Agenda item

SEN ATTAINMENT

To receive a presentation from the Interim Director Education Standards, Quality and Performance.

Minutes:

The Director of Education Standards, Quality, and Performance went through the presentation that had been distributed in advance of the meeting. The Committee were informed that the data for key stage 4 was missing as it had not yet been received. They were assured that this was standard procedure as the data was received initially by schools and then sent to the Council. The key stage 2 data was yet to be verified but all information presented was accurate as it could be.

 

The Committee were told that the early years’ assessments were carried out by teachers and all were reporting a good level of attainment. Early years assessments were measured in a number of areas and if a child did not achieve a good level of attainment they were listed as emerging. In Trafford whilst the attainment of children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) was lower than the national average, the current year had seen a marked improvement compared to the previous cohort. The phonics results showed that by the age they took those assessments SEND children had closed the gap on the national average but they were still not at the same level of attainment as mainstream children.

 

A member of the Committee asked why Trafford had fallen behind in SEND pupil attainment given that the rest of Trafford Children performed better than the national average. The Director of Education Standards, Quality, and Performance responded that it was difficult to say why SEND children were underperforming at this level as they were being assessed by teachers. Trafford offered mediation training to schools in an attempt to increase consistency in assessment across the borough. Trafford also offered support to schools in helping SEND children to develop and thrive. A deep dive exercise to look into the performance was planned for later on in the year, after the results had been confirmed.

 

The team were also looking at other local authorities which had better records of SEND attainment to see if there was anything that could be learned from them. The Director of Education Standards, Quality, and Performance stated that whilst educational underperformance was an indicator of an issue SEND children were also lagging behind health and social areas. In light of this, Trafford had decided to take a holistic approach to improve all outcomes for SEND children instead of focusing only upon education.

 

A Member of the Committee requested that the report following the deep dive exercise be brought to the Committee once completed. The Director of Education Standards, Quality, and Performance agreed to bring the report to a later meeting of the Committee.

 

The Chair asked whether children turned up under prepared for the start of the school year. The Director of Education Standards, Quality, and Performance responded that the service was looking at trends of school preparedness across areas so that they could focus support where it was needed.

 

The Vice Chair asked how many children had not been included within the stats as they had been dissapplied. The Director of Education Standards, Quality, and Performance did not have the figures to hand but said that she would send through the figures to the Committee outside of the meeting.

 

The Key stage one statistics were broken down by reading, writing, maths and a combination of those three scores. The data showed a varied picture for SEND pupils with them out performing the national average in some areas and falling below the national average in others. The Committee were told that following the Rochford review the way the way that the P scales were measured was to change (The P Scale was the measurement of performance for children who are below standard level of attainments).

 

A Committee Member asked whether the reason for the improvement in attainment compared with previous years was known. The Director of Education Standards, Quality, and Performance stated that, whilst it could not be known for certain, it was believed that the improvements were due to teachers and schools getting used to the new curriculum and tests. The Council had also been focused upon improving the development of SEND pupils.

 

The Chair asked whether teachers were identifying children with SEND sooner. The Director of Education Standards, Quality, and Performance did feel that teachers were becoming better at identifying SEND children at an earlier age, which was in part due to the increased focus upon early identification of SEND children within the Borough. The Council had put a lot of resources to integrate with schools through SENCO officers and the quality of assessment of children had improved greatly over time.

 

By Key stage 2, SEND children were performing above the national average in all areas apart from statemented children for reading. The Director of Education Standards, Quality, and Performance commented that it was presumed this underperformance was due to the format of the assessment. This was because the reading assessment was a long test, especially with extended time for SEND children, which could be tiring for children. The Committee were told that children were also evaluated upon their level of progress and all Send children in Trafford were making better progress than the national average across the board.

 

RESOLVED:

1)    That the update be noted.

2)    That a report on the underperformance of SEND children during early years be brought to the committee once completed.

3)    That the Committee be supplied with details of the number of children dissapplied from the statistics outside of the meeting.

 

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