Cronk Y Berry School- numbers of EAL and SEN pupils

Summary

The request sought detailed statistics on EAL and SEN pupils, class sizes, staffing, and budgets for Cronk Y Berry School. The Department of Education provided pupil counts and class sizes but withheld specific nationality data and new joiner figures due to lack of records or privacy exemptions.

Key Facts

• In September 2024, there were 115 SEN pupils and 59 EAL pupils on the roll.
• By April 2025, SEN pupil numbers decreased to 113 while EAL numbers increased to 64.
• The total school roll as of April 4, 2025, was 289 students.
• The school does not hold data on pupil nationalities, only native languages.
• Information regarding new joiners with EAL/SEN needs was redacted to protect privacy.

Data Disclosed

• 115
• 59
• 113
• 64
• 289
• 28
• 19
• 15
• 20
• 26
• 27
• 24
• 34
• 13
• 6
• September 2024
• April 2025
• 4th April 2025
• 19 March 2025
• 16th April 2025

Exemptions Cited

• Section 20 of the Act (information already reasonably accessible)
• Information relating to five or less pupils (privacy exemption)

Original Request

Please provide information on number of children with either English as Additional Language or Special Educational Needs on the school roll as at September 2024 and the most recently available data in 2025. details of the total school roll, number per year and class sizes as at September 2024 and most recently available 2025 data. How many new joiners since September 2024 had EAL/SEN or both details of the EAL different nationalities that the school currently supports (number of pupils of each nationality - where this is less than 3 can the information be grouped by region eg Other European, Other Middle East etc) number of dedicated Cronk Y Berry School EAL and SEN teachers and other assistants and their hours per week and how many per pupil with these needs. Details of any DESC additional EAL and SEN direct support provided including number of staff and their hours per week. Annual budget allocated for EAL and SEN support Information about any concerns raised by the Head or school staff with DESC concerning ability to support EAL or SEN pupils adequately

Data Tables (1)

Full Response Text

Policy, Strategy and Governance Division Department of Education, Sport and Culture Thie Slieau Whallian Foxdale Road St Johns IM4 3AS

Telephone: (01624) 685808 Website: www.gov.im/dec Email: dec@foi.gov.im

Our ref: 4525990 16th April 2025

Dear ###,

We write further to your request, received 19 March 2025, which states:

"Please provide

information on number of children with either English as Additional Language or Special Educational Needs on the school roll as at September 2024 and the most recently available data in 2025.

details of the total school roll, number per year and class sizes as at September 2024 and most recently available 2025 data.

How many new joiners since September 2024 had EAL/SEN or both

details of the EAL different nationalities that the school currently supports (number of pupils of each nationality - where this is less than 3 can the information be grouped by region eg Other European, Other Middle East etc)

number of dedicated Cronk Y Berry School EAL and SEN teachers and other assistants and their hours per week and how many per pupil with these needs.

Details of any DESC additional EAL and SEN direct support provided including number of staff and their hours per week.

Annual budget allocated for EAL and SEN support

Information about any concerns raised by the Head or school staff with DESC concerning ability to support EAL or SEN pupils adequately"

Our response to your request is as follows:

1. Information on number of children with either English as Additional Language or Special Educational Needs on the school roll as at September 2024 and the most recently available data in 2025.

September 2024

Special Educational Needs (SEN) (including all children from Record of Concern (ROC), Additional Needs (AN), Additional Needs Plus (AN+), Complex Needs (CN) & Complex Needs - unit) = 115

English as an Additional Language (EAL) (including all children with any additional languages, irrelevant of their English competency) = 59

April 2025

SEN (including all children from ROC, AN, AN+, CN & CN unit) = 113

EAL (including all children with any additional languages, irrelevant of their English competency) = 64

1. details of the total school roll, number per year and class sizes as at September 2024 and most recently available 2025 data.

September 2024

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, under section 20 of the Act, we are not required to provide information in response to a request if it is already reasonably accessible to you, whether free of charge or on payment of a fee.

By way of advice and assistance school roll data is published annually by the Department and is available to view via the following weblink –

www.gov.im/media/1386790/school-roll-data-september-2024.pdf

Current data as at 4th April 2025

Number on roll - 289

There are two classes in each year group – apart from Reception and Year 6 and the Specialist Provision Centre (SPC), details are as follows:

Reception – 28 1 – 19, 15 2 – 19, 20 3 – 19, 19, 4 – 26, 27 5 – 24,26 6 – 34 SPC – 13

Class numbers vary throughout the year and children from our SPC may join classes for learning where appropriate.

1. How many new joiners since September 2024 had EAL/SEN or both

EAL – [Redacted – Information relating to five or less pupils] SEN – [Redacted – Information relating to five or less pupils] Both SEN/EAL – [Redacted – Information relating to five or less pupils]

By way of advice and assistance the total number of children with EAL, SEN or both is six.

1. details of the EAL different nationalities that the school currently supports (number of pupils of each nationality - where this is less than 3 can the information be grouped by region eg Other European, Other Middle East etc)

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance Cronk y Berry Primary School do not hold the information that you have requested.

By way of advice and assistance the school hold information on pupil’s native languages but not their nationality. Please see appendix one - a table detailing the number of pupils on the EAL register with each native language. This table does not detail the children’s competency in English and therefore not all the children in this table would use or require EAL support.

1. Number of dedicated Cronk Y Berry School EAL and SEN teachers and other assistants and their hours per week and how many per pupil with these needs.

All of our teaching and support staff are employed to support all of our children. None are specifically employed to offer dedicated support for EAL or SEN. We currently employ 9.6 members of support staff who work in mainstream classrooms on Full time equivalent (FTE) contracts and 8 FTE support staff who work in our SPC. FTE for Public Services Commission workers is 0.65 of a full time contract.

1. Details of any DESC additional EAL and SEN direct support provided including number of staff and their hours per week.

The school receives 10-12 hours dedicated EAL sessions arranged by the Department’s EAL team.

1. Annual budget allocated for EAL and SEN support

EAL Budget 2024/25 SEN Support Budget 2024/25 0 £ 261,358

The EAL budget is held centrally within the Education Advice and Support Division, the budget for EAL for 2024/25 is £353,786.

1. Information about any concerns raised by the Head or school staff with DESC concerning ability to support EAL or SEN pupils adequately

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance Cronk y Berry Primary School and the Department of Education, Sport and Culture do not hold or cannot, after taking reasonable steps to do so, find some of the information that you have requested.

Redacted Content

S39 (1)(a)(b)- Qualified exempt personal information

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide some of the information held in the instances where information relates to five or less pupils as the Department determines that individual pupil's may be identifiable.

This information is exempt under Section 39 of the Freedom of Information Act 2015 (Qualified exempt personal information) as it constitutes personal data of a person other than you and under section 8 of the Data Protection Act 2002 the data subject would be entitled to prevent disclosure of the information to a member of the public otherwise than under that Act.

As Section 39 is a qualified exemption, it is subject to a public interest test. The public interest must be something that is of serious concern and benefit to the public at large.

Factors in favour of disclosing the information include: - To promote transparency & accountability.

Factors in favour of maintaining the exemption include:
- That pupils and their parents/carers have an expectation that their child’s personal information will remain confidential. Disclosure of this information would contravene that expectation and cause an intrusion into the privacy of the data subject which may lead to some distress. - Whilst the Freedom of Information Act 2015 promotes transparency and accountability and therefore there may be some public interest, it is not sufficient to outweigh an individual pupil’s right for this information to remain private.

In assessing the weight to be attributed to each of the factors in favour of disclosing the information and maintaining the exemption, the Department of Education, Sport and Culture has taken the following into consideration:
- The severity of the prejudice
- The age of the information - How far disclosure would further the public interest identified above - Whether there is any similar information the public domain and whether this affects the public interest.

In taking these factors into account the Department of Education, Sport and Culture have determined that the factors in favour of maintaining the exemption outweigh the factors in favour of disclosing the information.

Please quote the reference number 4525990 in any future communications.

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I will now close your request as of this date.