Participation in Learning for 16 to 18 Year Olds

Buckinghamshire Council has a duty to encourage young people to continue learning. We aim to prevent young people from becoming not in employment, education or training (NEET). Schools have a key role to play in this. They help information flow between Buckinghamshire Council, students, parents and carers.

Information Sharing

We ask you to share information about Year 11s and older students.  Careers, Sixth Form and Data Leads and School Administrators may contribute to this. The legal basis for sharing information is the Education and Skills Act 2008. The School Privacy Notice you issue to new students and parents explains the process to them. 

Benefits to you and your students

Some of the benefits to sharing this information include: 

• Helps to prevent your students from disengaging from learning after Year 11. 
• Assists you in meeting your Gatsby Benchmark 3.
• Helps support services to reach out to any student who becomes NEET. 

Calendar and resources

The key times you need to share information are: 

• Autumn term: Enrolment 
• Spring term: What Next Survey and Potential NEET
• Summer term: Offers and GCSE Results Day

Schools must tell the Council if a student leaves year 12 or 13 before the end of their course.  You can do this by completing a ‘Post 16 School Students Leaving Courses’ form.

Please add the name of your school to the file name. Then ask your school administrator to return the form to us. They should use the secure AnyComms Plus website for this. The file type to choose is ‘Post 16 Leavers’.

Schools must issue a Privacy Notice to all new students and parents.  The notice explains how you will use their personal data.  You can send this out with other communications such as an induction pack or school diary.

Please ensure that all students aged 13 or above have received the Privacy Notice.  This is vital for the work Buckinghamshire Council must do by law.  When students have received the notice you can share ‘relevant’ information with us.  This includes telephone numbers and email addresses.  We need this to track their activity after Year 11 and to support them to continue learning.

You are only not allowed to share this if the parent, or the pupil if they are age 16 or above, has objected.  If you receive any objections you must record them on your school census return.  You should enter ‘no’ in the ‘Youth Services Support Assent’ field to reflect this.

Students enrolled in years 12 to 14 

Schools must tell us about the students they have on roll in Years 12 to 14.  We issue an article in the School Bulletin to remind you at the start of September.

You should list new starters and those who are continuing on their current course.  You need to include each student’s:

• last name 
• first name 
• date of birth 
• address 
• unique pupil number (if you have issued the school privacy notice and no objection has been raised)

To help you do this, we send your school a template through the secure AnyComms Plus website.  AnyComms Plus will send an email to let your school office know when the template is ready to download.  We will include full details about how and when to return it. 

You can provide the list in a different Excel or CSV format if you prefer. 

What Next survey for Year 11s in mainstream schools

We provide schools with a link to our secure ‘What Next’ survey in the Spring term.  Your Year 11 students should complete this survey online. This is besides any questionnaires they complete for school purposes.  We issue an article in the School Bulletin with the survey link and details in February.

We recommend that students complete the survey in school. We will provide you with a list of those who are outstanding before the deadline.

Following the ‘What Next’ survey, we track your Year 11 leavers in the autumn to find out their new activity.  We may employ a contractor to do this for us. More information can be found in the survey.  This is the ‘Activity Survey’ we complete for the Department of Education.

The ‘What Next’ survey asks each student if they are happy for us to share their new Year 12 activity with you. We will share this with you the following February if we have their permission. This will help you collect destination data for each student so that you can meet 'Gatsby Benchmark 3'.

We send the ‘Activity Survey’ results out via the secure AnyComms Plus website.  AnyComms Plus will send an email to your school office when the results are ready to download.

Identify potential NEET students

We ask schools if they have Year 11s who are unlikely to be in education, employment or training next year. You should complete our ‘Potential NEET form’ to tell us about them. Please ask your school administrator to return the form to us. They should use the secure AnyComms Plus website for this. The file type to choose is ‘September Guarantee’.

We issue an article in the School Bulletin with the form and details in February. This is along with information about the What Next survey.

 

Offers to students of a year 12 place

All year 11s can have a place to learn in the coming academic year. The Department for Education expects schools to help track their offers of learning.

 Offers of learning must have a start date by the beginning of the January term. They may be conditional upon exam results or guaranteed. 

We will send your school a file in the summer term via the secure AnyComms Plus website. Your school office will receive an email when your file is ready to download.  We also issue an article in the School Bulletin to remind schools about this.

We include full details about how to complete the file, but in summary, you must tell us:

• Which students you have given an offer to for September
• If any of your current students only have an offer from another school or college

We also ask you to give us a contact telephone number and email address for the parent/student. We need this to track the student’s activity after Year 11 and to support them to continue learning. 

For you to share this you must have issued the School Privacy Notice to students.  You are only not allowed to share the information if the parent, or the pupil if they are age 16 or above, has objected.

Information for Year 11 Results Day

We would like Year 11 students to complete a form after their GCSE results. This is to tell us if they are moving on to education, training or work. We ask you to share a flyer about this with students and their parents/carers.  The flyer explains the form, the Council’s role and that we may get in touch with them if we don't hear back. 

You may wish to send this out before the official school leaving date and send a reminder at GCSE results time. 

We will issue an article in the School Bulletin about this in June together with the flyer.