Agenda item

Report of the Corporate Director of Resilience

Sam Webster, Portfolio Holder for Education, Employment and Skills and Sarah Fielding, Director of Education, delivered a presentation on provisional attainment data for Nottingham City pupils.

It is noted that whilst all data is invalidated, the overall results are positive. Information is yet to be received for Key Stage 2 pupils to the end of September and Key Stage 4 pupils to the end of October but the overall final results and analysis will be presented to the Committee at a future meeting.

The following points were highlighted:

(a)  there has been a clear improvement across the board on the last year’s results;

(b)  there are 17 areas of assessment for early foundation stage pupils, including personal, social, emotional and physical development, communication and language as well as maths and literacy. At 65.5% Nottingham is much closer to the national average of 69.3% achievement;

(c)  with regard to phonics which are tested at the end of Year 1, pupils have 40 words to read, both real and phonic, and are expected to achieve 32 correct answers. In 2015 Nottingham was ranked last of 150  education authorities but this year is expected to be ranked 142;

(d)  For Key Stage 1 pupils, in reading 66.5% Nottingham pupils achieved the expected standard against the national average of 74%. In writing, 58.2% of the pupils achieved the expected standard against national average of 65.5%, which is a narrower gap than in previous years. In maths, 67.9% of pupils achieved the expected standard, against the national average of 72.6%. The improvements in maths are very pleasing and can be attributed to focus initiatives and targeted interventions;

(e)  Key Stage 2 pupils have narrowed the gap in reading writing and maths to only 3.2% from the National average, which could raise Nottingham’s ranking in 2016 from 141/150 in 2015, to 109 in 2016. In Grammar, punctuation and spelling (GPS) Nottingham may rise 3 places to be ranked joint 116^th/150. In reading, 59.9% of Nottingham pupils achieved of the expected standard against the national average of 65.7%, potentially raising a Nottingham from 143/150 in 2015 to joint 129/150 in 2016. In writing, 70.7% of Nottingham pupils achieved of the expected standard against the national average of 74.1%, raising the ranking from 148/150 in 2015 to potentially joint 129/150 in 2016. In maths, 68.7% of Nottingham pupils achieved of the expected standard against the national average of 69.8%, which could raise the ranking from 108/150 in 2015 to 79/150 in 2016;

(f)  Key Stage 4 pupils are predicted to have achieved 52.2% of the expected basic standards against the national average of 59.2%, which is a rise of 6.5% on 2015 achievement. Progress 8 figures have shown improvements whilst Attainment 8 figures are yet to be confirmed;

(g)  Pupil Outcomes

(i)  80% of children are in schools judged ad ‘good’;

(ii)  Primary and Secondary School attendance exceeds the national average;

(iii)60.5% of eligible 2 year olds are accessing free nursery provision;

(iv)breakfast clubs are established in all but one of the 75 primary schools;

(v)  186 Governors have attended some level of training at the Governor Academy;

(vi)the ‘Daily Mile’ challenge will start in September 2016;

(vii)  45% of schools have signed up to ‘Opportunity Notts’;

(h)  Areas for future progress have been identified as:

(i)  driving the Education Improvement Board strands of focus, including literacy, maths,  transition, teacher retention;

(ii)  reducing advisory support for Academies;

(iii)in depth monitoring and tracking of performance data for all groups;

(iv)delivering ‘Continuing Professional Development ‘ to all age ranges;

(v)  further developing relationships with Ofsted, the Department for Education (DoE)  and the Regional School Commissioner;

(vi)expanding school improvement traded services.

Following comments and questions from the Committee, the following comments were made:

(i)  with regard to tracking the impact of early intervention, all schools track the achievement and progress of each child in detail and introduce interventions if a child starts to fall behind. It is in the interests of teachers to ensure that all children achieve the best they can;

(j)  Ofsted inspectors are tasked with inspecting standards to a structure specified by the Department for Education (DfE) and do a good job but there isn’t any consideration of the broader issues such as raising aspirations and ensuring that young people are work ready;

(k)  some young people come from families where no one works and their aspirations are very low so Nottingham City Council has introduced ‘ASPIRE’ which brings schools and local businesses together to help raise the aspirations of young people. This approach would be beneficial at a National level. The majority of teachers in the City have made a pro-active choice to work in Nottingham due to the specific challenges which differ from other areas. The City needs to attract the very best teachers to work in the most deprived schools. The pupil premium does not adequately address that need; 

(l)  there is a known issue that the parents of many good and achieving primary school pupils move their children to county schools for their secondary education which then skews the achievement levels of the City. If achievement was gauged on where a child actually lived, not where they attended school, Nottingham’s achievement would be ranked much higher;

(m)  national rankings for GCSE results won’t be available until January 2017, but an update can be provided to the Committee once they are confirmed. Generally Nottingham doesn’t do well on GCSE results and was ranked second from the bottom last year. There has been a significant drop in achievement since vocational subjects are no longer included in the comparative statistics. This is focus on academic subjects at the cost of vocational affects urban areas more than rural areas;

(n)  there aren’t any particular cohorts of young people who do particularly well or badly in specific areas of the City. Overall white British males have the lowest achievement levels whilst achievement of minority groups is really good. Last year 37.8% of white British males achieved 5 good GCSEs whilst for BME the achievement was 46.1%.

RESOLVED to

(1)  review the finalised achievement figures at a future meeting once available;

(2)  invite the Regional Schools Commissioner for East Midlands and Humber to a future meeting of the Committee to enable the Committee.