Agenda item

Report of the Cabinet Member for Children and Young People

Staffordshire showed a positive direction of travel in terms of the percentage of schools judged as Good or Outstanding (and the percentage of all pupils that attended these schools).  As at 1 September 2017 89% of Staffordshire schools were judged as good or outstanding, an increase of three percentage points since the same point in 2016 and the fourth highest year-on-year improvement of their statistical neighbour local authorities.  The 2017 target of 92% was not met, however Staffordshire improved at a faster rate than the national average during 2016/17.  The percentage of pupils attending schools graded good or outstanding had increased from 82% in August 2016 to 85% in August 2017. 

The new primary and secondary accountability measures introduced in 2016 and the further changes to Key Stage 4 in 2017 with the introduction of “9-1” reformed GCSEs in English and Maths continued to limit trend comparisons over time.  Levels of attainment and progress in the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) and Key Stage 1 (KS1) remained strong and continued to outperform national levels of performance.  In 2017, attainment at the end of Key Stage Two (the primary phase) improved by more than the improvements seen nationally.  Staffordshire results were now above national in all key measures.

The focus in 2017/18 would continue at Key Stage Two (KS2), Key Stage Four (KS4) and Key Stage Five (KS5) where there remained variations in attainment and progress of schools.  Further improvements were required to gain ground in the rates of attainment and progress achieved by their statistical neighbours and nationally, particularly at KS4 and KS5.  Staffordshire schools also needed to continue to do more to tackle variations in attainment and progress between localities and for different pupil groups, such as those eligible for Free School Meals (FSM) or Disadvantaged pupils (DA). 

Education and Skills was a key priority that would be developed in the County Council Strategic Plan 2018/2022 and would set out how working with all their partners they would:

“Offer Staffordshire parents and their children high performing early years provision, schools and colleges to attend.  Encouraging and helping parents to become more involved in and ambitious for their child’s education, whilst influencing early years settings, schools, colleges and universities to support each other to improve, excel and contribute fully to their communities.”

In response to a question about his role in Education the Cabinet Member informed the Select Committee that if young people come out of school better educated and better able to play an active and positive part in society they will prosper and do better, and their children would be more likely to do the same.   This would also be likely to have a positive effect on their health outcomes and the number of children coming into the County Council’s system from a childcare, looked after and safeguarding perspective would be lower than it currently is.  Also the local authority has a statutory obligation around school improvement.

It was questioned what the County Council had to do with Education, what levers and pulleys were available to have an impact, and did the authority have any powers and influences to make a difference.  The Cabinet Member responded that it was really important that the authority could act in a way that helps parents and schools to work better together to improve schools.    There were pulleys which could be used, and this would be explored in a piece of work moving forward.  When looking to buy a house, one of the biggest drivers of cost is the standard of schools in the area.  There were big drivers there for the authority to work with schools, not do the work for schools or take responsibility, but to work together as Staffordshire Education in its totality to improve and move from where we are now at 89% of schools good or outstanding going forward and ensure that the good results were not just in the early Key Stages, but all the way through.       

Our role was not to run individual schools, but there was still a part for the authority to play in the overall picture.  Work was being done on a paper which would be brought to this Committee in the future.  The authority worked very much as an enabler representing parents where schools were not achieving in the way they should, making sure that a referral was made to the Schools Commissioner if the school was an academy, holding the school and school governors to account.  Also ensuring that parents can see how schools were performing enabling them to make informed choices.

The Cabinet Member was asked if he was taking a measure of responsibility for School Attainment by bringing this report forward, suggesting that the County Council had some influence to support or to improve that.  The response was that the authority had a big influence around Early Years.  However, responsibility for improvement lies with the schools themselves.  A member commented that as more schools became academies the local authority would have less and less influence.  The direction of travel was for schools to run themselves, particularly those in MATs.  Members were informed that the authority had a good relationship with the Schools Commissioner and worked closely together and had some joint projects in Staffordshire.  The Government passported funding through the local authority, and there was a desire amongst schools for the authority to be involved, as some schools experienced a sense of disconnect.  There was also an element of the authority being stewards of taxpayers money and having a responsibility to ensure that this is well spent and delivering good outcomes. 

Members were informed that the authority also had a role as influencer in relation to the Strategic School Improvement Fund, for which bids could be made for funding to support particular priorities within regions.  The local authority has a role to play in providing information around the performance of particular schools to the teaching schools within their areas in order for them to provide that support and challenge.

The Chairman of the APMG on Innovation informed members that it was undertaking a piece of work around children’s emotional and mental wellbeing, and had recently interviewed representatives from eight schools as part of this work.  It was important for the Committee to be aware that other work was taking place in relation to wellbeing and hopefully outputs from schools in the long term.  He also reported that the Government Green Paper would be out by 2 March, and the APMG would be pursuing funding from the additional £300m which was being proposed.   

Concern was expressed that although Staffordshire ranked relatively highly in the Early Years and KS1, the ranking dropped progressively and was much lower across the secondary key stages.  Given the positive effects of the input in Early Years learning it was queried whether there was an expectation that this would filter through the later key stages and produce improvements.  Clarity was requested on what had been done and what action was planned, accepting the limitations the authority had.  In writing to schools and governors it was questioned how these were targeted, and how improvements would be made, particularly in the latter years, where performance was in the fourth quartile.  This was not just about academic achievement, but about providing a well-rounded education.  The Cabinet Member responded that there had been improvement in Early Years for the past three to four years, from 50% achieving good levels of attainment to 74%, but there was still work to be done, by targeting families early.  Pupils at KS1 also achieved a good level of development, as a result of the improvement at the Early Years stage.  However, attainment then tailed off, which had been a general trend for a number of years.  This was a cause for concern, particularly in the secondary phase where it dropped off considerably at the end of sixth form.   The Cabinet Support member confirmed that he had been focusing on this issue.  The Early Years investment was tracking through into KS1 and KS2 as the first cohort to benefit from the changes which had been made.  Pupils experienced a dip in performance at secondary level, and the aim was to make this as shallow a dip as possible, or eliminating it completely, so that pupils were more ready to engage with their learning.  There was a lot of focus on encouraging schools to have more of a sense of community and of being Staffordshire schools and schools within their district, where their problems are shared problems, rather than wanting to get rid of the less able/difficult pupils in order to boost exam results. 

Another member from the APMG commented that the issues around the drop off in attainment were very complex.  Three aspects that had come out of the recent meeting with schools were poor parenting, the use of social media and pupils, particularly girls, not taking up sport.  There was very little discussion about the curriculum or pressure with exams.  It was queried what the Council could do in terms of improving schools.  It was felt that the work done by the APMG would prove valuable in terms of making recommendations to Cabinet around what the authority could do to support families in particular around engaging better with schools and ensuring the pupils do better.  In one school a centre had been set up as a support mechanism for pupils and parents and a quarter of the pupils had gone to the Unit for some support. The Cabinet Support member reiterated that there was a real drive to encourage schools to own these sort of issues.  It was important that schools understand that this was part of driving their performance and was intrinsic for improvement, and was an area where the authority could have more influence than it could over some of the more technical educational aspects.  It was acknowledged that wider school engagement was very important, and that schools recognised that they were a centre, not just an institution.  It was queried whether greater academisation would lead to less local accountability, and how could this be overcome.  It was suggested that current arrangements provided a fairly weak line of accountability.  The Cabinet Support member responded that there was further work to do, but was probably best done at a district level, getting schools to work together within their districts and to have that shared accountability, and be more engaged as community schools. 

A member commented that it was important to empower parents, who often didn’t realise how they could, and should, influence school governors and don’t really understand how the system worked.  Consequently parents needed to be educated as to how they could influence, and also their responsibilities.  It has to be a partnership and where there were support facilities for pupils and their parents this was important, as parental engagement was essential.  In relation to governors, the Cabinet Support member suggested that the authority needed to strengthen this group and promote the role.  There also needed to be a focus on those families who needed support and had difficult family situations.  Also it was important to be mindful that this was not just about deprived areas, but also in more affluent areas, parents do not always engage.

Members discussed the pros and cons of amalgamating primary and high schools.  It was acknowledged that some through schools did exist and that faith schools often did this.  It was pointed out that Multi-Academy Trusts brought schools together, and also Federations. 

RESOLVED – That:

a)    The progress of Educational Achievement in Staffordshire for the period September 2016 - August 2017 be noted; and

b)    The Cabinet Member and Cabinet Support Member note the comments and recommendations of the Select Committee in regard to the approach set out in the report.