Agenda item

To consider a report by the Head of Education (copy enclosed) with seeks the Committee to consider the findings of Welsh in Education Strategic Group’s review of the language categorisation of the County’s schools.

9.35 a.m. to 10.10 a.m.

A report by the Head of Education (HE), which sought the Committee to consider the findings of Welsh in Education Strategic Group’s review of the language categorisation of the County’s schools, was circulated with the papers for the meeting.

It had been resolved by Cabinet on the 30^th September, 2014 to request that the Welsh in Education Strategic Group review the language categorisation of all schools during the autumn term and report to Scrutiny in early spring 2015.

The context and criteria of categorisation, included in the report, was summarised by the HE, who also outlined the categorisation and results of the questionnaire in Appendix 2.  A breakdown of responses had been included in Appendix 3 with the responses having been checked against current educational outcomes. 

The HE and Lead Member for Education informed Members that:-

· the Welsh Government's (WG) 'Defining schools according to Welsh Medium provision (2007)' document was a guidance which set out descriptions and school categories based on the amount of Welsh used in teaching and learning, and the day to day running of schools.  This guidance, which had no basis in legislation, was used by education authorities across Wales when developing information for parents on the language medium of their schools;

· in response to a Cabinet decision in September 2014 the Welsh in Education Strategic Group (WESG) had undertaken a review of all the county's schools, both primary and secondary (apart from the special schools), to assess whether all schools were delivering their curriculum within the defined criteria for their current categorisation;

· the results of this assessment had identified anomalies between the current language categorisation and curriculum delivery medium at four of the county's schools - 3 primary schools and 1 secondary school. Whilst one of the primary schools was a dual stream (Category 2) school none of its pupils had been assessed through the medium of Welsh in recent years, but two were expected to be assessed through Welsh this year.  Another primary school, which delivered its curriculum mainly in English, but with significant use of Welsh (Category 4), had indicated it was a dual stream school with sufficient capacity to deliver through the medium of Welsh, and that some pupils had actually been assessed via the medium of Welsh in recent years. The third primary school had acknowledged that it no longer had sufficient capacity to deliver education through the medium of Welsh to permit it to continue with its current Category 4 categorisation.  It should therefore be a Category 5 (English medium) school.  Of the County's two bilingual secondary schools, currently categorised as Category 2B - 80% minimum education delivery through the medium of Welsh, one had indicated that it should now probably be in Category 2C - between 50% and 79% of its curriculum delivered through the medium of Welsh;

· in the past 7 years the County had recorded an increase in the number of pupils being educated through the medium of Welsh from 17% to 23%, this was encouraging.  However there was a long journey yet to be travelled if the Council was to realise its long-term ambition of seeing all the county's children and young people being fully confident and competent in both Welsh and English when they left school:

· the WESG and School Governors had an important role to play in monitoring and supporting schools to meet and deliver the curriculum in line with its language categorisation, and if a school decided that it could no longer deliver in line with its current categorisation a statutory process would have to followed in order to change the categorisation of the school.

The following points were raised by Members:-

- whilst school language categorisation was a complex subject, there was a need to examine the anomalies at all four schools in greater depth in order to gain a better understanding of the contributory factors which had given rise to the anomalies and identify any support that could be made available to them;

- it would also be useful to examine in detail the progress made by all schools along the language continuum, in particular those schools already identified under the Modernising Education Programme as ones who wanted to increase their Welsh medium delivery;

- all school re-organisation action plans should be examined to ensure that the identified actions relating to language categorisation, including the necessary support required to assist the schools with the delivery of education through the specified language, had been actioned and met;

- it would be useful for the purpose of undertaking the above exercise to have two or three Scrutiny Members to serve on the Welsh in Education Strategic Group.  Dr D Marjoram indicated her interest in being a member of the WESG for this purpose.

Following further discussion, it was:-

RESOLVED – that subject to the above observations the Committee:-

(a) notes the findings of the review of the County's schools' delivery of education in relation to their language categorisation,

(b) recommends that the Welsh in Education Strategic Group undertake a further review to establish the reasons for the anomalies in the four schools identified in the report, identifying any support that may be available to them to support them going forward,

(c) requests that the WESG also examine the progress made by all county schools along the language continuum, particularly those identified under the Modernising Education Programme as ones who wanted to increase their Welsh medium delivery, and

(d) requests that the Scrutiny Chairs and Vice-Chairs Group be asked to appoint two or three scrutiny Members to serve on the WESG for the purpose of this further review.