Scottish Armed Forces Education Support Group minutes: March 2024

Attendees and apologies

• Scottish Government (SG) Learning Directorate (Chair)
• Scottish Government (SG) Learning Directorate (Minutes)
• Education Scotland, Inclusion, Wellbeing and Equalities (ES)
• Scottish Government (SG) Safer Communities Directorate  
• Association of Directors of Education in Scotland (ADES) National Education and Transitions Officer (NEO)
• Association of Directors of Education in Scotland (ADES) Adviser (AA)
• Forces Children Scotland (FCS)
• Royal Navy (RN)
• MOD Armed Forces, Children and Young People Directorate (MOD)
• Royal Air Force (RAF)
• Army Families Federation (AFF)
• Naval Family Federation (NFF)
• RAF Family Federation (RFF)

Apologies

 

• Deputy Commander of HQ 51st Infantry Brigade
• MOD Army Representative

Items and actions

Actions from previous meeting

The first action was for SG to share an overview of the Additional Support for Learning Action Plan once the Progress Report has been published. The group were informed that a progress update will be provided at the next SAFESG meeting.

The second action was the SG will draft a proposed plan for meetings in 2024 and share with the group for comment.  This will include a focus session on systems/transfer of data for mobile families. The group were informed that this was shared with the minutes and agreed as a plan for the year.  It will be adapted as discussions progress and additional priorities are identified throughout the year.

The third action was for SG to consider feedback on Code of Practice and will seek guidance from members of SAFESG around specifics on Armed Forces children and young people. The group were informed that the ADES Adviser has undertaken a review of the various Code of Practices from the UK.  This will be looked at in detail at the next meeting.

The final actions were for SG to meet with FCS prior to the next meeting, and for FCS to provide an update at the next meeting on themes. Scottish Government officials met with the CEO of FCS and had an informative discussion around their operational procedures.  FCS provided update to the group on trends in the topic’s Children and Young People of armed forces families are discussing with them.  FCS feel that Children and Young People are being more engaging, open and have a better familiarity with the services, due to them now being in their second year, and this will be a key factor to why they have seen a difference in the statistics from 2022/23 to 2023/24.

Safeguarding – updates/questions from SAFESG members

Group members discussed the processes and procedures they, as organisations, have in place to ensure that all safeguarding concerns are raised to the most appropriate individual for them to be acted upon.

The MOD have developed ‘safeguarding standing orders’ which are for local commands to follow in issues of safeguarding concerns. The safeguarding standing orders are currently for overseas bases and England, but there will be a need for something similar within Scottish commands. raise This work will be shared with  the group and there will be an opportunity to collaborate with SAFESG members to produce something similar in the future.

Data collection

SG met with statisticians from the SG Education Analysis team and had a positive discussion. As the indicator is already within SEEMiS for Armed Forces Children and Families, to be able to collect the data they will not require a business case. There will be a meeting in May 2024 to discuss next steps and the best means for collating the data.

A request has been submitted requesting that when the pupil census data is collated in September they also pull Armed Forces Children and Families data, this will allow the data to be broken down to indicate where a child or young person is noted as having an Additional Support Need. SG explained that this data is already being collected by ADES and collecting the data through the Annual Pupil Census would remove the need for Local Authorities to provide this information independently, reducing the need to duplicate returns. Due to the agreement process that this will have to go through it is unlikely that this dataset will be available this year, the first collection will potentially be  2025.  NEO and ADES will continue to collate the data for 2024/25 in the meantime.

Actions:

• SG and NEO to continue discussions to ensure that the information that the Scottish Government are producing is comparable with what is share with currently available.
• NEO to share the data collection that was produced for 2023 with members of SAFESG at the next group meeting.

SAFESG terms of reference

The group discussed the groups terms of reference, and all relevant changes have been noted. The changes will be reflected on the website in due course.

Any Other Business

Transitions

The MOD provided advanced notice of possible movements that will be happening in Scotland that may have a sizable impact on local services and on those families that will be moved. One of those regiments will be an internal (Scotland) move but they know that there will be others moved from different areas of the UK also. AFFS visited the area and was able to have a discussion with those involved in the move, from the feedback there has been some engagement with the local authority and AFFS has requested that there is an education focus incorporated at the earliest stage possible to that.

The MOD highlighted that there will also be movement in and out of the barracks at Dreghorn in 2027 but there will not be an increase / decrease of personnel based there.

Members also discussed the shortage of Early Learning and Childcare facilities within some Local Authorities and the impact this is having on service children and families.

Date of the next meeting

The group have agreed to have two supplementary meetings in 2024.

The next meeting will be held on 7 May 2024.