Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from Cllr Hutchinson who was replaced by Cllr Brighouse.  Apologies were also received from Cllr Owen and Chris Bevan.

Cllr Brighouse - Director of Oxford Learning…a Community Interest Company

To approve the minutes of the meeting held on Tuesday 27 September 2011 (CH3) and to note for information any matters arising from them.

Carole Thomson and Brenda Williams were in attendance.

Committee members asked about a requested report of the distribution of child protection across schools to come back to the committee.  This was agreed to be tabled a the next meeting.

There were no speakers or petitions.

10.15

A presentation from the Director’s office which will update on the recent key stage and examination outcomes as well as the current directorate financial position (CH5).

The Director’s Update was presented by the both the Deputy Director, Children’s Services – Education and Early Intervention, Jan Paine as well as Jim Leivers, Deputy Director – Children and Families.

Jim Leivers (JL) began speaking to slides in a presentation on current financial directorate position.  He reported that the directorate is on track to deliver the savings as agreed.

Discussion followed around the impact these savings were having on the service outcomes.   It was agreed that the budget meeting in December would have a focus on understanding the impact of implemented financial decisions as well as the impact of the current proposals.

Jan Paine (JP) delivered a presentation on the recent educational attainment results.  She mentioned that there would be a more detailed results discussion taking place for all councillors on the 5^th of December.

While the foundation results were improved from the prior year, the results for the other examinations were more disappointing.  Particularly, the data seemed to indicate that as a group, Free School Meals students seem to have lost pace with the improvement that all groups have seen in recent years and that other groups continued to see this year.

The committee discussed that the foundation successes could be at least partly attributed to council’s deliberate focus on the early years and the impact that initiatives like children’s centres may be making.  There were also questions as to how the pupil premium financing structure was playing into the resources available to disadvantaged students at schools.  Additionally questions were asked around the relative success that the council’s statistical neighbours have had in the latest results.  Specifically, what pressures Oxfordshire may face that others apparently do not might be.

Cabinet Member for Schools Improvement, Cllr Melinda Tilley joined the discussion to inform the committee about the imminent Education Strategy due to begin consultation in the upcoming week.  She invited the committee to participate in the consultation and to support in what she hoped would be a community-wide effort to improve education for the county.

The Committee agreed to champion the strategy and decided to take up the resulting consultation and strategy roll-out as part of its work programme.  Provisionally, this would be a review to take place after the next set of exam results in the autumn 2012.

11.15

The Committee will consider endorsement of the final version of the KS1 report (CH6) resulting from the recent select committee style review.  Jan Paine, Deputy Director for Education and Early Intervention, will address how recommendations will be taken up.

Jan Paine reported that the recommendations put forward in the KS1 report have already been endorsed by officers in the directorate and have been factored into the newly written Education Strategy.

A few final changes were put forward to the report.  Roger Edwards, Scrutiny Officer, and author of the report, agreed to incorporate those, and Jan Paine assured the committee that these would also be fed through to the Education Strategy.

11.45

Jan Paine, Deputy Director for Education and Early Intervention, will discuss the outcome of the restructure and the current position of the service.

Jan Paine gave a presentation on the recent directorate restructure of the early intervention  service.

The committee discussed that this new structure was compatible with other changes to the directorate way of working through linking with hubs.  The streamlined team will provide support across the community.

12.00

Lisa Michelson, Scrutiny Officer, will discuss the proposed updated work programme for the committee.  Tabled list.

The committee discussed the draft work programme refresh and several items were added.  A discussion followed around whether the timeliness of some of the items meant that an extraordinary meeting should be scheduled for January, prior to final budget decisions.

The committee determined they would like an additional meeting scheduled in January and the proposed changes to the work programme can be seen in the attached revised schedule.

It was also agreed that Lisa Michelson would circulate a copy of the revised Anti-Bullying Strategy to the committee.  This strategy is currently out for consulation.

12.15

12.30

The Meeting finished at 1.00