Agenda item - Annual Standards Report

Report of the Executive Director Families, Children & Learning (copy attached).

RESOLVED: That the Committee

(1)  Noted the report and endorsed the focus across the City on improving outcomes for all children and young people, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

(2)  Noted the changes in the curriculum, assessment and benchmark measures for Key Stages 2 and 4 and for determining the performance of disadvantaged groups which meant that there was significant difficulty in establishing trends when not comparing like with like.

78.1    The Committee considered the report of the Executive Director Families, Children & Learning regarding the Annual Standards Report. The report was introduced by Head of Standards & Achievement Education & Inclusion.

78.2    Councillor Daniel was concerned that the method of assessment of pupils changed each year, which made it difficult to monitor progress. It appeared that there was a drop on the level of achievement for disadvantaged children in Maths and English. The Head of Standards & Achievement Education & Inclusion said that due to changes in the way the achievements were assessed, there had been a drop for all groups. However, the levels for Brighton & Hove pupils had dropped less than the national average and had improved since 2014. It was accepted that the achievement for disadvantaged pupils wasn’t good enough, but there was no quick fix and there were many things in place to continue to support those children.

78.3    Councillor Phillips noted that in the statistics for those attaining 5+ A-C GCSEs, there were no figures for ‘Statistical Neighbour Disadvantaged’ and ‘South East Coastal Strip Disadvantaged’. The Head of Standards & Achievement Education & Inclusion said that those figures would not be available to the end of March 2017.  

78.4    Mr Jones said that it would be useful to have information comparing the attainment of disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged pupils in the city, which would be more useful than comparisons against national statistics. The Head of Standards & Achievement Education & Inclusion said that there was a statutory requirement to report the data in that way, but she was happy to look at providing further information if it would be useful. Mr Jones referred to the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile for different groups, and was concerned that if some children had a poor start in areas such as literacy it could impact on the whole of their future education. He was advised that the Authority were doing it all it could to ensure that those who had a poor start were supported to assist them in catching up with other pupils.

78.5    Councillor Miller asked if the two week holiday introduced for October could lead to lower attendance and, if it did, whether that could impact on the strategy to close the gap between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged pupils. The Head of Standards & Achievement Education & Inclusion said there was some concern from Head Teachers on driving up attendance and extending holiday periods, but she thought that the important issue was to raise the aspirations of young people to be at school.

78.6    Councillor Taylor said that he wanted to thank the Head of Standards & Achievement Education & Inclusion for arranging two very useful workshops, which allowed him and other councillors to understand the context for this report. Councillor Taylor asked why Brighton & Hove were below the national average for Year 1 phonics attainment. The Head of Standards & Achievement Education & Inclusion said that the Authority were looking at the quality of teaching and the Early Years curriculum, and would come back with a more specific response in due course.

78.7    Josh Cliff said that Brighton was a diverse city and so was surprised that the achievements were lower for BME students. The Head of Standards & Achievement Education & Inclusion agreed that the city was ethnically diverse, but said that the number of BME students was small which could skew the statistics. The Executive Director Families, Children & Learning asked the Chair if it would be useful to have a report on the attainment of BME children at a future meeting of the Committee, and the Chair agreed that it would.

78.8    RESOLVED: That the Committee

(1)  Noted the report and endorsed the focus across the City on improving outcomes for all children and young people, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

(2)  Noted the changes in the curriculum, assessment and benchmark measures for Key Stages 2 and 4 and for determining the performance of disadvantaged groups which meant that there was significant difficulty in establishing trends when not comparing like with like.