Agenda and minutes

Venue: Council Chamber - Town Hall - Maidenhead

Contact: Andy Carswell 

Items
No. Item

1.

Apologies For Absence

To receive apologies for absence.

Minutes:

Apologies for absence were received from Cllr Hollingsworth. Cllr Jones was attending as a substitute.

2.

Declarations of Interest pdf icon PDF 217 KB

To receive any declarations of interest.

Minutes:

There were no declarations of interest received. The Chairman informed Members that Overview and Scrutiny Panel members now needed to declare an interest if they had been whipped by party whips prior to the meeting. No such declarations were received.

3.

Minutes pdf icon PDF 82 KB

To consider the Part I minutes of the meeting held on February 6th 2018.

Minutes:

The Part I minutes of the meeting held on February 6th 2018 were approved as a true and correct record.

4.

Standards and Quality of Education - Review of the 2016/17 Academic Year pdf icon PDF 294 KB

To note the contents of the report.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Director of Children’s Services highlighted the fact the report focused on the progress against the outcomes set by Cabinet in March 2017; Ofsted judgements of schools in the Royal Borough; overall performance of pupils in 2016-17; progress of Disadvantaged children; challenges relating to inclusion; and tracking participation of 16 and 17 year olds.

 

Regarding the outcomes identified by Cabinet, Members were informed that three of these targets had been met. The only one not to be met was improving the Key Stage 2 ranking to 75th or better for Disadvantaged pupils achieving age related expectations. The Royal Borough’s ranking had improved from 104th to joint 99th. The Director of Children’s Services stated that there had been significant improvements relating to achievements by Disadvantaged pupils, but this reflected the same progress as at other local authorities.

 

The Director of Children’s Services said the target of 86 per cent of schools being rated Good or Outstanding had been met, although this was slightly below the national average of 89 per cent. However no schools were rated Inadequate and there were nine rated Requires Improvement. Members were informed that the schools requiring improvement were a mixture of faith schools, maintained schools and Academies; the Council continues to focus on working with these schools to improve their rating.

 

Members were told that the Early Years Foundation Stage ranking for Disadvantaged pupils achieving a Good level of development had improved to 114th, past the target of 120th. Significant progress had been made in terms of improving attainment rates of Disadvantaged pupils. The target to increase the proportion of 16 and 17 years olds known to be in employment, education or training to 81 per cent had been met, with a rate of 81.2 per cent.

 

Regarding overall performance of pupils, the Director of Children’s Services informed Members that every assessed group in the Royal Borough was achieving above the national benchmark. This placed the Royal Borough in the top 20 per cent of local authorities in England. The Director of Children’s Services said young people and schools should be commended for this achievement.

 

Regarding the progress of Disadvantaged pupils, the Director of Children’s Services stated that although good year-on-year progress had been made in a number of areas, the Royal Borough was still behind the national average and ranked in the bottom half nationally compared to our Disadvantaged pupils in England. It was acknowledged that more needed to be done to help Disadvantaged pupils; however Members were reminded that these figures came at the end of the first year of a three year plan. A 12 per cent improvement in attainment in phonics was highlighted, along with an increase in Early Years benchmark ranking from 144th to 74th.

 

Regarding Action Plans, the Director of Children’s Services said that a decision had been taken to match Pupil Premium funding for Early Years. Members were told that 20 settings had been identified for providing Early  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

5.

Finance Update

To note the contents of the report.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Director of Children’s Services informed Members that the only item in the Finance Update of significance to Children’s Services was the change in Desborough College’s status to a standalone Academy, having been released from its current Trust arrangements. The outstanding debt in relation to this would be repaid to the Council by the Department for Education as part of the transition for the Academy.

 

Cllr Wilson stated that in future it needed to be clearer how Council money was being spent in relation to Academies.

 

The contents of the report was noted by Members.

 

The Chairman asked if Members had any topics they wished to be raised at future meetings. Cllr Wilson said he would like the topic of Alternative Provision to be discussed, and asked for clarification on issues relating to exclusions.