To receive Report No.27/2019 from the Strategic Director for People and a presentation from Ms G Curtis, Head of Learning and Skills.

Report No.27/2019 was received from the Strategic Director for People and a presentation (appended to the minutes) was given by Ms Curtis, Head of Learning and Skills.

Ms Curtis introduced the report the purpose of which was to provide the Children and Young People Scrutiny Panel with an overview of the key findings from the Learning and Skills Service annual self-review process and to provide assurance that, where performance was not leading to sufficiently high standards, appropriate actions to address priorities for development across the education sector were planned and delivered.

During discussion the following points were noted:

·         Achieving the very best educational outcomes at all stages of development, positively affected job prospects, health and well-being.

·         School accountability measures for December as shown at Appendix A had been updated since publication of the report and the latest accountability measures for January would be appended to the minutes.

·         There was only one Rutland school which came under the remit of the Peterborough Diocese Trust rather than the area Regional schools Commission.

·         All Rutland schools were above average in Progress 8 scores and did not hit a coasting measure however there was a question of whether the more capable students were being sufficiently challenged.

·         Members requested that the Children and Young People Scrutiny Panel be presented with a paper on the High Needs Block funding for children with additional education and care needs.

·         Rutland Primary schools were only attaining average levels for writing in KS2 and ranked 147 out of 152 schools. Members questioned this poor standing considering the affluence of Rutland and the likelihood of high parental support.

·         Officers offered to conduct a workshop for scrutiny panel members to further interrogate all available data.

Mr Gooding, Chief Executive of the Rutland Learning Trust and Mrs Lucas, Head Teacher of Cottesmore Academy were also in attendance to report on and answer questions on the development and delivery of an action plan for Cottesmore Academy.

The following information was reported: 

·         In 2017 The Rutland Learning Trust (RLT) had been approached to explore the possibility of providing intensive support to Cottesmore School as it was feared that it might go into special measures. Standards were found to be low in teaching and learning, leadership and the curriculum. Additionally school facilities were poor and there was a high level of staff turnover and children being permanently excluded.

·         Due diligence was carried out and Cottesmore joined RLT in April 2018. At that time the Trust was promised that the school would not be inspected and that it would be given at least 12 months to improve standards, however the school was inspected by Ofsted in September 2018, after only five months.

·         During this initial period, an assessment of the school had been made, the Trust had identified the most important areas to target and strategic decisions had been made.

·         In light of the short length of time since the Trust had taken over the school, the Ofsted inspector realised that the context of the inspection and the school circumstances were unique.

·         The overall judgement of the inspection was that the school still required improvement to be a good school.

·         Mr Gooding and Mrs Lucas reassured Members that the action plans put into place to resolve issues identified by the Trust and highlighted in the Ofsted report had resulted in improvement in all areas. These included the following changes;

-       Action plans now had numerical targets.

-       An assessment system for children arriving mid-year was now in place.

-       A new middle leadership structure was in place that was now proving effective.

-       The quality of teaching was more consistent and a new assessment policy had been introduced which was beginning to ‘bed in’.

-       Improving attainment in reading, writing and maths by matching work to pupils’ needs had been made a priority.

-       Cross county and inter school moderation was undertaken to ensure that teachers had high expectations of the quality and quantity of students’ work.

-       Teachers were now invested in and took pride in the school.

-       Expanding vocabulary had been a key driver for the new curriculum although it was too soon to measure its impact.

·         There had been a transformational change to the school and an open invitation was issued to Members to come and visit the school to witness this.

During discussion the following points were noted:

·         Members thanked Mr Gooding and Mrs Lucas for coming to speak about the school and were interested to see how their plans developed and how their early successes could be built on to improve the school.

·         It had been the governing body who had raised concerns and contacted the DfE and Ofsted.

·         Members had been particularly worried when they had read the Ofsted report as the school served some of the most vulnerable children.

·         Unlike most other schools in Rutland, Cottesmore Academy experienced a high turnover of pupils with a battalion change impacting greatly on the school.

·         The school had originally been built when Cottesmore was a much bigger base and over the years the reduction in pupil numbers had meant there was not enough money to maintain the building.

·         Very often, pupils with poor levels of attainment were not with the school long enough to make a difference.

RESOLVED:

The Panel

1.    COMMENTED on the Learning and Skills Service annual self-review process and key findings for the academic year September 2017 to August 2018.

2.    ENDORSED the intentions and actions to address priority areas as set out in the Learning and Skills Service Education Development Plan for the academic year 2018-19.