Decision details

As part of the roll out of the School Wellbeing Hubs in Tendring and Colchester, the project plan included 3 levels of academic evaluation as follows:
Pupil
Parent/Carer
Whole School Culture review
The project in it's entirety, including evaluation work is fully funded by the CCG after a successful bid from the Council.
Quotes were sought from a number of educational organisations , many of which declined to undertake this work due to the pandemic and a quote was also received from another provider , which was in excess of the quote from Essex University. Payments to the university will be staged in accordance to the work completed to the satisfaction of the Council.
The total cost of this work is £36,785 ( which will be split into instalments and paid over a period of 2 years , following the successful completion of the different stages of the work).

The decision is to work with Essex University as the local university ensures that the project has different levels of evaluation over a two year period, so that progress can be tracked to cover the following:
Pupils
Parents/Carers
Whole school culture
The university will provide the academic rigour and the Council also has an MOU in place with the provider so that both parties acknowledge and support each other's priorities.
The University project plan and the Cabinet report relating to Community Projects are attached. Other documents such as the PID are available on request. A further update relating to the Wellbeing Hubs is due to go to Cabinet in May 2021.

Option 1 - No evaluation , this would be unacceptable to the CCG and the Council and the bid for the project funding is likely to have been unsuccessful.
Option 2 - Evaluation of pupils only - this would only give one perspective in relation to the hub outcomes.
Option 3 - Evaluation in three phases (Pupil, Parent/Carer and Whole School) over a two year period.