Agenda item

CLOSING THE GAP: REDUCING EDUCATIONAL INEQUALITIES WITHIN THE BOROUGH OF TRAFFORD

To consider a report of the Director of Education, Standards, Performance and Quality Assurance.

Minutes:

The Director Education Standards, Quality and Performance went through the report that had been distributed with the agenda. This was a follow on from a piece of work that had been done by the Overview and Scrutiny Committee a few years prior and the Interim Director detailed the areas that had changed since that work had been done. The first section of the report covered the areas where children were struggling. The Committee were told about the graduated approach that the Council was taking within Children’s services and that a key part of this approach was reducing the gap in attainment.

 

The Committee were told that while the term disadvantaged had a broad definition generally within Children’s services it related to children who received Pupil Premium funding and free school meals. The pupil premium was given to schools and the Council had no say in how the schools spent this funding. A Committee Member asked whether there was any way that the Council held schools to account for how they spent these funds. The Interim Director stated that the Council did do some work with the schools they supported around pupil premiums. The Council discussed Pupil Premiums in the conversations that they had with academies but there was very little that they could do influence them or hold them to account.

 

The Director then went through the four Trafford early years priorities. Within the four priorities there were many pieces of work which would help to close the attainment gap including having highly detailed place based plans in place for the areas where there was low attainment and a health visitor review which would establish Early Help delivery and create links into the wider offer.

 

The Committee were shown some statistics which showed that by key stage two disadvantage children were doing better against national statistics but there was still a gap between them and their peers within Trafford. Tackling the ongoing gap in attainment was a main focus of the work in this area. By key stage four there had been a narrowing of the gap and by that point disadvantaged children who attended grammar schools achieved the same levels of attainment as their peers. At high schools Trafford had invested resources in narrowing the gap and there had been a reduction in the attainment gap during that time.

 

The Director informed the Committee that the Pupil Premium Network, which was a forum where schools discussed pupil premiums and to shared best practice, had been launched in October. It was hoped that this Network would help to ensure that pupil premiums were utilised correctly and that the forum would hold schools to account. A Member of the Committee enquired as to how the Network would work and they were told that one of the school improvement deputies had aligned the meetings with the deputy forum meetings. The Network then held additional reviews in between the meetings.

 

A Committee Member asked whether there was any evidence that schools were not using the pupil premium funding well. The Director responded that whilst Trafford were not able to directly review schools individual budgets but they were able to identify trends of underperformance through the data available.

 

Another Committee Member enquired as to whether Trafford had a full parenting offer in place. The Early Years Manager and Service Directory Lead stated that Trafford did have a parenting offer a full description of which was available on the Family Information Service. The Acting Corporate Director for Children’s Services added that Trafford used a model called the Webster Stratton Model within their Children’s Centres but they were not available for all parents. There were other offers available from Trafford CCG and some local private companies. Trafford were looking at working with these organisations to create a more comprehensive and cohesive offer for parents.

 

A Committee Member asked whether Trafford had been slow to utilise the impact that Health Visitors could have upon children in the area. The Director agreed with the Councillor and added that Trafford were now moving in the right direction and the review would further this work. The Acting Corporate Director added that the Council could look at the school readiness work which linked in with this work at their next meeting. The Committee agreed to the Acting Corporate Directors Suggestion for the item to be added to the next meeting agenda.

 

A Committee Member asked whether there was any work being done around people not accessing free childcare places. The Director responded that there was no work being down in this area as it was entirely down to parent choice. The Early Years Manager and Service Directory Lead added that the main reason that people did not take their free places was that they felt that their child was too young to be in nursery. The Family Information Service informed parents of other services available which are more suitable to their needs.

 

Another Committee Member enquired as to whether any data was gathered on children’s quality of life. The Director stated that the only data relating to Children’s standard of living were attendance figures. It was hoped that this would change with the new Curriculum approach that Ofsted were taking.

 

A Member noted that there were a lot of acronyms and abbreviations within the report and asked for a glossary of terms to be provided for future reports.

 

RESOLVED:

1)    That the report be noted.

2)    That School Readiness be added to the agenda of the next meeting.

3)    That reports are to include glossary of terms.

     

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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