Children, Young People and Education Committee - School improvement and learner attainment

Blaenau Gwent LA will continue to commission a regional school improvement arm approach, and the local authority will work in partnership with this service and the schools, in order to ensure a continuous improvement system is in place through robust self-evaluation processes and identification of school priorities to drive continuous improvement. Via the self-evaluation and setting of priorities the school improvement service will broker appropriate support to assist schools on the improvement areas identified.

The sharing of relevant information and intelligence about settings between the improvement service and the LA, reinforces the professional partnerships, aimed towards collectively being responsible and accountable to improving learner outcomes. There is an expectation for the high-quality evidence gathered by settings and the authority to be used for improvement, accountability and transparency. There is a shared understanding of the enabling factors for learner attainment through consultation with settings and commissioned services, which uses local intelligence to shape plans that are bespoke to our children and young people and aligns with the delivery of CfW.

In conjunction with school improvement commissioned services, we target context specific outcomes, reducing inequalities for our disadvantaged learners and improving challenge for the more able and talented. There is a recognition of the need for inclusive practices, ensuring our teaching and learning guidance and strategic LA priorities take account of Inclusion additional factors i.e.  additional learning needs, attendance (a national priority), and early years base levels, and the school improvement service must also now consider those areas when supporting schools in planning for improvement and to achieve the highest quality teaching, learning and engagement.

The LA will continue to access the PLOs that will be available from the school improvement regional service to enable a continuation of workforce development.  A concern for LAs is ITE and PGCE programmes potentially not having a focus on the current issues facing education in terms of the rise in complexity of need, including behaviour and as a result the retention of staff and subsequently the recruitment of high-quality staff – across all disciplines and roles. 

Funding is an issue that all schools will cite as an area of high concern, as there is a disparity between the increase in the needs of learners and the expectation for schools to enhance their curriculum to meet the needs of most learners in mainstream (ALNET) against a cut/cash flat position in budgets and loss of staff to deliver specific interventions which would effectively allow the enhanced curriculum to be offered.  This has resulted in schools citing that they are not able to meet need and an increase in pressure on the LA to increase capacity in resource base provision, in order to be able to offer the ‘additional to and different from’.  

Cofion/Regards,

Dr. Luisa Munro-Morris