Agenda item

The Committee considered the Report of the Interim Corporate Director of Children & Young People’s Services that provided Members with updated information on educational outcomes in County Durham and related updates on the focus and provision of education services (for copy of report, see file of minutes).

The Strategic Manger Education Development Services presented the report and circulated to Members details of the KS4 2016 outcomes; the new GCSE performance measures in 2016 and the regional results (for copy, see file of minutes).

Members were advised that the early learning goals gap at Early Years Foundation Stage had reduced considerably and was level to the national figure for all. The gender gap had been closed by two percentage points and the gap between children receiving free school meals and all children was reducing.

The Strategic Manager for Educational Development and Improvement indicted that 2025 two year olds had been placed in County Durham during the current term and that these figures placed Durham 24^th out of 152 local authorities.

In terms of Ofsted outcomes Durham was also a highly effective local authority with 90% of good or better PVI settings and 93% of good or better primary schools.

At Key Stage (KS) 1 outcomes had been a priority for the local authority and while the gap between national and local had been reducing this was the first year where national figures were exceeded.  At KS2 attainment levels across the local authority continued to be strong against national levels and the trend of improvement continued.

Although results at KS4 were not validated until later in the school year they indicate progress of pupils, English has significantly improved and there was moderate improvement in maths.  Members were advised of new GCSE performance measures, Attainment 8 which is the points score awarded to a pupil across 8 qualifications with English and maths being double weighted and Progress 8 which is based on a calculation of pupil’s performance across the same eight qualifications using the base line from KS2.

Members were advised that A Level, AS Level and vocational qualifications had gone through major reforms but despite this results for County Durham students had remained broadly consistent with the success of previous years.

It was reported that nationally the government had dropped its plan for a Bill to force all schools to become academies and consultation continues on the ‘Schools that work for Everyone’ green paper which include lifting a ban on new grammar schools and allowing faith schools to select 100% of its pupils based on their faith.

Councillor Hart asked for the figures in relation to academies.

The Officer responded that the results would be validated in January so he would be able to provide the figures after this date.

In response to a question from Councillor T Smith in relation to whether modern foreign language teaching was in decline the Strategic Manager replied that language teaching nationally was in decline.