To receive any apologies for absence.

No apologies for absence were received.

To receive any Declarations of Interest.

None.

To confirm the Part I Minutes of the previous meeting.

UNANUMOUSLY RESOLVED: That the Part I minutes of the meeting held on 7 November 2016 be approved.

A review of what the issues are for disadvantaged children and what training is to be planned – led by Rita Vasa.

Rita Vasa, Senior Adviser (Early Years & Primary) stated that HMI had a conference for the south east that was very useful. They were looking at deprivation and had done a lot of research and analysis that the Borough was familiar with. Younger children learned better when playing with their older siblings while there was a huge gap between summer babies and babies born earlier in the year. Often in areas of deprivation, pre-schools would attract staff from that environment which presented challenges with language and literacy. Lead practitioners identified areas that made a great difference to work with schools on.

Adult led practice engaged with children that had difficulties with language or playing skills as some children did not know how to play. In terms of what the Borough could do, there were several suggestions:

Ø  Attendance – schools responded in different ways. What were schools doing to raise attendance? – Early years champions that meet and every champion is allocated a number of schools. They will bond with reception teachers and share ideas.

Ø  What does good development look like? – there were 17 ELGs with seven areas of learning.

Ø  Prime areas of learning development included:

o   Personal, Social and Emotional Development

o   Physical Development

o   Communication and language.

Ø  Specific areas of Learning Development included:

o   Literacy

o   Mathematics

o   Understanding the World

o   Expressive Arts and Design.

Ø  There were three levels of development in each area:

o   Emerging but not there yet

o   Expected where they have reached their target level

o   Exceeded where they have gone beyond their targets.

The youngest children were measured on the most indicators and expectations were extremely high. If children missed just one target, they did not obtain a good level of development.

The area children struggled most in was maths and literacy and every learning goal had to be moderated. The Early Years Pupil Premium Programme was running and The Senior Adviser (Early Years & Primary) was hoping to have fortnightly meetings and sessions targeting pupils that received the Pupil Premium in early years for writing. Speech and Language Therapy training was being provided for TA’s to upskill them. Pupils also had more creativity and outdoor time as children flourished in outdoor summer schools. She added that the biggest challenge was engaging parents. Most schools carried out a pre-visit at home before the children started school; the Senior Adviser (Early Years & Primary) suggested the schools carried out more than one visit, the teachers could use their PPA time to carry out any additional pre-visits. Bronwyn Hamilton-Brown suggested that some children spend a whole day at their next school some two years before moving up to help prevent some children dipping in year seven when they started. She recommended three visits in 18 months so that children were engaged with the transition process.

Building on the last meeting, a look at the types of barriers that had been uncovered in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead and example actions – Led by Bronwyn Hamilton Brown.

Bronwyn Hamilton-Brown stated she had looked at the types and characteristics of learners and why they might be poor learners over five year groups from Early Years Foundation Stage up to year four. Barriers in Reception year were different to other year groups and provision had to be bespoke. The main focus was to drive children to Age Related Expectations (ARE). She added that children that did not qualify for Pupil Premium did ten times better at school than those that did qualify.

In Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS), there were three boys, two of which were born in the summer and only one of those was predicted to reach a good level of development. The other two boys tended to be problematic, Bronwyn Hamilton-Brown confirmed that not all schools only had three Pupil Premium children, some schools had 35.

Bronwyn Hamilton-Brown explained that she had invited three head teachers to the Forum as they had relatively high pupil premium numbers but all of them had different views. One barrier to development was poor attendance. 60% of pupil premium children had poor attendance well below 90%. There were differences between Windsor & Maidenhead and Ascot and due to the three tier system in Windsor, results did vary.

Marjorie Clementson, Head Teacher at Furze Platt Infant School provided a handout detailing interventions and measures Furze Platt Infants had used to raise pupil premium attainment levels. The main key points of the handout included:

Ø  There were three areas the school considered, they were SEN, Emotional needs and English as a second language.

Ø  Seven pupils that fit the pupil premium category had no significant issues and did not fall into any of the three categories.

Ø  The head teacher used Maslow’s Hierarchy of School Needs and most children were at the stages of belonging (forming relationships, advisory, adult role models, friendship groups and peer relationships), and safety (emotional and physical safety, clear school/class routines, access to counsellors/nurse, ok to take risks).

Ø  The head teacher then provided a breakdown of the hierarchy of school needs which explained that cohorts were changing across years.

Ø  The head teacher of Furze Platt Infants recently undertook nurture training in Groups in year one and two. The training was fun by a behaviour support scheme, was cost effective training and would be run again for TAs.

It was all about bespoke tailoring as each child was an individual. The children that received support in the early years faired better later on. Some of the interventions used included:

Ø  Nurture groups

Ø  Emotional literacy

Ø  Trialling tools – self esteem assessments, wellbeing assessments, progression framework.

Some children may not make academic progress but, would make emotional progress which allowed them to progress academically later on.

Bronwyn Hamilton-Brown stated she had been working with head teachers to get maidenhead schools together to form a pupil premium group. She added that one particular problem area was writing and that was across all schools. She had been looking at  ...  view the full minutes text for item 17.