Agenda item

To submit a report by the Director of Education, Skills and Young People

Submitted – a report on the progress update on the work of the Schools’ Progress Review Panel.

The Chair as Chair of the Schools’ Progress Review Panel said that the Panel met on 3 occasions between May and July, 2019.  The Panel received verbal feedback and reflections from Members in light of the first GwE shadowing activities.  These initial reflections enabled the Panel to refine arrangements with GwE for the coming period, including introduction of a feedback proforma for completion at the end of each shadowing visit.  This process will further strengthen the governance arrangements underpinning this work stream, providing collective evidence of Members’ impressions and reflections as well as a mechanism for escalating key messages for further consideration by the Panel.  The Chair said that the Panel had an opportunity to see the work of pupils in June 2019 as regards to the Foundations Phase and were able to scrutinise the impact of collaboration project on standards. It was noted that the Panel will resume with its programme of challenge on individual schools’ performance building on its work over the past few years.   The Chair further said that it is timely to reflect the remit of the Schools’ Progress Review Panel so that it conforms to corporate priorities.  A meeting was held recently between the Chair and the Vice-Chair of the Panel, Scrutiny Manager and Deputy Chief Executive and it was agreed that a Workshop be arranged on the 27^th September, 2019 for Elected Members.

The Director of Education, Skills and Young People reported that this Committee is requested to note the progress made to date with the work of the Schools’ Progress Review Panel in terms of achieving its current work programme which includes robust challenge on individual schools’ performance; areas of work covered thus far by the newly introduced GwE shadowing arrangements; the outcomes of the recent self-evaluation to measure impact and added value of the Panel and the need to revise the terms of reference of the Panel to ensure continued alignment with corporate priorities.  He referred that that the Chair and Vice-Chair of the Panel had met with representative from Estyn in June and noted the outcome of that meeting within this report. 

The Committee considered the report and raised the following matters:-

·      Reference was made that all the Elected Members are Governor’s on the schools on the Island and it would be beneficial for them to be aware of the work of Schools’ Progress Review Panel and the role they should be undertaking to improve and challenge standards within the schools.  The Director of Education, Skills and Young People responded that the development areas were identified by the Panel as part of the self-evaluation and these were summarised under 7 key themes as shown at 3.5 of the report.  He noted that Governor’s need to be aware of the new Curriculum for Wales and to challenge roles of leadership of schools;

·      Reference was made that Estyn has said that more attention is required to support the Standing Advisory Council on Religious Education (SACRE).  Concerns were expressed that the support of the GwE Challenge Advisor has been withdrawn.  The Director of Education, Skills and Young People responded that a staff member of the Education Department will be designated to support the work of SACRE in due course.

It was RESOLVED :-

·           That the Panel continues to provide robust challenge on individual schools’ performance;

·           The Panel to include monitoring of the following work streams in its forward work programme:-

·           Implementation of the Learning Service improvement plan;

·           Non-maintained Years (early years) provision

·        That the Committee supports the monitoring work of the Panel.

ACTION : As noted above.