To receive any apologies for absence.

Apologies were received from Cllr Natasha Airey.

To receive any Declarations of Interest.

None.

To confirm the Part I Minutes of the previous meeting.

RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY: That the minutes of the meeting of the School Improvement Forum held on 1 February 2016 be approved.

To consider the above presentation.

Bronwyn Hamilton Brown and Kevin McDaniel gave a brief presentation to Members and invited guests which included the following key points:

Ø  Trevelyan had quite a few children whose parents were in the armed forces and their attainment in school depended on the stability of the family and how often they were moved around by the armed forces.

Ø  It was noted that deployment was to be kept to a minimum for service personnel with families.

Ø  The amount of Pupil Premium (PP) that a school received depended on the key stage and area.

Ø  Coastal and urban areas had higher rates.

Ø  Farr fewer children were reaching higher levels in education when disadvantaged.

Ø  Inspections would be adapted to ensure that disadvantaged and more able disadvantaged children were a key focus – all inspectors had that as part of their remit.

Ø  PP was high up on Ofsted’s inspection list as a priority. St Anne’s had an Ofsted inspection last year and the first thing that Ofsted asked about was their PP.

Ø  Inspectors wanted to see historic data on PP.

Ø  Ofsted would want in year data for every year group.

Ø  89.6% of all schools in the borough were either good or outstanding

Ø  The Borough was above average in all areas and significantly above in some areas although, in the area of writing, that required improvement when it came to expected standards.

Ø  There were 3052 pupils in the Borough who were eligible for Ever 6 (14.4%) which was lower than the national average

Ø  1270 pupils were eligible for FSM (6%)

Ø  Nationally FSM represented 26% of the whole school population.

Ø  Out of 91 disadvantaged pupils in year one, only 51 achieved the phonics check this year. Overall, 81% of the Borough’s children could read the 32 out of 40 words necessary to pass the check.

Ø  The borough was 148^th out of 151 local authorities for disadvantaged pupils on that measure.

Ø  The phonics test did not mean that the children could not read and many schools would argue that it was not a good way to monitor progress as it did not show the whole picture.

Ø  Schools now used input from the Borough and were working with Bronwyn to work together for all the children in surrounding areas first schools.

Ø  The PP Champion helped to co-ordinate efforts between schools to help pool resources and strategies.

Ø  Bronwyn was working with schools and the focus had been realigned with training and now the Borough’s schools were on a different track.

Ø  A higher proportion of disadvantaged children had SEN (approximately 17%) whereas only 7% of non-disadvantaged children had SEN.

Ø  The PP Champion would look at website data to see if anything could be found such as patterns.

Ø  Bronwyn wanted to look at how children that took part in ELSA were doing.

The Website audit findings showed up a number of areas for improvement which included:

Ø  The initial  ...  view the full minutes text for item 11.

To consider the above verbal discussion.

Three guest speakers addressed the Forum with their ideas for good practice with pupil premium. The guest speakers were Phil York, Pupil Premium Champion from Trevelyan Middle School; Judith Street, Headteacher from the queen Anne First School and Mike Wallace, Headteacher from Furze Platt Junior School. They shared their stories of wider opportunities, pupil premium award letter for outcomes, pastoral and individualised support and quality websites. The main points of their discussion included:

Ø  Queen Anne First School:

o   Judith Street stated that 7% of her pupils received PP. she knew them well and could easily meet with parents and families to learn all the barriers to learning.

o   She had put time into looking at all the barriers and had linked with play therapists and carried out constant reviews.

o   Parents were engaged and each intervention was bespoke to each child. She recognised individual needs.

o   Bronwyn also gave suggestions if Judith got stuck or needed additional input.

Ø  Trevelyan Middle School:

o   Phil York looked to other schools to share information which helped make transitioning easier for PP children, especially when leaving first school to go up to middle school.

o   He noticed that when the school were carrying out book checks, they were not looking at book checks across all subjects so they were not getting the whole picture. That had since changed and now they look at the children individually with all their books across all subjects.

o   With transitions, the school puts together sheets to track interventions every year for children with PP. therefore, when a PP child leaves the school, the next school has a complete picture of progress, a bit like a SEN Passport. They also add the child’s aspirations.

o   Trevelyan looked to find a child’s strengths and work with them to improve attainment.

Ø  Furze Platt Junior School:

o   Mike Wallace was quite open and Bronwyn was regularly involved and on hand to provide advice and guidance.

o   There were no more expectations or excuses and it was more a case of looking more at what could be don’t and not at why the situation was the way it was.

o   By having a PP Champion, it kept PP as high visibility to the rest of the school.

o   Parents don’t always engage due to their own phobia’s of schools and their own previous experiences of schools. Furze Platt juniors work with parents to break down barriers and invite them in at a time convenient to the parents so that it can be a partnership and not an us vs them issue.

o   The schools work well in their groups but can always benefit from external advice and guidance.

o   Bronwyn is very good at looking at the gaps and helping us close them.

Bronwyn stated she was trying to drive communications between schools with vulnerable children and not just the SEN children.