Funding and ensure this is used effectively to improve outcomes
Ensure that all children have an effective high quality Personal Education Plan (PEP), linking the allocation of Pupil Premium monies to PEP targets effectively
Monitor school admissions and ensure:
- Children are placed in a school which best meets their needs
- That challenges resulting from changes of care placement or school are reduced
Provide challenge where necessary and holds stakeholders to account
Regularly report on the attainment of looked after children, through the authority's corporate parenting structure
Promote the importance of listening to and taking account of children's wishes and feelings about their education

Services offered by the Virtual School for Children in Care and Previously in Care

Statutory guidance for local authorities sets our new duties in respect of children previously in care. This to promote their educational achievement by providing information and advice.

Statutory guidance for designated teachers sets out the responsibilities for designated teachers in respect of children previously in care.

For more information see our page on Support for children previously in care.

We offer information, advice and training to schools, early years settings and Post 16 providers as well as families and professionals supporting previously in care children and young people. For more information on our offer of support please see our page on Our offer to schools and teachers.

Children with a social worker - Virtual School Head role extension

Promoting the education of children with a social worker

The Department for Education announced in June 2021 how local authorities should extend the current responsibilities for the Virtual School Head to include becoming a strategic lead for promoting the education of children with a social worker. This is a cohort that has been identified as a group of children who face significant barriers to education as a result of experiences of adversity and trauma, most commonly abuse and neglect. This is in addition to the existing statutory duties for looked after and previously looked after children.

Which children are included within the guidance?

Children with a social worker refers to:

Children who have been assessed as being in need under Section 17 of the Children Act 1989 and currently have a social worker.
Children who have been assessed as being in need under Section 17 of the Children Act 1989 and have previously had a social worker.
It covers all children who were assessed as needing a social worker at any time due to safeguarding and/or welfare reasons, which includes those subject to a Child in Need plan or a Child Protection plan.

The age range covered is from 0 - 18 years of age in all education settings.

While the Virtual School will not be working directly with individuals and families, we will be using our network within Norfolk to map provision and identify how we can contribute and build upon current support. We will be exploring opportunities to use our current knowledge to reduce the barriers to education for this cohort through sharing of best practice. We will be working with our partners both regionally with other Virtual Schools and nationally with the information provided by NAVSH (National Association of Virtual School Heads) to inform our planning.

We will continue to work collaboratively with our colleagues in the local authority, education leaders and beyond to promote the educational outcomes for children with a social worker and supporting our children within Norfolk to flourish.

Extended duties for children in Kinship care arrangements

Following the publication of Championing kinship care: the national kinship care strategy (publishing.service.gov.uk) the role of the Virtual School Head has been extended to include children in Kinship care arrangements. From September 2024, the Virtual School Head strategic role will include:

a) Raising the visibility of the distinct needs of children in different types of kinship care arrangements and the disadvantage that they can experience.

b) Promoting practice that supports attendance and engagement in education.

c) Promoting practice that improves children in kinship care's outcomes to narrow the attainment gap, so that every child has the opportunity to reach their full potential.

Furthermore, the new duties extend Virtual School Heads' provision of advice and information, on request, to all kinship carers with Special Guardianship and Child Arrangements Orders as part of their non-statutory role.

The DfE have provided the definition of kinship care as 'any situation in which a child is being raised in the care of a friend of family member who is not their parent. The arrangement may be temporary or longer term.' Children included in the new strategic duties may have on of the following types of kinship care arrangement, however this list is not exhaustive:

Informal kinship care arrangement
A private fostering arrangement
Where a 'lives with' Child Arrangements Order has been granted in favour of someone who is a friend or family member but is not the child's parent
Where a Special Guardianship Order has been granted appointing a friend or family member as the child's special guardian
Where a child is a 'looked after child' and each of the following apply:
- the child is being cared for by a friend or family member who is not their parent, and
- the friend of family member is approved as a local authority foster carer on either a temporary basis or following full assessment.
Where an Adoption Order has been granted in respect of the child and, prior to making the order, the adopter was a friend or family member.

For further information on how we are responding to the new duties for children in kinship care arrangements, please contact the Virtual School

Personal education plans (PEPs)

Personal Education Plans (PEPS) identify the educational needs of children in care, and promote and raise expectations and aspirations for their outcomes.

The process allows all the adults planning a child's life to communicate with each other about that child's educational future. PEPs are a statutory requirement. They form part of the overarching care plan. Statutory guidance for local authorities 'Promoting the education of looked after children and previously looked after children' provides useful information on the content and timescales for completion.

A PEP is a 'living document'

PEPs are initiated by a child or young person's social worker. They arrange a meeting for the young person, their carer and other practitioners working with the young person to discuss their educational progress, aspirations, and any support they may need. The social worker should continue to lead the plan, to ensure that it is an effective element of the care plan.

Each school has a designated teacher for children in care. They lead on the development of the PEP, working with their colleagues in school to identify the young person's strengths, needs and any barriers to learning. The designated teacher is responsible for ensuring that the PEP is a 'living document' and implemented within school. They also check that the child is making progress against their targets.

PEPs should:

Record what is going well
Identify areas of need
Record the plan for support and targets

PEPs must include aspirational and SMART outcomes for the child's progress in their learning. They should also identify what additional support the child or young person needs in order to achieve those outcomes.

A good PEP ensures that teachers, social workers, carers, other practitioners and the young people themselves:

Have a clear plan about what is needed to ensure that child is doing well in their learning
Shows clearly if they are not

PEP meetings

A PEP meeting must be held each term and at any other significant points in a young person's education.

All children can attend their PEP meeting or, if they choose, the carer or designated teacher might share their views on their behalf. It's important that every PEP captures the child's views - even if they choose not to participate.

The electronic PEP

The Virtual School is committed to ensuring that each looked after child and young person has an ambitious and high quality PEP, which:

Is completed within statutory timescales
Accurately reflects their educational journey.

Norfolk has commissioned an external provider called Welfare Call to provide a web-hosted electronic PEP. Schools and settings can use the information to evidence how they are supporting their children in care and using the pupil premium effectively.

There are three categories of PEP available:

Statutory school age
Early years
Post 16

Access to the electronic PEP and training

If your role requires you to have access to the electronic PEP, call Julie Steward, PEP Manager, on 01603 222414.

You will be supplied with passwords to enable you to log onto the web-based system, view PEP's for your Norfolk children and access an online user training manual.

The Virtual School also provides two-hour user training sessions for designated teachers and social workers in Norfolk.

Further information

If you have a query regarding the PEP process call 01603 222414 or email julie.steward@norfolk.gov.uk

Personal education plans for 16-18-year-olds

PEPs identify the educational needs of children in care and promote and raise expectations and aspirations.

All PEP meetings for Norfolk's children in care in Key Stage 5 are now recorded on an electronic web-based system, hosted by a national company called Welfare Call.

Allocated Social workers / leaving care personal advisors and their team managers will have access to the system. The system will also be available to the Designated Support Person (DSP) at all education and training providers currently attended by Norfolk's children in care. (This includes those outside of Norfolk).

Which CIC will need a PEP in Key Stage 5 and how often should they take place?

All children in care in Years 12 & 13 (aged 16-18) should be invited to attend a PEP meeting once a term. This continues to be the case even when the young person has turned 18. Young people who are not in education, employment or training (NEET) will still be required to have a PEP on a termly basis with a focus on re-engagement with education or employment and will include the setting of smart targets.

The only exception to this will be if the young person is in full or part time employment with no training.

What are the advantages of having a KS 5 ePEP?

All age range PEPs will be hosted in one place which will enable users to access a young person's full education history.
Additional documents, including photos can be uploaded to support the PEP.
Templates can be easily updated to keep abreast of statutory and local requirements.
The Designated Support Person (DSP) will be able to access all PEPs relating to young people who are on roll at their school sixth form, college or training centre. If a new student joins them the DSP will have access to their PEP as soon as Welfare Call are notified that they are on roll. (It is essential that the Virtual School are notified promptly of staff changes so the appropriate access can be maintained).
School sixth forms, colleges and training providers can use the information to evidence how they are supporting their in care learners.
PEPs can be evaluated, quality monitored and followed up, and with support and training, improved to reflect smart and ambitious targets and objectives.

What's the process?

NCC Social Workers and Leaving Care Personal Advisors will receive details of how to log on to the secure Welfare Call site and how to create their own secure password. Once on the system staff will be able to access and work on their PEP documentation when it suits them, in advance of the meeting itself. The ePEPs meet all local and national requirements for the secure transfer of confidential student level data. DSP's will have access to the Welfare Call site in the same way as NCC staff.

Access to the electronic PEP

If staff already have access to the Welfare Call ePEP system because they are allocated pupils of statutory school age then they will be able to use this to access KS5 PEP's.

If staff do not already have this access but they are responsible for the completion of the KS5 PEP for specific young people in the care of Norfolk they will receive:

An email from Welfare Call with NCC's introductory letter and confirmation of their web address - extranet.welfarecall.com - followed by
A second email from Welfare Call providing them with their user name and initial password (both case sensitive) to access the system. (Please keep the code quoted in these original emails as they may be needed later).

Once the link has been pasted into an internet search and enter has been clicked, staff will be presented with a log in page. They should enter the user name and initial password as provided by Welfare Call.

Don't forget!

You will have to refresh pages to see any updates you have included.
Click save as you go along - the system will automatically timeout after 40 minutes. (If you do get logged out, ring Welfare Call Customer Service Team on 01226 716333 who will attempt a recovery of data).

Where the system is colour-coded by text, it is the responsibility of:

Blue = social worker / leaving care personal advisor
Red = school
Purple = both/either

You can either:

Type straight into the PEP templates at the meeting, or
You can download/print each page to take to the meeting and then complete on-line as soon as possible after the meeting.

The Virtual School will continue to offer training opportunities to all professionals responsible for the completion of PEP documentation. They will also provide additional support regarding the process when necessary and will develop a collective understanding of what a high quality PEP for KS 5 students looks like.

Details of multi-agency training workshop opportunities are available on the training section of the Virtual School website.

Should you have any general queries regarding the Key Stage 5 ePEP, please contact Norfolk's Virtual School for Children in Care on 01603 222414 or via email at virtual.schools@norfolk.gov.uk.

Monitoring the attendance of children in care

Attendance monitoring and tracking has always been a priority for the Virtual School for Children in Care. If our young people are not attending school they will not be progressing and fulfilling their educational potential. It is crucial to mention that Attendance is everyone's responsibility and in consequence we have joined up with our colleagues in the Attendance Team to improve outcomes for our young people.

Additionally, in line with the extension of the Virtual School head role to include Children with a Social Worker (September 2021), the Virtual School was tasked with working strategically to ensure there is culture of high aspirations for children with a social worker and to promote their educational outcomes including their engagement with education. As part of this work, the Virtual School has joined up with the existing support offered by the Attendance team to further the understanding of barriers to and supporting the improvement of attendance of children with a social worker.

This partnership has included the additional resource of funding an Attendance Entitlement Officer (AEO) with responsibility across all of the Virtual School cohorts.

The offer of support is structured in a tiered response aligned to the offer of Virtual School support for all cohorts.

The work of the linked Virtual School AEO allows targeted school and pupil-level work in response to our attendance data and dynamic bespoke pupil-level support when requested by a Virtual School adviser.

Pupil premium for children in care

Guidance for schools

The pupil premium funding for children in care is additional funding allocated to schools to support pupils in the care of the local authority.

The funding is to:

Help achieve better educational outcomes for children in care
Close the attainment gap with their peers.

It is the statutory responsibility of the Virtual School Head to manage this fund. They must ensure that any funding allocated meets the child's educational needs, as described in their Personal Education Plan (PEP).

There is evidence that PP+ is most effective when used across 3 areas identified in the DfE's Menu of Approaches, and we would expect schools to prioritise these, in accordance with needs identified in a young person's PEP:

High-quality teaching, such as staff professional development
Targeted academic support, such as tutoring
Wider strategies to address non-academic barriers to success in schools, such as attendance, behaviour, and social and emotional support

Norfolk process for the allocation of the pupil premium grant 2024-25

For details of the Norfolk Pupil Premium Plus funding policy please see guidance which can be downloaded from the bottom of the page.

For further information read Pupil premium 2024-25 : conditions of grant

Exceptional Funding

All requests for exceptional funding should be submitted before putting an intervention in place, as funding is never guaranteed.

Any requests above £600 per term should be discussed with your Virtual School Adviser.

Need more help?

Contact Clare Farrant, Pupil Premium Manager on 01603 307769 or email clare.farrant@norfolk.gov.uk

Reference group

Aims

The Virtual School for Children in Care and Previously in Care Reference Group aims to be a champion for educational outcomes for Children in Care and Previously in Care and to support the LA with their duties to care leavers, and:

Ensure best practice for Children in Care and Previously in Care becomes universal practice for all education and learning providers
Ensure every individual young person in our care achieves their potential through learning, to reach and develop aspirations
Challenge and support the team around the child and the professional network who are supporting Children in Care and Previously in Care to deliver an enhanced experience for these young people.
Explore and understand the barriers to young people in the Care System in reaching their potential through learning, increasing the awareness and understanding of the needs, demands and impact of being a Child in Care
Ensure that where needed, resources are appropriately allocated and targeted to the young people that require them
To ensure that the 'voice of the child' is both heard and acted upon

Terms of Reference

To keep under review the progress and achievement of the Children in Care and Previously in Care, through analysing the 'data set' and wider contextual information and challenge where necessary
To monitor the quality and completion of PEPs ensuring all Children in Care achieve their potential when they have completed their education
Set expectations of best practice for Children in Care and Previously in Care and share and embed this at every opportunity
Identify, understand and monitor the reduction of barriers to Children in Care and Previously in Care achieving their potential within the education sector
Seek opportunities to create partnerships and enhanced partnership working to achieve joint best practice
Provide challenge and support for the Virtual School Head
Ensure that the work of the Virtual School aligns with other strategies
Provide advice and support to Norfolk County Council in its practices for supporting the education of Children in Care and Previously in Care
To ensure that the Reference Group informs The Corporate Parenting Board
To listen to the 'voice of the child' and monitor the impact of their views
To listen to the 'voice of the carer' and monitor the impact of their views
To share good practice across services particularly in respect of other vulnerable groups

Membership

Head of Virtual School
County Council Children's Services representative members
Independent Statutory Service (IRO)
Representatives from each of the Primary, Secondary and Post 16 sectors
Representatives from the Special school sector
Council officers in attendance
Foster Care Representative
Social care

In addition

Put forward a proposal and our Terms of Reference to the CP Board, recommending that the Virtual School Reference Group feeds into the Board.