Agenda item
PROVISIONAL EXTERNAL EXAMINATIONS AND TEACHER ASSESSMENTS
- Meeting of Performance Scrutiny Committee, Thursday, 29 November 2018 10.00 am (Item 5.)
- View the declarations of interest for item 5.
To review the performance of schools and that of looked after children.
Minutes:
The Lead Member for Education, Children and Young People introduced the Principal Education Manager and GwE Secondary Lead’s joint report (previously circulated). The report provided the Committee with information on the verified Teacher Assessment results from Foundation Phase (FP) to Key Stage 3 (KS3) and the provisional Key Stage 4 (KS4) examination results for Denbighshire’s pupils during the 2017/18 Academic Year.
During his introduction the Lead Member highlighted the fact that the attainment threshold for attaining grade ‘C’ in the English GCSE examination in the summer of 2018 had been increased by 20 points compared to the previous year. Consequently a total of 107 pupils in Denbighshire who, based on the 2017 scoring threshold, had been predicted to attain a ‘C’ grade in their English examination in the summer of 2018 had actually only been awarded a ‘D’ grade – across the GwE region a total of 700 pupils had been affected.
The Lead Member advised that all local education authorities
in North Wales and GwE had raised their concerns about the disproportionate
increase in the English GSCE threshold compared to other subjects and the
detrimental effect it was having on pupils with the Welsh Government
(WG). Education officials were currently seeking legal advice on the
matter.
The Council’s Head of Education and Children’s Services (HoE&CS) advised members that the report was presented in a different format to previous years to comply with WG requirements. As National comparative attainment data for education key stages was no longer published there was no expectation on local education authorities to benchmark themselves against other authorities - although the regional education consortia could compile regional comparative data sets if they wished.
The HoE&CS advised that outcomes as the end of Key Stage 2 (KS2) had remained solid, a position which had been held for a number of years and which Estyn had acknowledged in its recent report following its inspection of the Council’s education service.
Whilst the dip in performance at KS4 was a cause for concern it was important to bear in mind the reasons why this had happened and to have regard to the findings and conclusions of the Estyn Inspection of the Council’s Education Service which had been extremely positive. Estyn was expected to make favourable references to Denbighshire’s education services in its Director’s Annual Report, due to be published in December 2018.
Appendix 1 to the report contained the draft joint report with GwE on educational performance in Denbighshire. The format and structure for this report had been agreed across the region to ensure that the same type of information was reported to all local authorities and in the same format.
The Committee was advised that:
·
whilst Denbighshire pupils’ performance at the
FP had decreased slightly during the assessment period under consideration, the
dip in performance had been less than that recorded both regionally and
nationally. This dip in performance was mainly attributed to more challenging
outcome descriptors being used when assessing outcomes in language and
mathematics;
·
KS2
results had continued to improve as expected as in previous years.
Looking ahead the Council and GwE had identified a need to tackle the impact of
deprivation on educational attainment, as well as how to support high achievers
as part of their primary education focus for the future;
·
performance remained strong at KS3
and remained broadly in line with national performance. Denbighshire
pupils’ performance against the Core Subjects Indicator (CSI) had been good
despite a slight decrease in mathematical performance. This was
attributed to the fact that there had been a slight increase in performance in
English and a significant increase in pupils’ performance in Welsh.
Officers acknowledged that schools needed to change the way they challenged and
used KS3 data in order to secure continual improvement. In addition, more
work was required in relation to improving the performance of pupils in receipt
of free school meals (FSM) against the CSI;
·
due to the changes introduced to the KS4
examinations process during 2016-17 the performance data remained subject to a
significant amount of volatility, hence the reason why there had been a dip
nationally in performance in the summer 2018 examinations. This dip had
been further compounded by the significant change in the attainment threshold
for English and mathematics for the summer 2018 examination, and the limitation
of only one Science subject to be included in the Capped 9 score. Whilst
Denbighshire’s decrease in performance against the Capped 9 score of minus 10.4
seemed at face value to be significant, given the context of the changes
introduced to the external examination system during recent years the decrease
in performance was understandable. Denbighshire’s Education Service was
very proactive in both challenging and developing new indicators and would therefore
challenge the effectiveness of the new set of indicators;
·
Denbighshire’s
schools were focussed on supporting each individual pupil to achieve and to
realise their full potential. The Authority and its schools viewed all
pupils as equals who were entitled to receive appropriate support in order to
ensure they succeeded to the best of their ability. A quality
acknowledged by Estyn; and
·
to attain a Grade ‘C’ in the English GCSE
examination in the Summer of 2017 a student was required to score 200 points,
for the November 2017 examination the threshold had increased to 206.
However, by the summer of 2018 it transpired that the threshold had increased
to 220, without any prior notification to education authorities or
schools. The WJEC, the Examinations Board, had adopted a similar approach
to the mathematics GCSE examination. All Directors of Education in North
Wales, GwE and head teachers agreed that this was unfair and inconsistent with
previous practice, but despite concerns being raised with both the WJEC and
Qualifications Wales no satisfactory answer had been received.
Consequently, the Lead Member had raised these concerns with the WG’s Cabinet
Minister for Education seeking her to hold an inquiry.
Such significant changes in threshold boundaries made it extremely
difficult for teachers to be able to support pupils through the examination
process. As all local authority schools in Wales were obliged to enter
their pupils for WJEC examinations - and could not enter them for examinations
administered by other examination boards - pupils could be disadvantaged when
competing for further and/or higher education places against pupils from
England and/or independent schools. Whilst there was no indication that
the WJEC or Qualifications Wales were going to reconsider the 2018 gradings it was important, having regard to the changes yet
to be implemented to the examinations system, that such significant threshold
changes were not introduced in future without prior notification.
GwE’s Secondary Lead requested that his personal gratitude to Denbighshire Head of Education and Children’s Services and the Department’s staff for standing up for the county’s schools and speaking up for the pupils be recorded. In his view it was encouraging that they ensured that the county and the region’s voices were being heard on a national basis.
Responding to members’ questions the Lead Member, Head of Education and Children’s Service, Principal Education Manager and GwE’s Secondary Lead:
·
assured members that the Service could ‘track’
each individual pupil’s progress and attainment throughout their education
period. The data held on each pupil included information on any
challenges which may affect their educational performance; be that medical,
physical, mental or home environment pressures. That level of detail
helped the Council ensure that appropriate and timely intervention and support
could be offered to the pupil, and if necessary the family, to help each child
realise their full potential. Members were advised to contact officers if
they wished to see the type of data used by the Service to ‘track’ each pupil;
·
advised that one of Denbighshire’s strengths
was that it could ‘track’ the performance of pupils who were educated other
than at schools (EOTAS). It included these pupils in its performance
data, not all authorities included EOTAS data in their returns. As the
Council was aware of EOTAS pupils it could monitor their progress, provide
support if required and comply with its safeguarding duties and reduce the risk
of Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE). Some local authorities did not
include their EOTAS pupils in their returns, therefore if they did end their
education without a qualification this was not reflected in their data
returns. However, home schooled pupils were not included in the results
data, as there was no requirement to include them, but Denbighshire was aware
of who they were;
·
confirmed that the Foundation Phase Assessment
Framework Areas of Learning (AoL) in relation to
language, literacy, communication and mathematics was proving to be useful for
the Authority, as it assisted the Education Service to identify learning
barriers at an earlier stage and enabled it to provide appropriate intervention
early on in a pupil’s education journey. The Education Service had
worked with the Health Service on a piece of work focussing on deprived areas,
that had highlighted that speech and language development problems were more
prevalent in areas of high deprivation;
·
agreed that the absence of comparable data for
benchmarking purposes was disappointing. Nevertheless, it was hoped that
some comparative information would be available by the time the verified
results were due to be scrutinised;
·
confirmed
that there was a risk that the KS4 data for 2019 could also be distorted,
similar to the situation in 2018, due to the Science qualification being
reviewed;
·
advised
that the term ‘Welsh first language’ applied to those pupils who received their
education via the Welsh medium education system in the county, be they from
Welsh speaking homes or otherwise. Denbighshire was currently performing
well in relation to Welsh language skills in both the Welsh medium sector and
in Welsh second language sector. With the introduction of the new
curriculum Welsh as a second language would cease and all pupils would be
assessed on Welsh first language skills;
·
emphasised that the Free School Meals indicator
was a crude performance indicator used to gauge the level of deprivation and
the support required at a school. It varied between schools. Local
analysis of this indicator was key to ensure that each child was provided with
the correct level of support to meet their specific needs;
·
advised that there were approximately 44 pupils
across the county’s schools whose behaviour was having an adverse impact on
other pupils. The Authority was working with the Police, colleges and
other stakeholders to support these pupils and address the issues which caused
them to behave badly. This was an extremely complex area of work, which
required a medium and long-term approach as well as the involvement of a number
of different agencies as these pupils generally were not engaging with the
wider community;
·
confirmed
that the composition and role of the Schools Standards Monitoring Group (SSMG)
was currently under review;
·
explained
that whilst the local authority tracked each pupil’s progress regularly in
order to adequately support them to attain their projected grades, it had no
prior knowledge that the WJEC was intending to increase the threshold for a ‘C’
grade to 80 for mathematics and 220 for English. That may potentially
have affected some pupils’ post 16 options, particularly in relation to
apprenticeships.
School sixth forms and colleges were aware of the problem caused by the
increase in threshold and had consequently relaxed their entry criteria to
enable pupils to re-sit the examinations with a view to gaining the required
grades, bearing in mind that the increase in the points required to gain a
‘C’ grade would also entail an increase in ‘B’ and ‘A’ grade thresholds;
·
confirmed that the Council did have
responsibilities with respect of gypsy and traveller families and
children. Once the Authority had been alerted that a gypsy or traveller
family had moved into the area the Education Safeguarding Officer would visit
the family to offer support and guidance. The Authority did have
residential gypsy and traveller children being educated in the county’s
schools. Whilst it often proved challenging to persuade travelling
families to enrol their children in a local school and make every effort to
ensure they attended, the specialist officer was very experienced and did
encourage families to engage with the education system; and
·
agreed that some comparative data would be provided
with the verified results report in early 2019, but members were very welcome
to visit the Service on an individual basis to go through data and see how they
used the data available to challenge schools and to arrange appropriate support
for pupils.
At the conclusion of the discussion the Committee
Resolved: - subject to the above observations –
(i)
to acknowledge the performance of schools
against previous performance, and support the areas identified for improvement;
(ii)
that a letter be sent on the Committee’s behalf
to Qualifications Wales registering members’ concerns and disappointment in
relation to the significant increase in the ‘C’ grade threshold for the summer
2018 GCSE English examination in comparison to the 2017 threshold, and its
consequential adverse effect on students; and
(iii)
that the report scheduled for presentation to
the Committee in January 2019 on the Verified External Examination Results
include actual numbers as well as percentage figures, and where possible
regional comparative data, along with data on absenteeism and exclusions rates
at each of the County’s school.
Supporting documents:
- Exams Results Report 291118, item 5. PDF 203 KB
- Exams Results Report - Appendix 1 291118, item 5. PDF 310 KB