To receive the above verbal report.

Kevin McDaniel, Head of Schools and Educational Services stated he had visited 51 mainstream and free schools since he began working at the Borough. He had held a first meeting with head teachers and governors on 20 January 2016 with more than 70 head teachers and leaders in the room talking about how to address issues raised. There was a huge willingness to work collaboratively with schools and a willingness to do more in a collaborative way. Kevin McDaniel had had a good discussion on how the Borough might modify the approach of how things had always been done. There was a suggestion to have just a couple of days monitoring for good and outstanding schools and up to 10 days monitoring for schools that were struggling. Schools were under pressure to make rapid changes that they wanted the Borough to broker the best way forward for experts to share their knowledge. He added he needed to look at how, as a Local Authority, the Council set up resources to help schools.

Kevin McDaniel stated the next step was to identify resources and was supported at the Forum by teaching schools. He was please to hear that schools were happy to work with all levels of schools, such as First, Middle and Primary schools etc. The Chairman commented that with schools transferring to academies, the budget for school improvement was reducing. In response, Kevin McDaniel confirmed there was a designated schools grant from central government which the Council distributed  to all schools in the Royal Borough and there was a smaller pot of money, the educational support grant which was additional funding but, that had been reduced and would be reduced further by central government. The Local Authority had ring fenced the budgets so the Council could continue to support schools that had been improving and that continued to improve. Kevin McDaniel was confident there would be enough money in the shrinking budgets to make a difference to schools in the Borough.

Councillor E. Wilson stated some Local Authorities took the Educational Support Grant budget and used it to outsource services. However, there was no one size fits all approach as Churchmead required help with maths but not English; he was sure if the Borough asked what the need was from the Local Authority, the Local Authority could help.

Kevin McDaniel confirmed the Pupil Premium funding went directly to schools and they the schools had a statutory requirement to report information on how they were spending their Pupil Premium funding on their websites. National research showed that schools spent the money in various ways and it did not go on the same things. He added there was approximately 42 things that the Pupil Premium could be spent on such as buying washing machines to clean uniforms, music and sports groups for after school. The schools needed to recognise what the areas of need were in their school.

In terms of gifted and talented children, Kevin McDaniel confirmed that most schools had gifted and talented groups and the Borough did ask schools about their activities. There was such a variety of extra curricular activity within the Royal Borough. All head teachers made some areas available in their curriculum and also at extra curricular activity levels. There was a lot happening in that area, the Borough just needed to keep asking the schools for updates.

v  Action: Kevin McDaniel to provide a table showing how schools in the Borough were spending their Pupil Premium funding and a separate table showing what schools offered their gifted and talented cohort.