Issue - meetings

Consideration was given to the report of the Interim Corporate Director of Education and the Assistant Director EAS which was presented to inform Members of Welsh Government: School Performance Reporting Arrangements for 2019-2020, provide an overview of national outcomes as context and provide anonymised local data where available.

The Assistant Director EAS spoke to the report and highlighted the main points contained therein and advised Members that due to the pandemic the Welsh Government had cancelled all statutory data collections at foundation phase, key stage two and key stage 3 and relaxed the reporting arrangements from schools to local authorities so the data was not the same as in previous years.

In response to a Member’s question regarding old data, the Assistant Director EAS said that the reason why there was no current update to this data was that the Welsh Government had suspended the processes for sharing that data back to local authorities.

A Member commented that the figures in the report did provide some information moving forward and felt that science needed to be improved in most secondary schools. He raised concerns that youngsters had not been able to sit exams in the summer and potentially this could happen again next year and enquired if extra support would be put in place for youngsters when they sit A level exams in two years’ time.  The Assistant Director EAS agreed with the Member’s comment that learners had missed out on sitting exams and said learners would need additional support put in place by schools, even if schools were temporarily closed and would have to employ distance and blended learning either with the whole school or small cohorts within the school as they self-isolate.  The well-being of learners was a priority to re-engage them with learning.

The Committee AGREED to recommend that the report be accepted and endorse Option 2; namely that the report as provided be accepted.