More children starting school in West Berkshire need help with toilet training, says council

Government inspectors have been told that a growing number of children in West Berkshire are starting school with underdeveloped social skills, communication difficulties, or requiring additional care like toilet training.

West Berkshire has taken part in a national government deep dive into how children not in school are treated, which will feed into a report aimed at improving services.

Some professionals noted that support for parents before school starts has decreased over time.

Some headteachers said there is a need for more pre-school support to help children become ‘school-ready’.

Headteachers also noted that some of these challenges are sometimes seen as special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) rather than gaps in learning, which schools can address.

West Berkshire Council says it has focused development of early years strategies to address this.

Inspectors from Ofsed and the Care Quality Commission carrying out the survey were told some children who are not in education are presenting with more acute mental health needs, having not been identified earlier as needing more support.

Children not in school, who are with the children with disabilities team, have access to occupational therapy services.

While families who electively home educate their children can use personal budgets for therapy, accessing the right support remains a challenge.

The emotional-based school avoidance team works with primary schools to improve attendance.

Secondary schools can choose to commission the team or implement other approaches.

However, this means it is unclear how equitable the support is for children in secondary schools.

Parents report difficulty accessing health services, especially therapy support, when their child is not in school.

Currently, services such as occupational therapy, physiotherapy and speech and language therapy are only available to children on a school roll.

If a child with an education, health and care (EHC) plan is not in school, parents must privately commission these services.

The council says this system is under review but says there is a shortage of local therapists, and that it can be difficult to find therapists who can provide ongoing support, especially for children who are electively home educated or have an education otherwise than at school package.

Inspectors were told there is ongoing work to use data to identify the children most at risk of not being in education, including the use of flags and alerts to help identify these children.

Some professionals expressed frustration that they don’t have powers to prevent a child being removed from school in order to be electively home educated, even when the professional network agree that it may not be in the child’s best interest.

Other than escalating to seeking court orders for this, it is hard for professionals to contribute to this decision-making.

“We heard from parents that confidence in whether schools can meet their child’s needs is low,” explains the report to West Berkshire Council.

“Additionally, education and health professionals explained that parental anxiety, especially regarding their child's anxiety about school, is a common factor among children with low attendance.”

Data shows that the primary needs identified for low attenders are social, emotional, and mental health needs, followed closely by autism.

The visit was carried out as part of a review, the outcome of which will be put into a national report.

It was not a graded inspection.