Agenda item

(Report by Mr M Whiting, Cabinet Member, Education, Learning and Skills and Mr P Leeson, Corporate Director, Education, Learning and Skills)

 (Mrs S Rogers, Director, Education Quality and Standards was present for this Item)

1.               The Chairman asked Mrs Rogers to introduce the report.  Mrs  Rogers highlighted the following points:-

Key Stage1

·       This was the 6^th year in succession that the Early Years provision had improved.

·       Key Stage1 (KS1) - Level 2b for girls and level 2b+ for boys had improved from 2011 [Level 2b was the measure at KS1, which was a secure position for 7 year olds to be in, in order to ensure that they gain level 4 at the end of KS2].

·       High Achievers - There were issues in making sure that there was acceleration for higher achievers because there was more expectation that more children would achieve level 6 by the end of KS2.

·       Vulnerable Groups – The gap was closing in reading and maths for free school meals children at level 2+ and faster than the national picture.

·       Priorities for KS1 – To ensure that the direction takes Kent schools above the national average and achieves an upward trajectory.  By KS4 it was difficult to close those gaps.  The sooner the gaps could be closed the better.  This would need to be tackled from the preschool and Children Centres stage, so that as soon as the gaps appeared, those children had a better experience of school.

2.               Members were given the opportunity to make comments and ask questions which included the following:-

a)    In reply to a question, Mrs Rogers advised that there were six Senior Improvement Advisors who oversaw the Districts.  A new Improvement Strategy was launch at the beginning of September 2012 in which the needs were identified of every Kent school.  Each school’s early years data at KS1 and KS2 was looked at and on that evidence it was decided; which schools needed the most intensive support, which schools needed a “light touch” support, which schools, with KCC support, would work with others and which schools would work well within a collaborative.

b)    KCC was aware of the Kent primary schools that needed support at KS1 to raise their standards.  Members of the Improvement Team were working alongside those schools supporting and commissioning appropriate support for reading, writing or maths. They were also having challenging conversations with Headteachers to ensure that the KS1 results were as robust as possible to ensure that the vast majority of children were achieving level 2b+.  This year 74% of 7 year olds gained a level 2b. However, 26% of 7 year olds had gone up to year 3 without that solid base.  Mrs Rogers stated that this was not just an issue about raising the level at year 2 it was about what was going to be done for those children [26%] in year 3 to ensure that those gaps were closed quickly within year 3 and 4.

c)     In response to a question, Mrs Rogers explained that there were good examples of Children Centres and Private Voluntary Independent provisions working closely with the primary schools that the children feed into.  She considered that the connection with children before going to preschool and then going to school needed to be strengthened in terms of understanding when children arrived at school what gaps had already opened and where the focus needed to be.  The Early Years Team was working closely with Children Centres and Families and Social Care to take this forward.

d)    In reply to a comment, Mrs Rogers advised that there were different education systems across the world.  In countries where children started formal schooling at a later age there was significant investment in pre school education and children were engaged in a lot of formal learning.  She considered that if the education provision was right for 5 year olds they did not realise they were learning but were enjoying being at school.

e)    In reply to a question, Mrs Rogers explained that intensive work was being carried out with some Kent primary schools where their data suggested that there were issues.  A lot of those Kent primary schools were responding well. When Kent primary schools were considered vulnerable other solutions were being look at, which included a Federation, formal partnership to strengthen them to ensure that the primary schools standard of education improved as quickly as possible and avoided the school going into category. She explained that schools became vulnerable to academy when they failed their Ofsted inspection and when they went into category they would automatically become an academy. 

f)      In reply to a question, Mrs Rogers advised that data showed that Summer born boys, in terms of learning, tended to develop at a lower rate than the rest of the cohort. Some Kent primary schools were good at being able to provide the right kind of learning experiences even for Summer born boys and they did well. However, some primary schools had not grasped this issue and were receiving help with this.  There was a question on whether holding those boys back a year would help but evidence on this was not strong enough to keep them back a year. This option would also create issues with peer grouping.

g)    In reply to a question, Mrs Rogers explained that in terms  of the drop in performance at KS1 there had been a focus on reading and writing for some time, although she considered that the provision provided for numeracy at KS1 needed to be revisited.  At KS2 there was an intense focus on maths.  This was due to the judgement on English and maths combined performance, maths had to keep pace. Mrs Rogers reflected that looking at Kent’s 5 year data, against the national picture Kent was doing well over the same period of time.

Key Stage 2

·       Mrs Rogers then spoke on Key Stage 2. Mrs Rogers referred to the Statistical Neighbour headline in the report advising that Kent’s top statistical neighbour achieved 81% in 2012, where Kent achieved 78%.  Last year Kent was at 74% and its top statistical neighbour achieved 81%.  The statistical neighbour at the top of the table had not made any further progress where Kent had.  This was important to show that Kent was closing the gap, by accelerating its progress against its top statistical neighbour.  She considered that the progress was encouraging but Kent should be achieving a percentage in the high eighties by 2015.

Floor Standards

·       In 2010 there were 95+ schools below the floor standard in English and maths combined and in 2011 this reduced to 70 schools.  In 2012 this had been reduced to only 23 schools.  Mrs Rogers considered that for a County the size of Kent to have only 23 of its schools below the 60% level 4 in English and maths was a significant achievement by Kent schools.  This had been achieved by bringing the lowest performance up a level.  Mrs Rogers assured Members that this year the agenda would be pushed further and that the improvement in the Ofsted grades was moving in the right direction to reach the ambitious targets.

·       In 2012 there were 17 schools below the 40%. 10 were maintained schools and 7 were academies.  There were 99 Kent schools above the 50% future floor standard [The new floor standard would be in place in 2015]. It was expected that an announcement would be made by the Secretary of State for Education that the floor standard would be raised in July 2013-14 to 45% 5A* including English and maths.  There had been improvement as 26 schools were below the 40% in 2011.  Those schools were receiving intensive support from the Secondary Team with the aim of increase those above 40%. 

GCSE

·       There had been an increase in; the number of students pursuing A levels and those achieving grades A* to C.

3.               Members were given the opportunity to ask questions and make comments  which included the following:-

a)    In reply to a question, Mrs Rogers explained that attainment and progress needed to be considered separately. It was important that every child made progress. Kent schools were encouraged to look at 3 stages of progress as a minimum at KS1 and KS2.  Mrs Rogers considered that there would always be children that had particular difficulty in achieving level 4 at English and maths combined but if they had made the progress they should have made then the school would have done its job.  For schools it was not just about attainment they had to close the gaps.  If the school was focused on the individual child on how to take them forward the school would get close to achieving 100% at KS2.  Mrs Rogers said that the aspiration should be that every child can achieve this. 

b)    In response to a question, Mrs Rogers advised that the Quality and Assurance Team would have failed if the school was not sustainable and able to maintain the level for themselves.  This rested on the leadership being right in the schools and ensuring that all the teaching was good or better and getting the assessments right.  She considered that the collaboratives, the school to school partnerships work was where the sustainability laid in the future.  Mrs Rogers reflected that in any local authority there would be schools where there would continue to be significant issues and this was about leadership and the local authority had to support the governing bodies in making those decisions.

c)     When working with schools with SEN Units Kent always disaggregated the data for the Units and the mainstream school. 

4.               Mr Leeson commented on the ideal of sustainable improvement.  He advised that there was still long way to go in achieving this ideal.  There were still only 56% of schools that were good or outstanding.  There were a number of schools in category that was slightly above the national average, which put Kent at the bottom quartile nationally.  Kent would be in the top quartile nationally if we had an above average number of schools that were good or outstanding and no schools in an Ofsted category.  It was Kent’s intention to ensure that schools were on a track or trajectory of improvement which would mean that they could support their own efforts through collaboration and partnership work with other schools and that should be Kent’s goal.  The aim was to build a sustainable self improving school system in Kent where there is less variable between schools and less likelihood of schools slipping back when they had been on an improving trend.  There were important risk indicators including; change of headteacher, not continuing to pay attention to the quality of teaching and the individual progress of the pupils, not recruiting the right staff who can do the job and can be developed to be promoted and those schools that do not collaborate or participate or work in partnership, come to meetings or continue to stay “plugged in” to the kind of professional thinking and learning of the heads and other leaders and the staff to keep ahead as education did not stand still.  It was the local authority’s role to ensure that the Kent schools were properly informed and sharing good practise.  He stated that he would like to say at meetings of this Cabinet Committee that “we are getting a more self sustainable system in schools in Kent”.  There was no reason why Kent should not be among the top performing local authorities in the country.  He advise that this would take Kent to 90%+ at level 4 and above in English and maths combined.

5.               Mr Whiting added that there were ambitious targets in place which were reviewed and raised from time to time. He appreciated the honesty of the officers to this Cabinet Committee and thanked Mrs Rogers and her Team for all that they were achieving through working with Kent schools.  He reminded Members that academies were buying in the expertise of Mrs Rogers Team and other Education Teams through EduKent.

6.               RESOLVED that:-

a)    the responses to comments and questions by Members be noted;

b)    the significant improvement in many areas of school performance in 2012 be noted; and

c)     the areas that still require significant improvement and the priorities for action to ensure that improvement was achieved be noted.