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

Submitted – a report by the Director of Education, Skills and Young People in respect of the above.

The Portfolio Holder for Education, Youth, Libraries and Culture outlined the recommendations of the report to the Committee and noted that the priorities of the Council is to continue to raise standards in education so as to allow pupils the opportunity to achieve the best possible skills within Anglesey schools.

The Director of Education, Skills and Young People gave a detailed overview of the report and said that Welsh Government alongside several partners and experts has undertaken a fundamental review of the accountability system for schools in Wales.    Findings highlighted that the existing system and its use of performance measures has many negative unintended consequences.  A joint communication from Welsh Government, the WLGA and Estyn to Chairs of Scrutiny, Cabinet Members, Directors of Education, Chief Executive Officers and Managing Directors of Regional Education Consortia, published on 16 July, 2019 was included within the report to the Committee.  He said that national changes in the reporting of teacher assessments has been introduced over the last two years and it supports the key objectives of the Welsh Government document : ‘Our National Mission’, in delivering robust assessment, evaluation and accountability arrangements to support a self-improving system.  There is now a greater focus on the use of data in schools self-evaluation.  In the reformed system, schools are evaluated according to the difference they make to the progress of every child.  The Director of Education, Skills and Young People further reported that the main areas of improvement as part of the Level 2 Business Plan was included at page 33 of the report.

The Chair welcomed Mr Rhys Williams, Schools Challenge Advisor (Primary) and Mrs Sharon Vaughan, Schools Challenge Advisor (Secondary) to the meeting.

The Schools Challenge Advisor (Primary) gave a detailed analysis of the performance data to the Committee. 

Foundation Phase

·      As with last year, the comparisons of Foundation Phase outcomes in language and mathematics to previous years at school level should be avoided as they are not measured on a comparable basis.  Welsh Government is clear that the focus will be on learner progress from the baseline assessment to end of Key Stage and therefore, for the first time, this will be included at the end of year reporting;

·      Overall, standards in the Foundation Phase in Anglesey are satisfactory.  The percentage of pupils achieving the Foundation Phase Indicator (FPI) is below the national average and has been for the past three years. As widely anticipated, following the implementation of the new Foundation Phase Framework, the percentage of pupils achieving the expected outcomes across Wales decreased in 2018/19.  The Local Authority’s performance reflected this in the FPI and in all areas of learning;

·      The impact of the decrease in Welsh O5+ has had an impact on performance in the FPI.  The number of learners achieving the higher outcomes also decreased nationally and again this was reflected in Anglesey LA schools’ outcomes;

·      The difference in performance between boys and girls in Anglesey has remained similar to last year, with girls outperforming boys in all areas of learning by around 14%.  The anomaly is at the higher outcomes where boys slightly outperform girls in Mathematical Development;

·      Welsh Government has made it clear that Value Added progress between the baseline and end of Foundation Phase should be the focus when evaluating pupil’s achievement in the Foundation Phase.  Progress of matched pupils from Anglesey’s 2017 Reception cohort baseline to end of Foundation Phase 2019 is good.  Pupils make at least 3.28 outcomes of progress in all area.  The most progress is made in Welsh Language with pupils making an average of 3.67 outcomes of progress.  The data confirms that the Local Authority schools demonstrate an effective and sustained approach in supporting pupils to make progress throughout the Foundation Phase.

Key Stage 2

·      Overall, the standards in Key Stage 2 in Anglesey are good. Performance in 2019 was similar to the national average and to the average results of previous years in English, Mathematics and Science.  However, Welsh results are considerably lower than the national average and have fallen again in comparison to 2018 results.  Performance on the higher levels is also similar to the national average in English and Mathematics, and slightly below the national average in Science.  Standards of attainment in Welsh are below the national average for the second year running;

·      There is a slight decrease in percentage of eFSM pupils who achieved the expected outcome in 2019 in the Core Subject Indicator (CSI).  At the higher levels, Anglesey pupil’s performance improved in English, Mathematics and Science with more eFSM pupils achieving the higher outcomes than any previous year;

·      Boy’s performance decreased at the expected in the CSI, while the boys/girls gap increased from that in 2018.  The greatest difference in performance in the core subjects is to be seen in English results this year.  At the higher levels, the boys/girls gap has narrowed in Welsh, however, it has widened in English, Mathematics and Science. The comparison, national average for boys/girls performance at the higher levels this year shows an overall increase in the difference across the subjects.

The Schools Challenge Advisor (Secondary) gave a detailed analysis of the performance data to the Committee. 

Key Stage 3

·      This year’s result are beginning to reflect the national changes, whereby the prime focus of teacher assessments has started to shift back to the progress and attainment of individual learners and away from aggregated data sets used to hold schools to account;

·      Nationally, the percentage of pupils achieving at least the expected level was lower than 2018 in the CSI and in all the core subjects.  The Anglesey CSI is slightly higher than the national average with a decrease of 4.4% in comparison to 2018 performance.  The performance of the 2019 cohort at the expected level was higher than the national average in almost all core subjects, with the exception of English.  Performance in Welsh First language was lower than 2018 and dropped -2.1%. 

·      Performance of boys and girls fell in the CSI and across core subjects in 2019.  The performance of boys in the CSI, Welsh and Science is higher than the national average, and their performance is on a par with the national average in mathematics.  The performance of girls on Anglesey is higher than the average CSI and each of the core subjects and the performance of boys at the higher levels in Mathematics has improved this year but has fallen in the remaining core subjects;

·      The percentage of eFSM pupils who achieved the expected outcomes across the Authority increased in 2019 in Welsh, but fell in the remaining core subjects and the CSI.  At the higher level, Anglesey eFSM pupils’ performance improved in Welsh, Mathematics and Science but fell in English.

Key Stage 4

·      Welsh Government, as part of the Educational Reform Programme for Wales, introduced performance measures as to the way data of results of Key Stage 4 is reported.  The main indicator (Capped 9 Point Score) is a performance for the best awards for all individual pupils in the cohort, capped at a specified volume of GCSE’s or equivalent qualifications.  In 2019 data was collected within Key Stage 4 on the performance of the first entry exams taken by pupils and therefore it is impossible to compare with previous performance measures because of the first entry counting rather than best outcomes;

·      The Local Authority’s performance in the main indictor (Capped 9) is higher than the national average with performance in two secondary schools being above the national average and modelled performance.  The Authority’s performance is lower than the expected performance in two secondary schools. 

·      The performance cap has narrowed between boys and girls this year and the performance of eFSM AND non-eFSM pupils is lower than the national average, with a slight increase in performance gap compared to 2018;

·      Comparison was highlighted to the Committee (as shown at pages 27 and 28 of the report) as to performance in Literacy, Numeracy, Science and Welsh Baccalaureate Skills Challenge Certificate Indicators for the Island’s secondary schools.

Stage 5

·      A slight decrease in total number of entries at A level in Anglesey was shown.  Over a 3 year rolling period there was an improvement in outcomes on A*/A and A*-C grades;

·      ALPS value added data based on information submitted by schools suggests that post-16 pupils in Anglesey make strong progress.  This data suggests that on the ‘T’ score Anglesey schools performed in the top 40% of schools in the data base of schools across both England and Wales, which is an improvement on the performance of previous years;

·      Four out of the five secondary schools in Anglesey have improved their performance in the Quality Indicator with one school making excellent progress this year and is among the top 25% of schools in the data base of schools both in England and Wales. 

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

·      Clarification was sought whether adequate CBAC resource was now available through the medium of Welsh to allow pupils to succeed in their examinations.  The Schools Challenge Advisor (Secondary) responded that it is a responsibility on CBAC to afford resource in both Welsh and English languages for Key Stage 4 and 5.  She agreed that there has been cases that resources in both languages has not been available for certain subjects but recently no school has reported that the resources from CBAC is insufficient;

·      Clarification was sought as to the reasons why the assessment data in Key Stage 2 as regards to the Welsh language has fallen within the last two years.  The Schools Challenge Advisor (Primary) responded that primary schools assess the Welsh language data primary as Welsh first language.  Performance data will need to be awaited for four years as regards to the new Education policy for those children who have not been taught through the medium of Welsh.  He said that schools are aware of the issue and are continuing to monitor the situation;

·      Reference was made to the national changes to the educational reform and questions were raised as to whether the recent changes has enable weak areas to be identified within the education system.   The Schools Challenge Advisor (Primary) responded that it is imperative that the assessment processess within the schools is robust enough to measure the improvement of children.  He considered that the new national educational changes has refined the schools processes in collecting data; GwE supports school in the monitoring processes within the education system.  The Schools Challenge Advisor (Secondary) said that within the Secondary Sector, a shift has been undertaken in Key Stage 4 that secondary schools do not specifically concentrate on the performance of A*-C but each grade is monitored as points system within the examination process; this allows schools to focus wider in respect of the grade C-D border as was previously the case;

·      Clarification was sought as to why the performance of schools in England are performing better than schools in Wales.  The Director of Education, Skills and Youth responded that collaborating of schools within a specific structure is paramount to improve the performance of schools.  He noted that GwE is working with the Education Development Trust who have worked successfully within schools in England and other countries in relation a specific structure of working more effectively within collaboration in schools.

It was RESOLVED to:-

·      Approve the contents of the report on Anglesey’s Outcomes 2019;

·      Approve the Anglesey LA’s main areas for improvement;

·      Approve the developments in respect of the engagement work with partners in Anglesey;

·      Approve the liability process between the Anglesey Learning Service and GwE.

ACTION : As noted above.