Respect for All Review: Recording and Monitoring Subgroup Minutes: March 2024

Attendees and apologies

• Support and Wellbeing Unit, Scottish Government (chair)
• Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA)
• NASUWT
• Scottish Secondary Teachers' Association (SSTA)
• National Parent Forum of Scotland (NPFS)
• Glasgow City Council
• SEEMiS
• Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC)
• Support and Wellbeing Unit, Scottish Government (secretariat)

Apologies

• Education Scotland
• National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC)
• Scottish Youth Parliament
• Police Scotland
• respectme
• Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS)
• School Leaders Scotland (SLS)

Items and actions

Welcome and introductions

The chair welcomed attendees and apologies were noted.

Background and key themes

The chair highlighted that the working group supporting the Respect for All update had agreed that certain areas of the guidance will require more in depth consideration and updates, one of which is recording and monitoring.

The chair highlighted a number of pieces of work that has taken place over the past year in relation to recording and monitoring:

• Education Scotland’s thematic inspection of recording and monitoring
• Relationships and Behaviour Summit that focused on recording and monitoring (elements of which also came out in the Behaviour in Schools Research report)

The chair confirmed that the Scottish Advisory Group on Relationships and Behaviour in Schools (SAGRABIS) are also currently developing an action plan which pulls together the findings from the summits, BISSR and range of other work to respond to the concerns arising.

Respect for All: Recording and monitoring

The chair welcomed an open discussion from members on the guidance, concerns being raised and what can be done within the guidance in relation to recording and monitoring.

The aim is to publish Respect for All late in 2024. Members thoughts were welcomed on what actions should be taken in the short and long term in relation to recording and monitoring.

The Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills has made it clear all incidents should be recorded and accepts there will be an increase in incidents. The Chair acknowledged there are still concerns within schools if they are seen to have an increase in incidents. However, it is key if we are to identify issues and drive improvements.

The chair invited comments from members. Some points raised were:

• Staff have reported that they don’t feel they should record an incident until an investigation has been completed. You can’t follow up with a student if it’s denied. Should be based on evidence.
• Concerns around recording incidents that take place outside of school. Again, schools would require evidence to record as an incident.
• Would be helpful to know more about the other systems schools are using – what is in them that isn’t in SEEMiS?
• Reminder that Respect for All is for wider than schools meaning we can’t mandate the use of systems externally by other organisations.
• Feel it is untidy having supplementary guidance separate to Respect for All.  
• Snapshots and bullet points may work better as current version is too wordy and needs tightened up. Suggest it could be more graphic orientated when launched. Also should be supported by a training package.
• If a young person says they have been bullied, this should be recorded. Even if it can’t be proved, if someone is expressing that concern, it should be noted somewhere.
• If incidents are recorded that turn out to be untrue or not proved then SEEMiS allows the functionality to change the record to ‘unfounded’ which ensures these reports do not impact on figures.
• Members were clear that incidents of bullying or violence towards staff should be kept separate from incidents between young people.

Glasgow provided an update on the work they have undertaken around recording and monitoring after recognising they had significant underreporting. Key points were:

• All incidents of bullying get recorded on SEEMiS. No prior judgment from staff, all get recorded then they decide whether unfounded or founded
• Written into policy
• No issues with SEEMiS functionality
• Mandatory training last session to support this
• Pictorial guidance issued to staff and parents
• Charter of expectations in schools
• Narrative to confirm we would expect figures to increase and LA would handle that and the FOIs centrally
• If schools report no incidents of bullying then that gets drilled down into and reviewed
• Carried out a consultation with Glasgow parents network and issued guidance for parents

SEEMiS set out some information in response to the points raised:

• Location that bullying takes place can be recorded on SEEMiS and includes wider that in-school locations, including online, phone, gaming, school community and school transport (and multiple can be selected).
• Local authorities are able to give schools access to the Business Intelligence (BI) reporting tool to allow them to drill down into their school data further. However, this is a decision for local authorities. Local authorities can decide who has access to certain reports.
• SEEMiS is funded by local government so any new work taken forward would have to be led and decided by members.  
• SEEMiS provides all training packages free of charge. Happy to provide these training sessions online and can also be targeted to specific local authorities.

Action: SEEMiS colleagues agreed to share the technical guidance for the Bullying and Equalities module.

AOB

No other business was raised. The chair thanked members for attending and closed the meeting.