Role and responsibilities
It is a statutory requirement for each school to have a named Designated Teacher to promote the educational outcomes for Children Looked After and Previously Looked After. They should be a senior teacher, who is able to have influence over policy and practice in the school.
The Designated Teacher takes responsibility for ensuring that the school community has a good understanding of the needs of these vulnerable children. A Designated Teacher should be a strong advocate for these children and should ensure appropriate training and development takes place in the school.
The Designated Teacher must ensure a PEP takes place each term for each Child Looked After, ensuring prompt and high quality record keeping. They should also ensure dissemination of information and targets agreed at the PEP to key professionals and ensure actions take place.
The Designated Teacher should promote strong relationships with the young people, carers, Virtual School, Social Workers and other key professionals in the network to support the child’s education.
Pupil Premium Plus
The Virtual School Headteacher receives £2530 per year for each statutory school age Child Looked After. There is an allocation of £300 per year for Early Years CLA.
Sutton Virtual School makes £300 per year available for post 16 CLA (currently no Gov funding for this cohort). A college receives a bursary of around £1200 that can be used to support purchase of learning resources and travel to college.
The school receives £2530 for every Children Previously Looked After that is recorded on the school census and the school must allocate this funding to support the needs of Children Previously Looked After. Eligibility for pupil premium plus has been extended to adopted from outside of England.
Use of funding
The Virtual School Headteacher has discretion to use the Pupil Premium Plus funding to promote the educational outcome of Children Looked After.
The Designated Teacher should make an application for Pupil Premium Plus funding by allocating funding to relevant SMART targets in the PEP. There is up to £600 PPP funding available at each statutory school age PEP, and further funding requests can be submitted to the Virtual School Headteacher.
The EEF have a guide to using Pupil Premium Plus funding appropriately based on research and evidence that should be viewed by Designated Teachers.
Sutton Virtual School will consider a wide range of requests for funding however it can not be used for the following:
- Base education costs
- Uniform
- Transport and travel
- Costs that should be covered by EHCP or SEND notional budget for a child who is not looked after
Further guidance on Pupil Premium Plus funding can be used found on DfE website