The Lead Member for Maidenhead Regeneration and Maidenhead including School Improvement introduced the report that provided an update on progress being made against the outcomes set by Cabinet in March 2017 and the performance of pupils for the academic year 2016 / 17.

Cabinet were informed that appendix C contained the detailed data and that he would encourage parents considering schools to read the report.

Overall performance of all pupils in academic year 2016-17 improved year on year resulting the royal borough being a top 20% local authority in all age groups.  Ofsted judgements of schools in the Royal Borough had increased to 86% being Good or Outstanding, with one third Outstanding.

Cabinet were informed that section 2.5 of the report and chart 1 showed attainment benchmarked against the 150 education authorities in England.  The high level of educational achievement of pupils attending schools within the Royal Borough continued with pupils once again achieving significantly above the national averages in Key Stages 1, 2 and 4. With regards to early year provision the Royal Borough were ranked 8^th nationally.

With regards to Key Stage 4 Cabinet were informed that 50% of pupils achieved English and Maths GCSE at grade 5 or above compared to 42% nationally. For Key Stage 5 A Level performance remained strong with the Royal Borough being above the national average.

The attainment of disadvantaged pupils saw year on year improvements in almost all attainment measures, apart from reading at Key Stage 1, however the Royal Borough was still below national averages for this cohort and this remained a top priority focus area.  Section 2.23 of the report showed plans to improve performance and learning from best practice.  Disadvantaged children were spread across the school estate and not focused in one area as found in other parts of the country.

The Chairman thanked all schools in the Royal Borough for their excellent work and mentioned that about 10% of our students attended grammar schools outside the borough which was a significant proportion of talented pupils not being included in the statistics. 

The Principal Member for Ascot Regeneration mentioned that with such high performance it would be expected that such a report would celebrate success, however it was pleasing to see that instead the report continued to focus on continued improvement and seeking excellence for our pupils.

The Lead Member for Finance informed that although reading at Key Stage 1 was down by 2% there had been a decline nationally by 1%.

The Director of Children’s Services informed that work had been done to improve the Key Stage 1 results and this would be reflected in the performance of the current co-hort.

The Leader of the Opposition said that she would like to see monitoring of progress being made for SEND added to the report.  She also mentioned that performance at Key Stages 1 and 2 in the Windsor three tier system was down when compared to areas with a two tier system and it would be good to get an understanding why this was happening.  She noted that as progress across the board had improved there still remained an attainment gap for disadvantaged children. 

The Director of Children’s Services informed that the Children’s Services Overview and Scrutiny Panel would be receiving a SEND update and that SEND progress could be added to future reports. 

The Principal Member for Neighbourhood Planning and Ascot & Sunnings asked about the attainment gap between boys and girls and was informed that this data was found in the data pack but there had been improvements in narrowing the gap. 

The Lead Member for Environmental Services asked why the level of exclusions had increased.  Cabinet were informed that this trend mirrored the national picture and that the local authority had responded through the plan to adopt an Inclusion Charter.  Support was provided to schools to try and keep pupils in schools rather than moving them into alternative provision where attainment dropped.

The Chairman congratulated school leaders and pupils.

Resolve unanimously: thatcabinet:

i)       Notes the report.

ii)     Approves the priority outcomes in table 5 for academic year 2017-18. They are:

·      Increase the percentage of Good and Outstanding schools.

·      Improve the local authority ranking of disadvantaged pupil attainment in the Early Years Foundation Stage.

·      Improve the local authority ranking of disadvantaged pupil attainment in Key Stage 2.

·      Increase the proportion of 16 and 17 year olds known to be participating in education, employment or training.   

iii)    Request a report on validated attainment and progress data for academic year 2017-18 in March 2019.

iv)    Approves the expenditure of £55,000 for 2018/19 and £45,000 for 2019/20 to continue to track the participation of 16 and 17 year olds through existing budgets.