Issue - meetings

To receive the report of the Director of Education & Inclusion Services providing Members with feedback on the performance of schools across Rhondda Cynon Taf during 2018/19.

The Director of Education & Inclusion Services advised Cabinet that the Welsh Government had been developing new evaluation and improvement arrangements to ensure that performance and accountability measures align with the new Curriculum for Wales 2022. Members were informed that the new arrangements would assist in raising standards, reduce the attainment gap, and deliver an improved education system in preparation for 2022. These new arrangements were evolving in a planned way to support schools to build a self–improving system and plan for sustained improvements.

The Director advised that the new interim performance measures, based on points scores, had removed the emphasis on threshold measures and the associated negative unintended consequences previously associated with these, namely the narrowing of curriculum choice, the excessive focus on particular group of learners at the expense of others and the competition created across schools and local authorities which has mitigated against a culture of self-improving schools.

Moving forward a wider range of performance measures and contextual information would be utilised during 2019/20 to inform self-evaluation and school improvement planning and to make judgements about school effectiveness. 

Provisional performance outcomes on the new interim key stage 4 measures suggested that there has been a slight dip in standards in 2019 on most measures. The Director added that it was difficult to make meaningful comparisons across 2018 and 2019 datasets due to the fact that the 2019 outcomes included the ‘first award’ data only. This was not the case for the re-calculated 2018 datasets. She added that  provisional data suggests that there was scope for further improvements in standards in 2019.

The Cabinet Member for Education & Inclusion Services commented on the significant changes and information reporting in relation to school performance, highlighting that these changes were only an interim measure, with potential further changes being brought forward.  The Cabinet member commented on the importance of disseminating the correct information in respect of school performance reporting to Committee members and governing bodies to assist them in their understanding of the new reporting methods. 

The Cabinet Member referenced both the increase and decrease in performance adding that the verified data would be presented in forthcoming months.

It was RESOLVED:

1.    To note the information contained within the report.

2.    To consider the implications of the change in Welsh Government performance measures on future school performance reporting.

3.    That further reports will be presented on receipt of the final, verified data from Welsh Government.