Agenda item

To receive and consider the School Performance Indicators and Ofsted reports.

Gillian Cole, Service Manager for school presented the School Performance Indicators and Ofsted reports item.

Gillian Cole highlighted the following points:

·           Ofsted had suspended its inspections at the beginning of the pandemic, they decided to visit schools in the Autumn to undertake research and evidence gathering activity;

·           Section 8 survey visits resulted in a letter which was posted on the school’s Ofsted outcomes page, however no judgement was made as they were research visits;

·           One school in the Borough had been subject to a Section 8 visit, this was St Crispin’s School;

·           During the Autumm term the School Improvement Team visited virtually all the school and asked the same questions that Ofsted had used in the its research visits;

·           The research undertaken showed that the local provision mirrored the national provision;

·           From the start of the Spring term 2021 Ofsted changed focus and undertook remote monitoring visits to schools, based on priority order in relation to current Ofsted grades.  These were non-graded visits;

·           Initially there had been a focus on the quality of remote learning, this moved onto the curriculum and how schools were preparing to move back to face-to-face education;

·           Two schools in the Borough had experienced the virtual visits, there were the Forest School and Gorse Ride Junior.  Both were considered to be providing effective education;

·           Section 8 visits were continuing in the Summer term and would take place on site;

·           In response to the pandemic, significant changes were made to the operation of schools and examinations;

·           The Department for Education (DfE) removed the testing requirements in respect of all reportable statutory outcomes for 2020, all the statutory testing and reporting for 2021 has also been cancelled;

·           The DfE have indicated that all performance tables are suspended and no data from 2020 outcomes will be used to judge school performance.  This means that there will be no Analyse School Performance (ASP) reports issued by the DfE and no local statistics for 2020 are available;

·           There has been a removal of all statutory testing processes in KS1 and KS2 and a switch to Teacher Assessed Grades (TAG) for GCSE and A Level students;

·           The DfE confirmed that all performance tables remain suspended and no data from 2021 outcomes will be used to judge performance.  Ofsted will be using 2019 published data as the start point for any future judgement-based inspection activities;

·           The TAG process is completely different from the process used last year, this process is complex and has added to the teachers’ workload.

During the discussion of the item the following comments were made:

·           Councillor Bray stated that, as a Governor, she had been involved in the Section 8 inspection at the Forest School.  She reported that there had been questions that had prompted the school to think about its arrangements going forward.  For example, changing from having a two year KS3 and a three year KS4 to having a three year KS3 and a two year KS4, in recognition of the fact that learning was disturbed and children in KS3 had not been taught the whole curriculum as they would have been in a normal year;

·           Councillor Mickleburgh asked if the TAG process was addressing some of the issues encountered last year.  Gillian Cole stated that algorisms were not being used this year, the responsibility of grading the students was now with the school.  She felt confident that schools were being able to achieve a fair assessment of their pupils.

RESOLVED That the report be noted.