The term BIP is increasingly evident in professional conversation within the service and in the three Excellence Cluster areas, perhaps now is a good time to brief colleagues on BIP and where we are in implementing this new strategy.

A behaviour strategy announced in Dec 2002 with a universal element (KS3 B&A strand) and a targeted element (BIP) was launched to address a number of key concerns, these included:

  • Levels of pupils’ unauthorised absence remaining unchanged
  • Poor standards of behaviour in some schools
  • The impact of poor behaviour on all pupils affected by it and their attainment
  • The amount of school management time taken up dealing with behaviour
  • The negative impact of pupil behaviour on recruitment and retention, especially newly qualified staff
  • The correlation between poor attendance and behaviour by pupils and their subsequent life chances, especially those excluded from school

The BIP has been targeted at those areas of the country supported either through Excellence in Cities or Excellence Clusters, this is a deliberate strategy to provide additional funds for those areas where deprivation and standards are a cause for concern. Lincolnshire BIP is in the final phase of the programme and has funding for a period of three years from April 05.

What is BIP? This grant is unique in many ways as it is not explicitly linked to the standards agenda. It reflects much that has subsequently being identified and developed through Every Child Matters and the most recent Children’s Act and has four principle objectives that all BIP schools have to sign up to, they are:

  • To improve overall levels of behaviour
  • To reduce the number of fixed term and permanent exclusions
  • To improve overall attendance levels and reduce unauthorised absence
  • To ensure that all pupils identified as being 'at risk' are attached to a named person, this person may be a member of staff in a school or may be from another agency

Who are the BIP schools, how were they selected? A school can only be a BIP school if it is in an Excellence Cluster. A school can only be considered for BIP status if data demonstrates a high level of need in terms of exclusion rates, attendance issues, behavioural difficulties, high levels of children that could be identified as being 'at risk' in the context of BIP criteria and has the capacity to take on and deliver on this challenging project. School’s nominated themselves, were nominated by the SIS and the LEA and the nominations were then subject to an analysis of trend line data re attendance and exclusion and school’s submissions were assessed by an external consultant.

Schools by geographic cluster

Boston - The Haven High, Carlton Road, The Park and St Nicholas

Grantham - Queen Eleanor, The Church, St Hugh’s, Spitalgate, Belton Lane, Isaac Newton and Bluecoat

Spalding – Gleed Girls, Gleed Boys, The Peele, St Paul’s and Sutton St James

What do they do and what resources are there? There are four mandatory and 7 recommended strands, in Lincolnshire we will be addressing the following:

Mandatory

Full time education from day one of an exclusion and to reduce exclusions

Attendance and tackling truancy

Full Service Extended School (FSES) in each cluster

Identify pupils " at risk" and allocate them a named key worker

Recommended

Additional learning mentors (to be known as BIP mentors)

Learning Support Units in all BIP schools

Lead Behaviour Professional in each BIP school

Social Emotional and Behavioural Skills (SEBS)

In addition to the above strategies and resources further support will be given to the BIP schools through the appointment of additional EWO’s who will work exclusively with the BIP schools and their communities. This support will be in addition to that already provided through the EWO service and will raise the profile and the capacity of the EWO role in combating non-attendance. These new posts will be affectionately known as BIPWO’s! More support staff will be appointed to the Grantham and Boston PRU’s to enable them to develop more proactive strategies with primary and secondary schools in dealing with highly disruptive pupils and by so doing reduce the need for formal exclusions.

Schools will be required to set challenging targets re attendance, exclusions and identified "at risk" pupils and to put in place processes using the above resources to achieve them.

Key to the success of the mandatory and recommended strategies is the development of effective multi agency support to ensure the needs of individual pupils are met by the agencies best suited to do so. BIP is Children’s Services in action and every effort is being made to involve other agencies from the outset.

How much is available to support BIP? There is a total budget of £2.34 million in year one and a similar amount in subsequent years.

What’s a Full Service Extended School? Each cluster will have at least one FSES with the intention of providing a campus where a range of services, opportunities and advice can be made available to the community throughout the year. It is not for the school to offer the services directly but for the provision to be accessed from the school campus or from a range of campuses. FSES’s will be expected to offer learning opportunities for the community, study support programmes, access to caring and support agencies, ICT and sport, child care, family support programmes etc. The FSES’s in Lincolnshire are:

The Haven High, St Hugh’s, The Gleed Campus and The Peele.

In addition to this the FSES’s will work closely with those primary schools with designated Children’s Centres to ensure that provision and services are not replicated.

How’s all this being managed? Technically the responsibility lies with the three Excellence Clusters to monitor and evaluate the progress and outcomes of the BIP. It is the cluster that agrees the funding proposals and receives reports from the BIP schools on a termly basis and an analysis of outcomes annually. The establishment of BIP in Lincolnshire is being undertaken by Paul Snook, who has been seconded from his present role in CFBT at the request of the three Excellence Clusters. The strategic role is supported by two BIP Coordinators with responsibility for the delivery of BIP at cluster and school level.

Boston and Spalding (Pam Mellor (formally a youth worker and more recently a Head of KS4 at the Haven High Technology College)

Grantham and Stamford (Liz Neal (formally a KS3 consultant, trainee HT and deputy HT of the Earl of Scarborough)

The BIP is managed nationally on behalf of the DfES by Price Waterhouse Coopers, it is their responsibility to challenge, monitor and support BIPs especially via self-assessment frameworks and termly data returns.

When does it go live? The BIP team are currently working with the BIP schools to identify need, audit concerns and draft development plans and in school strategies. It is anticipated that BIP will formally start in the autumn term with an expectation that even though the programme is being "rolled out," there will be a reduction in exclusions and evidence of strategies to improve attendance starting to have effect. The FSES’s will take longer to develop and it anticipated that the earliest launch date for these will be Spring 2006.

We hope to have an official launch early in the autumn term, with the full involvement of schools, their communities and the media.

I hope that this brief summary of BIP is of value to you, please feel free to share it with colleagues, schools and supporting agencies.

Paul Snook
Strategic Director BIP
01522 553273
mobile 07919 167641
psnook@cfbt.com
June 2005