Agenda item

To consider a report (copy attached) on the performance of the County’s pupils at all key stages and the provisional examination results at Key Stage 4 and post 16

9:35 – 10:10

The Head of Education (HoE), Karen Evans introduced the report (previously circulated). She confirmed that all results had been verified apart from Key Stage 4.  Those verified results would be reported to the Committee in January 2015.  Whilst the majority of schools and pupils were performing well there were specific areas which would benefit from support to improve attainment, and consequentially outcomes for pupils.

One area which would benefit from intervention during the forthcoming year would be first language Welsh (Cymraeg) at Key Stage 2, which had seen a 2.9% drop in performance compared to the previous year.It was speculated that one possible reason for this could include the increase of English medium families sending children to Welsh medium schools. It was noted that functions previously undertaken by the Authority e.g. Athrowen Bro had now transferred to Regional School Effectiveness and Improvement Service (GwE) who would be supporting schools in this specific area.

The Committee discussed the Foundation Stage where the County was quickly being caught up by other Local Authorities. It was mused that in areas of deprivation more children were coping with behavioural issues that impacted on teaching. The Committee also considered the range of levels of skills at Foundation Stage and agreed that it was more important to focus on children’s attainment at the end of primary education – the progress made.

Member of the Committee advised that some school governing bodies felt they were receiving insufficient support from GwE. The HoE emphasised the need for school governing bodies to inform the Education Department if they were of the view that their school was not receiving sufficient support  from GwE , or the support received was not of the desired standard.  This would enable officers to examine whether the terms of the Service Level Agreement (SLA) were being met.

A report to be presented to the Performance Scrutiny Committee in January 2015 on 'Verified External Examinations and Teacher Assessments' should include an illustration of Denbighshire's position both nationally and regionally over the past five years, and be accompanied by GwE's Annual Report  (including and that a representative from GwE should be in attendance to present and  discuss the report;

Members of the Committee asked that assurances be sought from GwE that it is not its intention to solely focus its work and efforts on failing schools/authorities, and that it does have services in place to help support good schools/authorities to achieve an excellence level. Officers emphasised that the Council's education service and GwE were not separate entities, both services' aims and objectives were the same - to support and assist the County's pupils to realise their educational and vocational potential which should result in better outcomes for them.  Estyn would judge both the Council and GwE on these outcomes and on their joint role in supporting pupils to achieve their potential.

The HoE reported that as yet there was no update from the Welsh Government regarding children with special needs in special schools having to sit the same tests as those who have not which has a negative impact on the Authority’s perceived performance

Councillor Arwel Roberts wanted to clarify a point he had raised at a recent Cabinet meeting, that when he said that Ysgol Brynhyfryd should teach through the medium of Welsh 100% of the time, he meant the Welsh Stream rather than the whole school. The Head of Education offered to facilitate a visit for members to Ysgol Brynhyfryd to see and meet pupils in the Welsh Language stream throughout the school. A number of Members indicated that they would appreciate such a visit.

it was requested that future reports include information on the the three lowest achieving secondary schools' improvement plans

Following a detailed discussion it was:

Resolved: - subject to the above observations and actions to note the performance of schools against previous performance and the external benchmarks that are currently available.