Agenda item
Raising Attainment - Successes and Challenges
To receive a presentation led by representatives from Children Schools and Families with representatives from Development and Renewal.
Minutes:
A presentation was given by Isobel Cattermole, Acting Corporate Director Children Schools and Families, Anne Canning, Service Head Learning and Achievement and by Ann Sutcliffe, Service Head Building Strategic Property and Capital Delivery, Development & Renewal.
Prior to her presentation, the Acting Corporate Director commented on media coverage of national adoption performance and adoption statistics for councils in England and Wales. She informed the Committee that the Authority was confident in its adoption processes and advised that issues highlighted and details of the council's own adoption performance would be addressed via a members briefing to be circulated on Friday, 4 November.
The presentation comprised three elements; educational attainment, building schools for the future programme and discretionary educational grants.
In opening the Acting Corporate Director informed the Committee that the Government had made substantial changes to education policy since following the General Election 2010. Arising from these, three academies were due to be established in the borough (orders had been issued by the Secretary of State for Education) and the Secretary of State had granted permission for three free schools (one had already been opened, two more being expected to open in 2012). These new structures were funded by directly by Government transfer and created a new type of relationship between the Council and schools. There would also be implications on funding available to the Council; therefore the Directorate had reviewed its trading arrangements with schools in order to make savings where there were schools did not wish to purchase services.
Concerning educational achievement, the Committee was informed that 2011 had seen the Borough’s best performance at GCSE. There had been continued improvement at Key Stage One (KS1) and above average performance at Key Stage Two (KS2) in English and Maths. It was noted, however, that improvements at GCSE had not been continued into post-16 qualifications at a similar level.
In her presentation, the Service Head Learning and Achievement highlighted the following:
- The Government was trying to reduce the range of data collected, in particular, Early Years data. It was not yet known what the parameters would be but it was anticipated that with the reduction there would be some loss of qualitative performance monitoring against some types of subject.
- The Government wanted to move the bar upwards and had introduced basic measures.
- Early Years, Foundation Stage and KS1 data showed good improvement. There had been Government support for early intervention and funding for an early learning pilot in the borough.
- At KS2, performance had been at around the national average for pupils achieving Level Four and above.
- There had been exceptional achievement at Key Stage Four (KS4) – GCSE. There had been an average increase of 10% from last year although some borough schools had achieved 20% improvement.
- There had been continued improvement year-on-year at KS4 which was in part attributed to Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme, schools’ leadership and drive to improve outcomes.
- There had been fewest improvements in curriculum at Key Stage Five (A-Level) and attention was drawn to the national difficulties around apprenticeships. The borough had performed below the national average at A-Level although the results had been steady. To address this it was intended that the Council would implement strategies that had been used successfully at KS4 to raise attainment.
- The Council's Key targets were to improve performance at early years and post-16 stages.
The Service Head Building Strategic Property and Capital Delivery, Development & Renewal updated the Committee on the BSF programme, highlighting the following information:
- BSF was a capital investment programme initiated by the Government in 2006 to invest and transform education nationally. The programme had been discontinued following the change of Government in June 2010. However locally most of the programmes initiated would be unaffected by the removal of funding.
- By the end of the programme in 2015 the Council would have received significant investment in education to enable over 11,000 pupils to benefit from enhanced learning facilities.
- A progress update was given on the 20 local schemes.
- The primary capital program together with BSF would deliver 31 refurbished / rebuilt schools.
- The Committee was asked to note that the Council’s statutory duty to provide sufficient school places remained. The Acting Corporate Director challenged the Committee to consider how it could help Children Schools and Family Directorate to deliver its priorities. The Committee was also asked to consider how the Council’s support for looked after children and post-16 improvements and continuing to meet the challenges of delivering education.
In response to Members questions the following information was provided:
- Latest data on children placed in prospective adoptive families would be circulated to the Committee
Action: Acting Corporate Director Children Schools and Families
- KS4 and KS5 OFSTED inspections were external inspections. In response to a suggestion from a Committee Member that KS5 performance might be improved if there were more teacher supervised revision, the Committee was informed that students no longer undertook independent revision (study leave).
- A report had been produced containing Directorate proposals on how the Council might be able to continue to offer discretionary education awards. This paper would be presented at Cabinet on 2nd November 2011. If approved, funding would be taken from reserves for one year.
- To determine how grants were distributed, the report proposed similar qualifying criteria as had been used for discretionary education grants in previous years. The Council’s aim was to raise confidence to stay in education (previous grant uptake had been approximately 65% of 16-18 years olds).
- In regard to Members’ concerns about a proposal to bring the management of children's centres in-house, the Acting Corporate Director confirmed that parents would be able to remain involved in the centres and was pleased to report that the centres continued to be used well. The Authority wished to engage with independent organisations to maintain open and transparent operation of the centres. It was the Director's responsibility was to address poor performance where it was evidenced; therefore robust service level agreements had been developed to ensure good performance and transparent costs.
- Children's centres were funded through the Early Intervention Grant.
RESOLVED
That the presentation be noted