Agenda item

To consider a report by the Principal Education Manager (copy enclosed) on the Performance of Denbighshire schools teacher assessments and external examination results at Key Stage 4 and Post 16. The report also provides results against national information and performance.

10:45 – 11:15

The Head of Education introduced the report and appendices (previously circulated)  emphasising that one of the challenges facing the Service at present was that they were delivering services during a period of time when they were waiting for the imminent introduction of a new curriculum.  That meant they were currently delivering the service without knowing which indicators they would be assessed against, as these were yet to be agreed.  Whilst  education practitioners acknowledged  that the narrow set of indicators previously used to measure pupils’ educational attainment had had a detrimental effect on pupils and schools, the data presented for the last academic year did not present a true and holistic illustration of each individual pupil’s achievement. 

Responding to members’ questions the Lead Member, Head of Service, Principal Education Manager and GwE representatives advised that:

·         whilst there was an element of correlation between deprivation, poverty and poor educational performance there were other contributing factors such as mental health and well-being issues.  Mental health was the greatest challenge faced by Education and Children’s Services at present;

·         Denbighshire was fully aware of where its Educated Other Than at School (EOTAS) pupils were being educated and had an education and well-being profile on each one, therefore officers knew exactly what their needs were and their capabilities;

·         a lot of work in the county’s deprived areas centred around the transition of young children into education;

·         County education staff and GwE regularly tracked the progress of individual schools and pupils at all Key Stages (KS) and could therefore tailor their programme of support to each individual school’s specific needs;

·         due to the experimental work being undertaken at the KS3 phase the ‘dip’ in performance at this stage should not be a cause of concern, as there was a decrease in attainment on a national basis in 2019;

·         it was difficult to compare performance at KS4 in 2019 with previous years due to the significant changes in the education programme in Wales and the fact that the national data capture for individual schools was now based on first entry results.  Nevertheless, there had been an improvement in Science results;

·         pupils’ attainment for Welsh language qualifications were above the national average in three of the four key stages.  That was a reflection of the investment made in recent years in Welsh medium education in the County;

·         the Education Service’s aim was for each pupil  and school to achieve the best they could, commensurate with their ability, hence the emphasis in Denbighshire on providing clear, transparent qualitative information on attainment;

·         examination results illustrated one specific aspect of education whilst Estyn inspection reports provided a far more holistic picture and analysis of the quality of education, care and leadership provided by the schools and the Education Authority, as they had regard to other aspects of the curriculum and extra-curricular activities and their impact on a pupil’s general well-being;

·         Denbighshire’s Head of Education and Children’s Services was the present Chair of the Association of Directors of Education in Wales (ADEW). She was therefore able to share with other Directors of Education Denbighshire’s experience of amalgamating both Education and Children’s Services under one head of service and the benefits that brought to devising a whole child approach to service delivery;

·         Christ the Word School, being an all-through school, was not in a position to benefit from the very effective ‘cluster’ arrangements available to other schools in the county.  However, they were able to work with other local head teachers and schools to share experiences and practices.  Representatives from the school had recently attended a meeting of the School Standards Monitoring Group (SSMG) and whilst there were still challenges to overcome they had given the Group a positive presentation and vision for the future and

·         school exclusion data which the Committee had requested would be published nationally within the forthcoming few weeks and would be circulated to Committee members when available.

At the conclusion of the discussion the Committee congratulated the Education Service, GwE, teachers and pupils on their performance during the 2018/19 academic year.   Having reviewed the performance data available they felt assured that the County’s education staff and GwE had an in-depth knowledge and understanding of each pupil’s capabilities, aspects which required improvement and where resources required to be focussed in order to improve attainment and support pupils to achieve to the best of their abilities.  This was commendable considering the pressures caused by the imminent introduction of a new curriculum and the non-availability of national benchmarking data.

It was therefore:

Resolved: - subject to the above observations:

      i.        to receive the information relating to the verified performance of the county’s school pupils at Key Stage 4 and post 16 examinations during the summer of 2019, acknowledging the barriers that existed which fettered the Education Service from undertaking comparison exercises with previous years’ results and with the results of other local education authorities; and

    ii.        that they were satisfied that both the Council’s Education Service staff and GwE personnel had identified the emerging trends and areas which would require improvement going forward at all Key Stages.