Agenda item

The draft ‘Best start in life -Southwark school standards report 2016-17’ is enclosed.

Nina Dohel, Director of Education, and Terry Segarty, Head of Standards, presented highlights from the draft ‘Best start in life -Southwark School standards report 2016-17’, circulated with the agenda.

The chair then invited comments and questions from the committee:

·  It would be beneficial if we could track the number of care leavers on the Council apprenticeship program.

·  How are the new arrangements for the virtual headteachers going? The Director responded that there will be a report by the virtual headteachers.

·  Some groups of children and young people are under achieving; what are we doing to tackle this? The Head of Standards commented that Early Years is important and also ensuring there is a wide and broad curriculum so we are engaging all children from different backgrounds. It is also working out the barriers to progress for individual children.  There can sometimes be a few and identifying what these are can best be addressed by schools through tracking progress.

·  A member commented that the report very much focuses on a level and raised concerns that the council is not focusing on BTECs and more vocational courses post 16. The Director commented that this report is focusing on national benchmarks. The data set is harder to grasp for other qualifications – though the council could explore this. Presently officers are dependent on DFE data. To get other data officers would need to establish agreements with education providers and colleges.

·  Members raised concerns about schools unfairly removing or encouraging young people to leave to keep the exam rate statistics high. The officers said that schools do have a range of practices at end of a year, such as interviews and advice. Members pressed the point and asked if concerns had been raised about young people coming under pressure to leave. Officers said that they would follow that up, however they have not had to do that with any families. Members asked if it would be possible to compare data on admissions and completion rates. Officers confirmed that they could look at that.

·  Do you share good practice between schools? Officers do have strand of work looking at this and there is good formal and informal sharing. One of Southwark’s strengths is headteachers willingness to share. The council have also documented particular pieces of work on key stages, such as phonics.

·  What about variations across Multi Academy Trusts? Trusts will look at these themselves. Members could invite them to attend.

·  What about the more able? School do share good practice and Ofsted measure progress: all children are expected to progress and some are expected to make accelerated progress.

·  What about the technical and other professions? The Director responded that the Secondary headteachers network, SASH, and the council are working on the Southwark Skills Strategy with headteachers. This issue does exercise our headteachers as they do want a range of options for young people post 16.  This was a subject that a previous scrutiny review focused on helpfully.