Annual impact report 24/25

Our oversight and quality assurance around education provision and outcomes is monitored through our electronic Personal Education Plan (PEP) system.

Every single child in our care has a robust PEP and an accompanying meeting which involves a range of supportive champions within the child's life; designated teacher, virtual school caseworker, social worker, carer, support workers.

In Gateshead, unlike many other Local Authorities, our Virtual School Caseworkers endeavour to attend every PEP meeting for our children, alongside their Care Team Meetings and Child in our Care Reviews, meaning that our Virtual School hold a robust oversight of every single child in care, enabling us to support, challenge and be curious with schools, colleagues and stakeholders.

PEP return 

This year for the first time in the Virtual School's history, we have achieved a 100% return during the Spring and Summer PEP seasons.

PEP development 

This year we have also worked with our designated teachers through our networking meetings to streamline the information held within the PEP making it more useful and supportive. We have streamlined the questions to avoid duplication and ensure more of the core content is pulled through from the previous PEP reducing workload for our designated teachers and ensuring that the focus and time can be better spent looking at the targets, outcomes and planned interventions for children.

Further changes include the alignment of the PEP with the child's EHCP, where appropriate, so the targets on the PEP align and contribute to the targets on the EHCP, meaning that all services are working towards a shared and common goal, allowing more frequent review of learning and progress and again streamlining workload for those professionals involved.

Quality assurance 

This year, an average of 98% of our PEPs were assessed as 'green' through our Quality Assurance process, meaning that the quality is strong and the planned interventions robust.