MID EPHA Meeting

Thursday 5th March 2015

Attendance Matters

Chris Kiernan Director of Commissioning, Education and Lifelong Learning

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Quadrant/Comparative area

OverallAbsence %

Authorised Absence %

UnauthorisedAbsence %

Mid 3.74% 3.29% 0.45%

NE 4.09% 3.45% 0.63%

South 3.82% 3.07% 0.74%

West 3.73% 3.12% 0.61%

Essex 3.84% 3.22% 0.61%

England National Average

3.89% 3.16% 0.73%

Autumn 2013/Spring 2014 – Essex Primary Absence Rates.

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Autumn 2012/Spring 2013 – Essex Primary Absence Rates.

Quadrant/comparative area

Overall absence %

Authorised absence %

Unauthorised absence %

Mid 4.66% 4.24% 0.42%

NE 5.02% 4.45% 0.57%

South 5.00% 4.28% 0.73%

West 4.68% 4.10% 0.58%

Essex 4.85% 4.27% 0.58%

England National Average

4.82% 4.10% 0.72%

‘Children set back by taking holidays in term time.’

Taken from: The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian (p,5), The Times (p,21), Independent (p7-23), February 2015

• New research from the DfE suggests children who miss seven days’ schooling each year see their chances of gaining five good GCSEs reduced markedly. Only 31% of children who missed more than 14 days of lessons over two years got the “gold standard” of good grades in English, Maths, Science, a humanity and a language compared to 44% of pupils who attended school every day.  Meanwhile, just 16.4% of children who miss 28 days of school over two years get five good GCSEs.

• The report also found that primary school pupils who miss just 14 days of schooling between the age of 7 and 11 are 25% less likely to achieve level five. Ministers claim the new fining regime for parents who take their children out of school in term time has cut the absence rate to a record 4.4%.

• However, campaign group Parents Want a Say argue that the Education Secretary has conflated statistics for those children playing truant with those who attend normally but take a term time holiday. John Hemming, the Liberal Democrat MP who is campaign chairman of Parents Want a Say, said: "Nicky Morgan should get an F for fail in her statistics. It's either being done deliberately or incompetently. It is misleading.” He also cited a DfE study in 2011 which concluded that a small holiday during term time at primary school "doesn't do any harm and potentially is beneficial".

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2014 outcomes

2010 2011 2012 2013 2014EYFSEngland 56 59 64 52 60SNs 58 61 66 53 63East of England 53 55 62 52 61Essex 50 52 60 53 61East of England rank 10 10 7 3 4SN rank 11 10 10 5 6England rank 124 135 106 50 57KS2 RWM L4+England 64 67 75 76 79SNs 64 66 74 74 79East of England 61 63 73 74 77Essex 64 66 74 75 79East of England rank 2 4 3 2 3SN rank 5 7 6 4 4England rank 77 91 82 90 68KS4 5+ A*-C inc E&MEngland 55.1 58.2 58.8 60.6 56.6SNs 55.7 58.3 58.9 60.3 56.8East of England 56.0 59.1 58.2 59.8 57.2Essex 54.6 58.2 59.0 60.5 56.5East of England rank 5 6 3 4 5SN rank 9 7 4 4 7England rank 78 72 68 82 85

MeasureYear

Trendline

Developing a School-led Improvement System in Essex

A partnership between:

Essex County Council

Association of Secondary Heads in Essex

Essex Primary Heads Association

Essex Special Schools Education Trust

Essex Schools Governors Association

What is a School-led Improvement System?• National Standards of Excellence for Headteachers – DfE

January 2015

Excellent headteachers – the self-improving school system•Create outward facing schools which work with other schools and organisations – in a climate of mutual challenge – to champion best practice and secure excellent achievements for all pupils.

• East of England and North East London Headteachers’ Board , January 2015

Excellence as Standard•The schools in the region – take significant and sustained steps towards being self-improving

•Increasing numbers of primary, special and secondary schools - particularly in mutually supportive clusters – as part of the self-improving system.

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The journey in Essex…

• Review into the role of the LA in January 2013 by ISOS Consultancy

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Developing a School-led improvement system in Essex

A system of local partnerships of schools:– With a shared ambition to rapidly raise outcomes for all children

across the partnership at all key stages

– That provides mutual support and challenge to each other

– That holds each other to account to ensure agreed targets are met

– That supports in challenging circumstances

– That innovates and provides solutions to locality issues – curriculum, quality of teaching, leadership development, Ofsted preparation, recruitment of teachers, peer reviews, governance

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Developing a School-led improvement system in Essex

• A system of local partnerships of schools:– That provides robust and effective performance monitoring and

scrutiny of outcomes for children

– That can (over time) be responsible for, and deploy resources for pupils with SEN

– That will be supported by Teaching School Alliances, Essex Education Services, the LA and other providers

– That may want to have an objective perspective from an independent chair and / or facilitator to drive change and provide challenge

– That may be quality assured by an overarching collegiate governance group

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Opportunities• To have collective responsibility and aspirations for outcomes of children

from Reception to Year 11 / 13

• To work with the Special School sector to ensure the best provision is in place for pupils with SEN

• To ensure every teacher in every school develops to be a consistently good teacher

• To support every school to get to good or better and to sustain this outcome

• To develop effective approaches to supporting pupils at each transition point in their education, particularly between Year 6 and 7

• To enable best practice in every school to be captured and widely shared

• To support recruitment and retention challenges and develop innovative models to attract, train and retain the best teachers

• To enable Teaching School Alliances to be at the heart of the improvement of each cluster

• To develop a system of headteacher led peer reviews

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Challenges

• Transparency, trust and honesty

• Have we got the expertise and objectivity for headteachers to genuinely hold each other to account

• Capacity in the system to drive this change

• Funding – pump priming and sustainability

• Scale and size

• Whole system engagement – teaching staff through to governors

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Current and future developments• Basildon Excellence Panel formed February 2014, chaired by Sir

Mike Tomlinson• Harlow Education Improvement Partnership formed January 2015,

chaired by Roger Abo-Henriksen• Tendring clusters being formed around existing groups of schools

with headteacher representatives shaping the Tendring Education Improvement Group

• Groups of schools encouraged to review their partnerships against the expectations and discuss with the LA what opportunities and gaps they may have – linked to Teaching School Alliances

• Small pump priming grants on a matched funding basis to be made available

• SEN strategy under development with devolvement of resource to follow

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Next steps• Partnerships of schools to identify how they may want to move

from an informal loose structure to a formal structure with accountability

• Iterative process across the county – two year process to develop school-led improvement partnerships

• Current partnerships include:– Teaching School Alliances

– Local Delivery Groups

– Multi Academy Trusts

– Other existing Consortia/Trusts

– Informal groups of schools meeting to address common themes

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Peer Review Feedback

• Key recommendations:– Improve clarity for schools of the RAG system and the

support available to schools – Further develop the LA strategic role to co-construct a school

to school support strategy which challenges all schools to accelerate improvement

– Development points for improving communication with stakeholders

– Excellence in Essex Primary Schools– Communications review– Launch of co-construction of the strategy