Agenda item

Education Directorate – Recovery and Renewal Plan

To consider the report of the Head of School Improvement and the Service Manager, Education Transformation and Business Change.

Minutes:

Consideration was given to the report of the Head of School Improvement and Inclusion and the Service Manager Education Transformation and Business Change which was presented to provide Members with an opportunity to scrutinise the Education Directorate’s identified priorities for recovery and renewal, as part of the response to the COVID-19 situation.

 

The Head of School Improvement and Inclusion spoke to the report and highlighted the main points contained therein.

 

A Member referred to pupil behaviour in schools and felt this should have been referenced in the report.  The Head of School Improvement and Inclusion said that learner’s emotional states including their behaviour and the potential impact that could have on other learners was a key priority.  The report contained overarching statements of the key areas and these would be broken down into much more detailed plans i.e. learner wellbeing, emotional, behaviour etc.

 

The Service Manager Education Transformation & Business Change reiterated this point and said that this linked into the learner theme and also the school operations and support for schools around behaviour in the form of risk assessments and staffing etc. and felt this was a cross cutting aspect that would feature as part of the detailed action plans around a number of these different impact areas.

 

A Member commented that it was good to see whole school wellbeing and mental health support being given priority, and also to see support for vulnerable learners and ALN reform feature so prominently, and that parental engagement, which he felt was absolutely crucial was also listed.  He felt the plan accurately reflected the Local Authority responding to current and future changes.

 

With regard to PPE and face masks in schools a Member commented that the Authority needed to be clearer on the guidance as there was uncertainty on wearing face masks in classrooms and corridors.  The Service Manager Education Transformation & Business Change stressed there was clear guidance that in all secondary schools in classrooms and in communal areas, where two metre social distancing could not be maintained, that pupils wear face coverings and this applied across the school estate.  If there were significant issues which were presented and schools feel that under risk assessment that they could manage and put in place additional control measures, then the team could look to review that with the school.   There had been significant engagement with primary and secondary schools, special schools and all through schools and that guidance had been clearly relayed and was reinforced at every opportunity.  If there were any particular concerns the Member had the officer offered to discuss these outside of the meeting. 

 

A Member referred to the identified key impacts on education on page 55 and said that in relation to safeguarding, voluntary third sector involvement, preventative health measures and Covid-19 control measures, the report stated there had been little or no engagement and he felt this was inaccurate as there had been a lot of engagement with youngsters and their parents during the pandemic i.e. ensuring free school meals were delivered, schools making sure that youngsters were engaging and enquiring after their wellbeing, making sure they had the right equipment etc.  He raised concerns with the narrative in the report and that it did not pick up on the variances between schools, and that the improvements and good work that had taken place in schools had not been referenced in the report i.e. digital technology.  He also referred to the curriculum for Wales and felt it was up to schools to progress this and look at how the curriculum fits within their own areas.  He felt there was room for improvement within the plan.

 

The Chair agreed with the Member’s comments and added that through personal experience delivering free school meals etc. he felt that community interaction had been strong and working together the community understood what schools were doing.

 

The Corporate Director of Education agreed with the Chair and Member’s comments that the partnership working around Covid had been outstanding on a number of levels.  However, in relation to the narrative on safeguarding it mentioned limited access to on-site school support and he explained that this related to occasions where there had been a move to blended learning and on-site support for learners throughout Covid had been limited.    With regard to the Recovery and Renewal plan it would not be a one size fits all approach, there would be differentiated approaches based upon the needs of learners right across the school estate and would be a series of bespoke solutions based on schools and the individual learners needs.  He added that the focus in the plan was not just about recovery, it was also about renewal and part of that would be learning from experiences in dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic.  Blended learning and the way learners were supported through ICT were a direct result of being in the pandemic situation, which had instigated significant positive digital change across the school estate.

 

The Service Manager Education Transformation & Business Change said it was a very high level impact assessment which was in its infancy and they were still working with schools to support the response.  With regard to the key impact - voluntary third sector and charity work and engagement – this was based around engagement on school sites as opposed to the work around recovery that was undertaken during the course of the last academic session and prior to that.  Community support had been invaluable particularly around delivery of free school meals etc. and felt this highlighted where there were gaps from a school community perspective, there was normally a significant level of engagement with various charities and voluntary third sector partners etc., however, they had been unable to go into school sites due to the restrictions around Covid.

 

For clarification the Chair said that the words ‘school based’ should be included in the key impact - voluntary third sector and charity work and engagement.

 

This course of action was AGREED.

 

Members felt that the overarching report should have included the good work that had been undertaken such as digital improvements etc.  The Head of School Improvement and Inclusion reiterated these were high level statements and there would be action plans built around each of these focusing on the way schools move forward as well as the way the Local Authority can support schools and work with the EAS to move forward with all of the areas.  She advised that the plan would be based on the needs of each individual school and Headteacher representatives from each of the clusters would also be working on the plans.

 

The Service Manager Education Transformation & Business Change added that they did capture within the impact assessment, areas of notable success and would continue to do this, the learning would inform the development of the plan going forward.  She felt that the report reflected the stage at which the impact assessment and planning process were at and the detail was being progressed at this point in time.

 

In response to a Member’s question regarding how the EAS would address the issue of looking at assessing where pupils were at the moment and where they needed to be in readiness to sit their GCSE’s, the Principal Challenge Advisor said the Welsh Government had announced that Estyn inspections would not resume until the spring, performance measures had been suspended again and the EAS were seeking as much information as possible regarding the progress of learners.  After Easter schools would make some baseline tests to try and look at progress children had made to see where they are now and where they needed to be and that would happen at individual school level.  The EAS would have professional discussions with Headteachers in a very detailed and specialised way, about the systems that were taking place within schools to assure the Headteacher that assessment was accurate for the age and the stage of the child and that the right judgement was made about the child’s progress.  She advised that the Welsh Government had been out to consultation between January and April with a new working approach on school improvement and accountability systems, which explained and set out, in detail, the role of each tier within the system.  The role of schools, within the system, was to ensure that self-evaluation and school development planning was accurate and so there were proposed ways of working based on overarching principles within the consultation document.  For scrutiny, this would mean that the EAS were proposing to meet with every school in the autumn term, some in Blaenau Gwent, to trial a new professional dialogue i.e. a school’s own self-evaluation accuracy, the systems for self-evaluating and how schools were generating the most important areas for improvement.  A key part of that would be the accuracy of tracking and assessment within schools, and Headteachers and the Council could be assured that schools were holding accurate information on children and were able to identify any issues.

 

With regard to the consultation document the Principal Challenge Advisor said there was a move away from the hard edged data in looking at provision in schools to a more qualitative triangulated range of multi-dimensional data, including children’s voice, parents voice and lessons.  This was the steer from Welsh Government and the auspice in which the EAS would be working towards in the coming months.  She would share the consultation document with Members for their information.

 

A Member referred to the new ALN Bill due in September and the Service Manager Inclusion leaving the Authority and enquired how this would be managed moving forward.  The Corporate Director of Education said that a report had previously been presented to Scrutiny outlining the preparedness for ALN reform and that this report had given Members assurances that the Authority was well prepared for the September implementation.  He expressed thanks to the Service Manager Inclusion for all the work he had undertaken in preparing the Authority for ALN reform and also his work around the inclusion agenda.  There was now an opportunity for recruitment, and building on experiences from appointing the Head of School Improvement and Inclusion an approach had been agreed to offer the post on a secondment basis across the school estate.   The benefits of this approach would be that it would provide a CPD opportunity for a member of staff and also give the Local Authority the opportunity to see how the member of staff settled into the role.  The Director was looking to initiate the recruitment process in the near future to ensure capacity for the move towards implementation from September 2021.

 

The Member referred to the timing of the secondment as the school would need to replace the successful candidate which could be a Headteacher or Deputy Headteacher for the secondment period and this could take a considerable amount of time.  The Director said it may not necessarily be a Headteacher or Deputy Headteacher that applied for the position, it could be for example an Additional Learning Needs Co-ordinator or specialist in the Inclusion field.  There was no intention to destabilise any school arrangements with this appointment and they would work closely with the schools to ensure there was continuity. 

 

The Head of School Improvement and Inclusion said that with regard to capacity and to be able to support schools, in particular senior leadership, to ensure they had everything in place to meet the needs of the new ALN Bill, Tredegar Comprehensive School had received some additional funding for extra capacity to go out and work specifically with schools in this regard.

 

A Member raised concerns that with school inspections no longer taking place, how the improvements made to the two schools that were categorised as a cause for concern would be acknowledged moving forward.  The Principal Challenge Advisor said categorisation had been suspended for another year and gave assurances that schools would continue to receive the right level of support, the EAS were proposing as a region that they would still have that professional discussion with the Headteachers and the levels of support the school would have for the coming year would be determined in those discussions.  The local Authority, the EAS, the Headteachers and senior leaders would all look at the school’s needs to ensure that the right number of days were agreed, this could be in the region of 5 days with additional days added if the school needed more support.

 

In relation to the schools causing concern categorised as red, this was still a statutory process and the EAS would need to follow this process to ensure that those schools were supported and that their progress was reported to Members and to all stakeholders.  However, the colour categorisation would no longer be reported as one of the limits of categorisation was that a school could be improving in the background, but actually it could still be categorised as red without those improvements being recognised by the community.  She felt there was now an opportunity for the schools in Blaenau Gwent that were improving to showcase their improvements by working with parents, the Council’s Corporate Communications section and local press to get their school improvement information into local forums to keep the community informed.  She referred to the literacy festival at Brynmawr Foundation school and said that was exactly the kind of news that needed to be out in the community.

 

The Corporate Director of Education said that progress was being made particularly with the two schools that were currently in an Estyn category.  With regard to communication and the improvements that were being made for both of these schools, Corporate Communications worked closely with these schools to get positive messages out in the community.  He referred to the fantastic literacy festival at Brynmawr Foundation school which had received national TV coverage and said that was one strand of the work that Corporate Communications were supporting.  He advised that Estyn had recently announced that core inspections were being suspended but Monitoring Visits would continue to take place and that was the opportunity for the Inspectorate to assess the progress that was being made.  This would give those schools the opportunity to demonstrate progress and provide encouragement for their respective improvement journeys.

 

The Head of School Improvement and Inclusion commented that there had been weekly meetings with schools to ensure that as much information as possible was in the local press and also that the literacy festival was shared with all the Headteachers in the last joint Headteachers meeting and all of the schools were able to participate and join in with a number of the activities.  She felt this was another way of promoting across the school estate the fantastic work that was going on.

 

The Strategic Education Improvement Manager said that changing perception can be very challenging and a number of strategies had to be involved and through the work of Corporate Communications they were working to support the schools to engage better with their parents.  She gave an example that Abertillery Learning Community had requested that they facilitate a meeting in relation to launching their school prospectus.

 

The Chair referred to the recruitment of the Service Manager Inclusion and suggested that the Education Directorate liaise with the Social Services Directorate as this post linked in with the Social Services Directorate.  The Corporate Director of Education said there was a good relationship between the Directorates and he was looking to build on this collaborative work e.g. through the Bridging the Gap work on early intervention and prevention.

 

A Member referred to the two weekly involvement in shaping the Curriculum for Wales on page 75 and enquired how they would ensure that this was implemented in the correct way.  The Head of School Improvement and Inclusion said the new curriculum gave schools the freedom to shape the curriculum to meet the needs of their local school communities.  They were working closely with the EAS to ensure they had the right training to put in the support for school to school working and to broker that support that different schools would need.  This ensured that provision was in place to enable schools to be empowered to develop the curriculum in the way they wanted.

 

The Principal Challenge Advisor said the EAS had a national programme to deliver on behalf of the Local Authority.  The Local Authority, Headteachers, Deputy Headteachers and senior leaders had all been part of the national programme and that programme was now being delivered to middle leaders within Blaenau Gwent.  She referred to the professional discussions and the information gained from these discussions such as what are the schools strengths, what are the areas for development etc. and most of that would be delivered via a school to school delivery model whereby one school supported another.

 

The Member commented that school to school working was working well with schools helping each other.  He felt that self-evaluation had made a massive difference in education.

 

The Committee AGREED to recommend that the report be accepted and endorse Option 1; namely that the report, associated documentation and proposed course of action be accepted; and

 

FURTHER AGREED that the words ‘school based’ be included in the key impact - Voluntary/Third Sector/ Charities work and engagement - Opportunities to engage partners have been restricted significantly due to operational implications associated with COVID-19.

Supporting documents: