Agenda and minutes

Councillor Gill Sanders proposed and Councillor John Christie seconded that Councillor John Howson be elected as Chairman.

Councillor Sandy lovatt proposed and Councillor Patrick Greene seconded that Councillor Mark Gray be elected as Chairman.

Councillor Howson receiving 3 votes and Councillor Gray receiving 5 it was duly declared that Councillor Gray be elected as Chairman for the 2016/17 Municiple Year.

RESOLVED: (by 5 votes to 0) that Councillor Mark Gray be elected as Chairman of the Education Scrutiny Committee for the 2016/17 Municipal Year.

Councillor John Howson proposed and Councillor John Christie seconded that Councillor Gill Sanders be elected as Chairman.  There being no other nominations and no dissent it was:

RESOLVED:  (unanimously) that Councillor Gill Sanders be elected as Chairman of the Education Scrutiny Committee for the 2015/16 Municipal Year.

Councillor Gray welcomed everyone to the meeting and in particular Martin Post, Regional Schools Commissioner for south-Central England and North-West London and Councillor John Christie who had just joined the Committee.

Apologies were submitted from Councillor Langridge (Councillor Patrick Greene substituting) and Councillor Waine (Councillor Yvonne Constance substituting).  Apologies were also sent from Mrs Sue Matthew.

To approve the minutes of the meeting held on 25 April 2016 (ESC4) and to receive information arising from them.

The Minutes of the Meeting held on 25 April 2016 were approved and signed.

In response to a query from Councillor Howson on Minute 12/16 on the Recruitment & Retention of Teachers, the Chairman reported that the Cabinet Member had been asked to report back to the Committee on any actions that had been taken by the various boards established in Oxfordshire to address the recruitment challenges with specific reference to housing.  Subsequently, there had been a request from CEF officers to defer the item to the September meeting of the Committee because the SSPB were presented with the research report on NQT recruitment and retention in Oxfordshire schools, which will be published in Sept/ October.

In response to a query from Councillor Gill Sanders on Minute 13/16 on the Implications of the Future Arrangements in Education, the Chairman reported

that CEF officers and the Cabinet member had held a meeting with local primary schools’ head teachers to explore the opportunities for developing locally grown MATs. and that a Letter had been sent out from the Cabinet Member to all local MPs. to ask them to find out the costs for Oxfordshire of the academisation agenda.  Copies had been circulated to members.

In relation to a query from Councillor Howson on Minute 14/16, regarding the Cabinet Member being requested to discuss with schools and housing associations the possibility of selling land below market value to assist with the current and ongoing issues over the recruitment and retention of teachers, the Chairman reported that he was due to meet with Deputy Director for Commercial and that a letter had been drafted letter to ask Cabinet Member to consider this recommendation and would be sent out following the meeting.

10.30

Martin Post, Regional Schools Commissioner for South-Central England and North-West London will attend for a discussion with the Committee.

Martin Post, Regional Schools Commissioner (RSC) for South Central England and North-West London, had been invited to attend the Meeting to discuss how the Council could work with the RSC to ensure the best educational outcomes for all the children in Oxfordshire.  It would also provide a chance to raise awareness of the key challenges faced by the Council in the provision of Education and improvement of educational standards across the County.

During questions and discussion the following points were made, with Martin Post responding to questions:

General

·      The RSC had around 50 staff and covered 28 local authorities and 8 dioceses.  Greater capacity had been added under the Regional Team Review and the commissioner now had 2 Deputy Regional Commissioners to support him with the upcoming Workload.  Three Sub-Regional Board to provide a forum for the RSC, Local Authorities and Diocese to identify and coordinate the meeting of academies support needs were being established. 

·      The Commissioner confirmed that the demand on officers and resources was kept under review but that he was satisfied that he had enough staff to cover what he was obliged to do.  He agreed that soft intelligence from local Authorities needed to be protected.  ~There was also a need to sharpen up access to parents to flag up issues.

·      The RSC confirmed that although geographically all authorities were different, he had a good working relationship with all the authorities and that he held regular meetings with officers.

Monitoring Schools

·      The RSC reported that he worked closely with the academies; particularly if they were underperforming and that he maintained regular contact with the Multi academy trusts in the area.  Currently, the Commissioner was closely monitoring around 12 schools with Oxon.  The Commissioner was considering introducing further monitoring around pupils or performance around governance to ensure rapid improvement.  It was the job of the RSC to ensure the trust was operating properly.  It was however the Trust’s responsibility to ensure school performance through the school improvement plan.

·      The RSC reported that they were dealing with the schools that they were particularly concerned about; but that he had seen improvement and that he was confident that Ofsted would show an improvement.  The Annual report was due next term.  Close working with the Local Authority enabled the RSC to gather soft information such as losing students in Year 8 or multiple complaints, allowing the Department to monitor situations closely.  He also expected Good and Outstanding schools to continually strive to improve.

·      The RSC worked closely with the EFA as financial information could tell a lot about the school.  Operations Boar5ds had been set up with the EFA, Free Schools Group, Academies Group and the RSC and met every 6 weeks.

·      There were new powers to intervene and challenge schools that appeared to be coasting (coasting definition with results for 2016).  If schools fall into category under that definition, the RSC will work with them to develop a plan to get out of that category by the next time.  In  ...  view the full minutes text for item 25/16

11.30

Christine Malone, Strategic Lead for Education Quality, will attend to present the Ofsted profile of Oxfordshire schools and settings for the 2015/16 academic year.

The Committee had before them a report by the Director for Children’s Services setting out Ofsted Monthly monitoring for the 2015/16 academic year.  The key messages arising from the report were as follows:

·                the proportion of primary schools that were good/outstanding had increased by 1%pt to 87% (198 schools).  The Oxfordshire figure was now in-line with the national figure as at 30 April 2016.

·                The proportion of secondary schools judged as good/outstanding had increased to 86% (30 schools).  Oxfordshire remained above the national figure of 76% as at 30 April 2016.

·                All of Oxfordshire’s special schools were judged by Ofsted to be good or better.

·                The number of inadequate schools had increased by 1 to 7.

·                There had been a small number of inspections that had taken place with results yet to be published.  Where officers had been made aware, outcomes for those schools had been included in the county figures.

·                One primary school, New Marston, had been judged to be inadequate this month. 

Officers further reported that in 2015, Ofsted decided that Oxfordshire was a local authority of concern regarding early years outcomes (both inspection and children’s outcomes). HMI had conducted a series of visits and the Early Years Team had changed working practices. As a result, good progress was being made. The 2016 Early Years Foundation Stage Profile outcomes should provide evidence of a narrowing of the gap between outcomes for children eligible for Pupil Premium and those not eligible.

In relation to settings, officers reported that compared with national inspection data, statistical neighbours, and South East local authorities, Oxfordshire had seen more inadequate inspection outcomes for settings since September 2015. Annex 1 to the report outlined that there have been 15 inadequate outcomes (Our Lady’s received two inadequate outcomes and was closed). Focused work by the Early Years Team to support providers had resulted in four settings being re-inspected as good, and six settings moving from inadequate to requires improvement. Three settings were still inadequate (Cygnets Nursery Kidlington, Shiplake Village Nursery and Sacred Heart Nursery, Henley). They were making progress and were due re-inspection soon.

In addition, too many settings were judged as requires improvement in Oxfordshire. The Early Years Team was providing support for all such settings. During May 2016, for example, four settings were judged as requiring improvement. Annex 1 to the report outlined how eight settings received a second requires improvement judgement. Work with those settings was being prioritised. No new funded two year-olds were placed in settings inspected as requires improvement.

Officers further reported that of the six Out of School provider inspections since September 2015, there have been no inadequate outcomes, one requires improvement, three good and two compliant with requirements.

Members of the Committee expressed concern that a number of schools were failing over safeguarding issues and questioned what action was being taken.  Officers confirmed that the Council had responded quickly in failing schools and that following action the school would be re-inspected and in most cases improved.  Only 2 inadequate  ...  view the full minutes text for item 26/16

12.00

Sharon Oliver, Education Inclusion Manager, will attend for an in-depth analysis of permanent and fixed terms exclusions of pupils in Year 10 so far in this academic year.

At its meeting on 25 April 2016, the Committee received a presentation on exclusions in Oxfordshire schools and requested that officers provided an analysis of Year 10 data where there appeared to be an abnormally high number of permanent exclusions.

The Committee had before it a report (ESC10) which provided an analysis of the rate of permanent exclusions in year 10.  Sharon Oliver, Education Inclusion Manager explained that she was surprised at the increase in rate of permanent exclusions of pupils from Oxfordshire schools this year.  To date officers had been notified of 57 permanent exclusions.  This compared with 43 permanent exclusions this time in 2014/15.

Furthermore, the rate of permanent exclusion of pupils in year 10 had increased year on year for the last 3 years.  At this point in the year in 2013/14 there were 6 exclusions from this year group (23% of all permanent exclusions).  Last year this figure increased to 15.  (35% of all permanent exclusions).  This year officers had been notified of 19 permanent exclusions from this year group which is 33% of the total. The use of permanent exclusion in Year 10 was significantly higher than any other year group.  (The next highest year groups were years 8 and 9 with 8 permanent exclusions each).

Fifteen secondary schools had permanently excluded one or more pupils from year 10 so far this year.  In contrast fixed term exclusions were more evenly distributed throughout the secondary phase.  Officers had been notified of 510 fixed term exclusions of pupils in year 10 so far this year which was 20% of the total.

Reasons for exclusion in this year group were fairly similar with persistent disruptive behaviour and verbal abuse and threatening behaviour towards an adult being the most commonly used categories.  Six girls and 13 boys had been permanently excluded from year 10 this year.  This was an unusually high ratio of girls.  The total across all year groups was 9 girls and 48 boys. That meant that two thirds of the girls who had been permanently excluded so far this year have been year 10 pupils.

Oxfordshire County Council’s officers and schools were working collaboratively to avoid the use of permanent exclusion for children who were looked after.  There had been a number of pupils who had been at significant risk of permanent exclusion but alternative solutions had been found.  There had been one year 10 pupil who became looked after following a permanent exclusion.

In response to questions around why officers believed the exclusions in year 10 to have gone up, Ms Oliver explained that she was unable to give a definitive answer as to why the permanent exclusions had increased, although exclusions could often increase when there was a new headteacher or that possibly this was due to MAT broad policies not being compatible with local policies.

Members note the particularly high numbers at Didcot Girls School and asked officers whether there was anything the council could be doing in relation to this.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 27/16

12.20

Janet Johnson, Strategic Lead for Vulnerable Learners, will attend for a discussion of the role of the Oxfordshire Hospital School and the current challenges it faces.

The Committee had before them a report on the Oxfordshire Hospital School (OHS).  Ms Janet Johnson, Strategic Lead for Vulnerable Learners in introducing the report explained that the school was made up of 3 sectors:

The Children’s Hospital section encompassed teaching at the Children’s Hospital, the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre and Helen & Douglas House Hospice.

The Highfield (an adolescent unit for the assessment and treatment of 11 – 18 year olds with a wide range of acute mental health issues) had 18 beds plus two high dependency beds. The Highfield served children from Oxfordshire and nearby counties, and referrals are accepted from anywhere in England if an emergency bed was required.

The Outreach Teaching Sector was based at The Harlow Centre in Oxford. OTS supports the education of children and young people in Oxfordshire unable to attend school due to their medical or mental health needs. This group of children were not in-patients but may attend a hospital as out patients.

In 2015/16 OHS had a budget of approximately £1.6m and end of year balances of £0.526m (32% of the annual formula funding). Local authorities might advise the Education Funding Agency of changes to hospital education place numbers through the place change request process in October/November each year. For 2014-15 an exceptional case was made to the EFA by the school, supported by the authority, and was accepted.  One of the significant changes behind the case related to the new Highfield Adolescent Unit. This resulted in an additional £267,805 being received by the authority and allocated to the Hospital School. Therefore the school’s budget allocation for 2014-15 increased to £1,606,831.

For 2015-16 an exceptional case was made by the school but was not accepted by the DfE, so the allocation for 2015-16 remained at £1,606,831. Schools generally had not seen inflationary increases since 2011-12, and the funding source for the Hospital School and other High Needs provision, the High Needs block of Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG), had been frozen at 2012-13 budget levels with no adjustment for pupil demographic changes other than specific cases approved as part of the exceptions process mentioned above.

The view of local authority officers was that referring to funding for a number of places was unhelpful and not relevant for hospital education. Currently the system of funding was not based on any proxy indicators or a formulaic funding system and so was not fit for purpose. It was based on historic levels of spend which did not encourage efficient use of resources. Members of Schools Forum consider that schools should not be charged for services for which OHS was being directly funded.

Further challenges were that the school had an interim Headteacher with a substantive post holder beginning in September. 

There were also uncertainties about the existing accommodation in the Harlow Centre and the school was likely to move. The service also used Early Intervention hubs for outreach work and they were therefore exploring alternatives, but new venues might incur some charges. OHS has over  ...  view the full minutes text for item 28/16

12.50

An opportunity to discuss and prioritise future topics for the Committee, potential approaches to its work and to discuss the schedule for future meetings.

The Committee had before it a copy of the Committee’s Forward Plan (ESC6) for discussion.

RESOLVED: to agree the forward plan for September with the following additions:

Recruitment and Retention of teachers with specific reference to housing - Christine Malone/ Roy Leach

Data Collection from Schools on Permenant Exclusions  - Sharon Oliver, Education Inclusion Manager