To consider school performance of summer 2019 and make recommendations to cabinet on how the effectiveness of the school improvement framework and strategy could be enhanced.

The committee received a report from the head of learning and achievement (HLA) concerning the examination performance from 2019. The HLA introduced the report and provided the presentation attached as appendix 1.

The principal points below were raised by the committee in the debate:

·         It was requested that in future the presentation of the results in the report should be set against performance in earlier years to establish if there were any trends. The director children and families (DCF) explained that this detail was available and could be circulated after the meeting.

·         Performance in the primary phase was positive but there was concern over the performance in the secondary phase. The HLA explained that it was difficult to compare the results for the secondary phase over a number of preceding years due to the change in examination methods.

·         It was queried whether the council was funding the local National leaders in education (NLEs). The HLA confirmed that the council was helping fund the NLEs. The DCF explained that the school improvement team was a small resource and occasionally there was a need to ‘buy-in’ expertise.

·         The role of schools to support the mental health and wellbeing of pupils was raised and if there was concern regarding the provision of this support locally. The HLA explained that schools had a mental health lead and could provide counselling to pupils. There was also the provision of child and adolescent mental health service (CAMHS) which accepted referrals from schools. A selection of secondary schools had received funding to develop mental health and wellbeing provision; if the project was successful the provision could be introduced across all secondary schools from September 2020. The DCF highlighted the launch of the children and young people plan which had included examples of how the emotional wellbeing of pupils was being supported across the primary and secondary phases. It was explained that at a recent head teacher stakeholder event there had been a discussion on the need for greater work to be undertaken to define the mental health support that was available in the primary phase.

·         There was concern regarding pressures on local CAMHS and speech language therapy (SLT) services and the length of waiting lists. These were topics of importance to the scrutiny committee and were proposed as subjects of reviews in the forthcoming municipal year.

·         The performance of the multi-academy trust over the previous year was raised. The assistant director education development and skills (ADED&S) explained that there was assurance with the primary academies but the secondary academies were still posing some concern. It was acknowledged that a recent Ofsted inspection had contained areas of positivity with respect to the secondary schools.

·         The difficulty of recruitment for schools and the impact on standards of education was raised; it was posed that such difficulty would mirror problems in other sectors, such as the recruitment of social workers and health workers. The ADED&S explained that this was an issue for schools particularly small establishments. There was  ...  view the full minutes text for item 45