To think if children do not go back (to school) until. September, thats a lot of very vulnerable children who have been completely off the radar for 6 months??

[calpolatdawn]

Its one of my main concerns really. By this i dont mean that are vulnerable because they are poor with disabled, unable to work, or hardworking parents. I mean at risk of domestic abuse, other forms of abuse or maybe poverty, job losses, stress as a result of that,But too proud to access help. aibu in wondering what might come out after this is over, 4 children in this country have died already in DV murders 😔, i get very worried,.

Provision seems to vary.

Dd goes to nursery in a deprived area.
I get a weekly phone call and there's a food pantry run out of the nursery.
Parents are encouraged to use it if needed and, of course, this gives the nursery an opportunity to see parents face to face.
I think the teachers have a pretty good idea how all the families are coping.

DS goes to a leafy primary school. We have no contact at all. Sometimes I send an email just to let them know we're OK, in case there were safeguarding concerns they haven't mentioned to me. I don't get replies but at least I've shown willingness to engage.
I suspect they have no clue how families are coping.

Social Services have scaled back their provision drasticly. I will be interested to see how that pans out.
Some kids will be left in situations they should have been removed from.
On the other hand social services involvement can be an additional stressor in itself and some families may cope better with that pressure removed.
I wouldn't be surprised if the effect is neutral overall.

It is a worry. We get a weekly phone call asking how ds2 is. We say fine. They say goodbye. It's not really going to pick up any issues.

NeverTwerkNaked. Slt have invited in (insisted in some cases) all known vulnerable students, be they ECHP/SEN/at risk of dv/FSM,as well as a couple of families where parents have split up during lockdown.

If we don’t know that they’re vulnerable, we can’t psychically divine this, so we’re doing our best to keep in touch. There are google meets weekly x 2 with every group, plus a contact form for students to fill in. which has thrown up some issues. If a student hasn’t been in touch, the form tutor notifies the head of year who then phones home. There have been home visits too for non-responsive families\kids who aren’t completing work set. I think we’re doing a bloody good job, actually.

They aren't off the radar.

This is what my school are doing:
Fortnightly phone calls to every child and weekly or more often for more vulnerable kids.
Vulnerable children encouraged to join key workers kids in school.
Emails to parents
EHA and TAF meetings still going ahead
Communicating with children via Google Classroom every day.
Children can report issues privately to us via our learning platform and were shown how to do this. They were also given a leaflet with all contact details on and taught how to contact school.
They have been shown how to report online issues to us and to CEOP.
Doorstep visits.
Learning packs dropped off by hand with a chat on the doorstep.
EWO informed/extra doorstop visit if families aren't responding to calls, texts or emails.

Some larger schools have dedicated entire teams to caring for vulnerable kids. In smaller schools there are processes in place with the class teacher and safeguarding leads both taking a role in every vulnerable child's safety.

The problem is that lots of people are disadvantaged by this

So many threads saying ‘what about’ X Y X

But it’s NOT the schools fault
And frankly not everything is the governments fault either

Imperfect world + pandemic

Each class in my primary school has a contact sheet of weekly contact. Before lockdown, we made a list of all families we considered might be vulnerable during lockdown and they are contacted twice a week by phone call from two dedicated staff members. The children are also spoken to. Every other family, if contact hasn't been made via email or by the kids being online then each week then we phone. If they don't answer, we visit the home. If a child has been online but we haven't had any other contact for 2-3 weeks, we phone. As often as possible we speak to the children too, although some of the younger ones don't want to talk on the phone, but we can hear them in the background.

We have brought several children back into school after these welfare checks because we had concerns about them at home. We also deliver breakfast parcels to families whose kids rely on the free breakfasts we provide at school.

I work in a deprived area and student welfare has been our number one priority throughout. We may not be delivering a full timetable of zoom lessons but we have done everything possible to make sure our pupils are safe. Some may slip through the net - there are some parents that are extremely good at hiding things even in normal times - but we feel that we've done as much as possible to ensure the safety of our families.

"Cherrysoup

Bit of a click bait title! Our vulnerable students have been encouraged to come in and the SEN department have had them in daily. They’ve had calls, meetings, regular contact. I think you’re uninformed at best, a goady wind up merchant at best."

Have you read the thread at all Cherry. Theres lots of people saying they havent been contacted. How do you know who is vulnerable if you havent seen them for 3 months?

I find it very worrying that purported school staff are reading the OP and conflating SEN with having an unsafe home life.

They're really not the same thing at all. Lovely, well-mannered superachieving girls from your top set can be victims of child abuse.

Before lockdown, no member of school staff without a magic wand could know every child who should be classed as at risk, because that is the nature of the issue. They definitely don't know all of them now after months of being unable to even see them.

At the moment vulnerable refers to two groups, those educationally vulnerable with SEN and especially those with EHCPs and also those physically vulnerable with social service involvement ( or the potential for). Sometimes the two groups overlap and sometimes they don't.

@spanieleyes

At the moment vulnerable refers to two groups, those educationally vulnerable with SEN and especially those with EHCPs and also those physically vulnerable with social service involvement ( or the potential for). Sometimes the two groups overlap and sometimes they don't.

Exactly. If you're seeing all the kids with known SEN, you're... seeing all the kids with known SEN.

Wonderful achievement but you haven't got eyes on the children who are vulnerable for other reasons.

We have the known vulnerable children in school, those with social worker involvement, those with chaotic home lives, those we know are struggling. We are making referrals when we are unsure about children, we are making home visits, phoning, messaging and sending the police round! Until we can get all children back into school there is going to be a risk that someone will be missed.

We have had a very mixed response. We have 3 dds and an ill dh. Dd3s school is aware but the secondary is probably not.
The primary has rung a couple of times but has not spoken to dd3. They enquired whether circumstances have changed as fo wr need helo etc. All good.dd3 has engaged with some home learning so pretty ok.
Dd1 is a model student who should have sat GCSEs this year but gas continued to engage in home learning and her form tutor and House leader have both rung.
Dd2 is a school refuser. School is not her safe space. It is quite the reverse. She has been out of school since January. CAMHS support has been non existent as she can't do phone calls. She was due to be assessed for autism and a request for medical needs tuition done but nothing has happened. She has not engaged in home learning despite my best efforts.
It really was out of sight out if mind as I have heard nothing from the school until this week.

I think some schools are better set up for this than others.

I teach in a school in a deprived area with high levels of social services involvement pre Covid. We are contacting all families weekly and we have a dedicated parent support worker who is supporting known vulnerable families with things like applying for benefits. Her caseload is increasing all the time. We also provide food hampers and can help families access nappies etc if needed. We are delivering paper copies of our home learning as many families have no devices or internet and we spend a lot of time talking things through with parents.

My DS goes to a primary school in a classic leafy suburb. We had one phone call about him. I took the call as I was on my lunch break at work. His teacher asked a few questions but wasn’t bothered that she couldn’t speak to DS and indeed hasn’t contacted again. We aren’t vulnerable but could have become so for all they know.

Completely agree with you. My school haven't been in touch at all. I've not sent any work in because I don't think they're interested. My dad died 6 weeks ago and again, they're not interested how we're coping. Schools will know of some vulnerable kids but not all, and this pandemic is making things difficult for the most resilient, well adjusted families. People that weren't in abusive situations 6 months ago could be in them now. That's why I think all children should be in school for some of the time now. My kids haven't seen any professional adult since March and I think that's terrible.

Sorry to hear about your Dad frazzled

@calpolatdawn and others. Procedure at my school looks like this:

• Teachers & parents know that teacher needs to hear from parents weekly.
• If no email, Zoom or other contact by Thursday, teacher starts calling home.
• If teacher can’t raise anything, head of department starts ringing down all contact of child on Friday
• Departmebt heads pass names of MIA students to safeguarding lead mid-afternoon Friday.
• Safeguarding Lead makes a couple of calls in out of hours times.
• If Safeguarding Lead can’t raise anyone, by Monday a 2 person home visit is being organised.

So it isn’t easy to fall through the cracks - but I do have a concern about a couple of families who kicked off about the contact & then de-registered. Hmm. Why?

@Useruseruserusee thanks. More sympathy than I've had from the school. Anyone else tried organising a funeral over the phone with your kids around when they should be at school? It's shit! Anyway, fingers crossed for September.

Social worker here and vulnerable children are most defintely off the radar! Restrictions about home visits and parents saying no to home visits due to shielding or symptoms. Children are not being seen by other agencies or professionals - GP etc.
It's very scary, school is a place of safety, offers routine and meals and not all vulnerable children have special educational needs or are taking up their school places. School can not monitor wellbeing in the same way unless they are seeing the children and can not be expected to do any real safeguarding, as it will be impossible for them to do so.

Agreed Mayhemmumma. My sister is a social worker and says the same. Parents saying no to visits because they want to keep their children ‘safe’ or are shielding, have symptoms. God knows what’s happening inside some homes. She is very worried.

@Cherrysoup your school sounds like it is. But can't you see that lots of us are saying school haven't been in touch at all (and it isn't because they don't have my number, Ds has severe medical issues that mean they used to call regularly). Not once have they checked on any of my 4 Children. Not once have a different school checked on either of my sisters children. And countless people are saying the same.

So teachers who say " well my school is calling every one" are missing the point. They are the equivalent of the men who go " not all men" .

@NeverTwerkNaked

I totally get your point and I did miss the point, yes.

To answer a pp, no, we can’t know if a child has fallen into the vulnerable category (and no, I don’t think only SEN children are vulnerable). The trouble is, how can we know unless social services or the family contact us?

We (and I mean my school, I can’t speak for all schools and I’m not trying to) are doing as much as we can. I think some schools are failing in their duty by the sounds of it.

I worry about some of my students who I know have a not-great home life. Not abused, but largely ignored or there is just a lot of stress and problems at home.

There are kids who are finding being off of school a great relief as well. Which is a terrible indictment of schools. But I do worry about kids who are not getting what they need at home or who are being exploited.

The trouble is, how can we know unless social services or the family contact us?

You open the school to all children, so you at least give the kids the chance to raise issues without other adults around - that might mean you can't provide much time with each child, but I cannot see how not providing any time at all is remotely safe, even if you manage to speak to the child on the phone every week, a phone call with their parent next to them, or a video meeting where the whole class and their parents are listening in are not the times.

@sirfredfredgeorge hit the nail on the head. It's not acceptable for schools to wash their hands of this and blame it all on 'the government' we've had this shit government a long time now, the world needs to keep turning.