School dissatisfaction and mental health concerns are driving home education rise, says children's services boss
Plus a Corby housing scheme is rejected and the North unitary is facing a budget overspend again
The new head of children’s services at North Northamptonshire Council has said the main reason home educated children numbers are rising is school dissatisfaction and mental health issues.
Charisse Monero said there were about 1,200 children in the North of the county who are now educated within their home rather than a traditional school setting.
She told the council’s future communities executive advisory board yesterday that since arriving in the job several weeks ago, it was one of the stand out issues for her. She said her department had spoken to parents who had removed their child from school to home educate and many felt they had done so because they had no other choice.
She said:
“What we do know in terms of the statistical evidence is that the main reasons that children are electively home educated is either dissatisfaction with the school or areas around mental health and wellbeing.”
She said plans she would be acting on would be speaking with schools that had higher numbers of children leaving to be home educated. She said she had identified ten schools (five primary and five secondary) where she would speak to the head teachers about what support they can put in place, and why they think the pupils are leaving.
She said the authority would also need to develop an early help mental offer in schools to help children stay in school.
She said she also wanted to reduce the numbers of Northants children being taught at home and is hosting some summits about home education. She said mainstream school would not be right for some children and the authority would start to think about having alternative provision hubs.
Labour councillor for Corby West Cllr Jean Addison, said she was aware of home schooling groups that were setting up in Corby and asked what oversight the authority had of them.
She said:
“I am quite concerned about safeguarding children and who is actually forming these groups. Are they the right groups for children to be going to?”
In response Charisse Monero said the authority had done a rigorous check of those home educated to understand what proportion of children were known to social services. She said last week there were 135 home visits by her safeguarding team. She said there were no escalations of any child to a higher level of safeguarding following the visits and that regular checks will be ongoing.
There are also more than 1,000 children home educated in the West of the county.
In March 2020 there were just over 1,000 children home schooled across the whole county.
News in brief:
Plans to build 150 homes on the former Corby town centre Co-op site, which has been derelict since 2016, have been rejected.
The scheme was for three blocks of apartment buildings up to six storeys tall on the former retail services site in Alexandra Road. The current buildings would have also been knocked down to make way for the residential plans.
Applicant Glenrowan Homes, a local firm based in Corby, also registered their intentions to North Northamptonshire Council (NNC) to build more than 2,100sqft of commercial floorspace.
The application received 43 letters of objection in total, along with an objection lodged by the local MP Lee Barron. Concerns were raised about the high-density of homes, the number of parking spaces being ‘substantially below’ parking standards and concerns on the impact on local amenities and infrastructure.
Officers told members that there was a “desperate need” for smaller housing units, such as the ones planned on this site, for young people coming into the area to live and work.
Debating the plans, Cllr Alison Dalziel told fellow committee members:
“This site definitely needs something done to it, it is an absolute tip at the moment. But, whether this is the right thing I really don’t know. To say this is in keeping existing developments in Corby- I cannot name an existing development in Corby that is six storeys high.
“To have something as imposing and as dense as this looks I just don’t feel that it’s the right thing for what is actually a quite small piece of land. It used to be a supermarket and not a big supermarket at that. To think of 350 to 400 people living on that piece of land just, to me, does not make sense.”
Planning committee members voted to refuse the application at the end of last month as a result of what they saw as the overdevelopment, the high-density scale of the flats and impact on nearby residents.
Report by Nadia Lincoln, local democracy reporter
Plans to build a care complex for elderly people and children with special needs in a Northamptonshire village have been approved despite dozens of objections.
A vacant piece of land in Long Buckby near the railway station, to the south of Bakers Lane, can now be used for a 68-bed care home and 17 extra care units. Applicant Just Pubs Ltd says the new facility aims to support both elderly residents and children aged between five and 18 with special needs, with staff available to offer one-on-one care.
The two-and-a-half-story elderly persons’ care home will be situated on the east of the site, and the one-bed assisted living bungalows will be separated to the west. Just Pubs Ltd has confirmed that the site would create 80 full-time equivalent jobs in total.
The proposals offer 46 parking spaces in total, with 27 parking bays intended for the care home and a further 19 spaces for the care units. There have been 27 letters of objection to the care facility as concerns have been raised around the level of parking, the impact on local medical services and clogged-up roads.
Malcolm Sniders, chair of the Buckby Meadows Residents Association told the West Northamptonshire Council (WNC) planning hearing:
“The key concern relates to parking provision both on and off-site. The staff required to support these 85 people, plus their visitors will surely require more than the 46 spaces despite the views of the applicant.
“The number of visitors, both professionals and relatives and friends, is likely to be high given the mix of elderly people and children. Additional parking needs to be provided either on-site or by reaching an agreement for off-site parking.”
Cllr Daniel Lister, a WNC ward councillor for the area, also raised concerns that people were already parking “nefariously” on the surrounding street rather than in the nearby train station car park.
The plans were ultimately approved by the council on Wednesday, November 6.
By Nadia Lincoln
Newly released papers have shown that North Northants unitary is currently £9m over budget, with £2m of that due to paying agency staff to complete education health care plans. The finances will be discussed by the executive next Thursday.
The authority is also going to spend more than £5m on upgrading buildings in Kettering and acquiring a building in Wellingborough for staff from the children’s trust to work from. Another £15m will be spent on providing four in house children’s homes.
As David suggested, running schools as mini businesses (academies) and a drive on achievement/results have caused this issue ... Focus on wellbeing and kids will be happier and have less issues. More kids will be in school. Also - fining parents and create unnecessary worry over term-time absences will push people to home educate.
This massive rejection of the schools by so many parents who care about their childrens education should be seen as a failure of the privatised school system where contractors run the academies.
Isn't it time we took a serious look at this arrangement and thought about bringing the schools back into the public sector as the profit motive clearly does not work here.