Agenda Item 4

Report to Cabinet

21 January 2015

Subject: The Performance of Secondary Schools and Academies Presenting Cabinet Children’s Services Member:

1. Summary Statement

1.1 The Ofsted Chief Inspector, Sir Michael Wilshaw published his annual report on the performance of schools in December 2014. This report highlights the national and regional performance of schools and mainly focuses on the percentage of children attending schools that are rated as good or outstanding in each local authority area. In Sandwell Ofsted ratings for schools are significantly different between primary schools and secondary schools. The report states that in Sandwell 82% of primary-age children are attending good or outstanding schools (as of 31st August 2014) but in the secondary sector this is much lower at 53%. Following inspections in the autumn term, which were not taken into account in the report, this figure could reduce further in 2015, to 44.4% of pupils at good or outstanding secondary schools, compared to 71% nationally.

1.2 The aspiration and attainment of all children and young people in Sandwell schools is a central concern of the council and an important element of our strategy for the social and economic regeneration of the borough. This remains the case irrespective of the fact that legislative changes by successive governments mean that the council no longer fulfils the traditional role of a local education authority or that the majority of secondary schools are independent academies outside direct council control.

1.3 This report proposes that the council should adopt a significantly more assertive role with all schools, irrespective of their governance arrangements, in order to promote the best outcomes for children and young people, and in particular with the Department for Education, the Regional Schools Commissioner, Academies and their sponsors, to secure improvements in Ofsted ratings and GCSE results.

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1.4 At present eight-two of the ninety-four primary schools in Sandwell are maintained by the council. This, however, is not the case in the secondary sector where twelve of the seventeen high schools are independent academies.

1.5 The academies currently causing most concern over their performance in Sandwell are ACE and Wodensborough Academy following significant falls in their GCSE performance this year, placing them below the 40% floor standard and taking account of their current Ofsted judgements. Holly Lodge, a council maintained secondary school, may also be below the floor standard when recent Key Stage 4 results are validated, although it is currently judged to be a good school by Ofsted.

1.6 In addition to those schools above, the following is noted:-

, and Mesty Croft Primary Academy have all fallen below a good Ofsted rating since becoming academies.

 RSA Academy, Ormiston Sandwell Community Academy and Forge Academy are all rated as “requires improvement” by Ofsted.

 There has been a three year decline in GCSE examination performance at both and .

1.7 In the past the council has successfully used the academies programme to intervene in underperforming maintained schools by bringing in sponsors to support their improvement. A number of schools have also converted to academy status of their own volition, either on their own or with a sponsor if they were not already graded as good or outstanding. Now we need to consider the mechanisms that we can use when academies themselves fall below the performance we expect for our children and young people. This echoes Sir Michael Wilshaw’s report which identifies that improvements in secondary education have stalled nationally.

In his report he calls upon councils to challenge the performance of academies in their areas.

1.8 The council does not have direct legal powers to insist on providing support to academies that have poor Ofsted ratings or low GCSE results – and, in recent years, the council has generally regarded academies as being largely outside our ability to influence.

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1.9 However, some local authorities have not taken this view and have asserted their role in holding schools to account, irrespective of their governance arrangements, in order to promote the best outcomes for children and young people. This more assertive approach is particularly common in London, where educational attainment has improved faster than anywhere else in the country in the past ten years; Haringey, for example, is ranked as the thirteenth most deprived Council area in the country, yet one hundred percent of secondary-age pupils in Haringey attend good or outstanding schools. Consequently, this report recommends that the council should redefine our ways of working with the secondary sector to greater demonstrate our influence over standalone and sponsored academies – and to challenge schools’ performance on behalf of the children and young people of the borough.

1.10 In September 2014 the Department for Education appointed eight Regional Schools Commissioners (RSCs) to oversee the performance of existing academies and to help broker new academies. In the Midlands region, Pank Patel, the former head teacher of Wood Green Academy in Wednesbury, was appointed to this role. The RSC visited Sandwell in September 2014 to discuss the performance of schools and academies in the borough and has since made initial visits to some of the academies causing concern. Sir Michael Wilshaw says that he is keen to see local councils pressing Regional School Commissioners for improvements in academies where there is cause for concern.

1.11 Despite significant national cuts to council education budgets and ongoing reductions in the educational support grant due to academy conversions, the council continues to maintain school improvement services as part of its core budgets which allows for the continued work of school improvement advisors in maintained schools and dedicated workforce, school governance, teaching and learning support delivered by Sandwell Inspired Partnership Services (SIPS).

The performance of schools is currently monitored by the Quality and Standards Performance Board. This officer group, which includes head teachers, meets every six weeks to review the performance of schools across a range of indicators including:-

 Standards and achievement  Quality of teaching & Learning  Quality of leadership  Quality of School Governance  Safeguarding and complaints  Financial management

[IL0: UNCLASSIFIED] 3  Human resources  Special Educational Needs performance  Exclusions of pupils  Attendance and prosecutions  School organisational issues  Engagement with Local Authority  Issues raised by unions.

The board reviews performance in all indicators and decides if further intervention is required. However, there is no doubt that the work of this Board could be more rigorous and demanding than it has in the past, particularly in respect of secondary school academies. In the future a regular report from the Board to the Cabinet Member for Children’s Services will be key to driving this step-change in performance.

1.12 Ofsted has the right to undertake inspections of local authority arrangements to support school improvement. Technically they can inspect any area which is below the national average on many measures including attainment and rates of progress and they could already (if they chose) come to Sandwell. Ofsted would start by doing fresh inspections on a number of schools and attention is paid to any marked change in grades as an indication of a direction of travel in the authority as a whole. Sandwell may well face such an inspection because of the poor performance in secondary schools. Officers are working to ensure that the Council meets the criteria for an inspection.

1.13 Ofsted do recognise the reduction in local government’s role in school improvement and the delegation of some of the resource for school improvement to schools themselves. There is much more emphasis on school to school improvement, with good and outstanding schools working with less successful schools to achieve improvement – and the council working as a broker and agent to ensure the effectiveness of these peer support mechanisms.

1.14 An Equality Impact Assessment (EIA) screening has been completed and a full EIA is not required for the proposals in this report.

Full details are attached for your information.

[IL0: UNCLASSIFIED] 4 2. Recommendations

2.1 That the Director - Education is authorised to take a significantly more robust approach to challenging secondary academy performance, revising the Council’s approach to working with secondary schools and academies, and to hold to account the Department for Education and the Regional Schools Commissioner for improving academy performance.

2.2 That the Director - Education should consult with head teachers, academies, governing bodies, academy sponsors and the Regional Schools Commissioner on the changes required to bring about a step change in secondary school performance.

2.3 That the Quality and Standards Performance Board reports the performance of all schools, to the Cabinet Member for Children’s Services on a regular basis and that the Director and Cabinet Member seek performance improvement plans and regular performance review meetings with schools that have poor Ofsted ratings or low GCSE results, or are failing to improve with sufficient speed, irrespective of their governance arrangements.

2.4 That the Director - Education requests regular updates on the impact of support and interventions to academies provided by the Department for Education through the Regional Schools Commissioner’s office.

Chris Ward Service Director - Education

Simon White Director – Children’s Services

Contact Officer: Andrew Timmins, Group Head – Learning Improvement Tel No: 0121 569 8302

3. Strategic Resource Implications

3.1 The council’s Children’s Services department continues to manage the use of the education support grant to fund the majority of services used to support school improvement. As schools convert to academy status this removes a proportion of funding which is calculated by the number of pupils in the school multiplied by £113.17. The school improvement teams need to adjust their support, structure and approach accordingly. In essence this adds additional pressures to reductions also being sought through the council’s budget strategy. [IL0: UNCLASSIFIED] 5

Risk Implications of the Recommendations

3.3 The council’s corporate risk management strategy has been complied with – to identify and assess the significant risks associated with the recommendations in this report. This includes (but is not limited to) political, legislation, financial, environmental and reputation risks. Based on the information provided, it is the officers’ opinion that arrangements can be put in place to manage and mitigate these risks.

This assessment has identified the following current “red” risks that need to be reported:-

 The performance of secondary schools places Sandwell’s overall performance in the lowest quartile of local authorities in the country.

 The council’s school improvement service is at risk of inspection by Ofsted due to the low proportion of good or outstanding secondary schools in the Borough.

4. Legal and Statutory Implications

4.1 The local authority has a statutory duty to deliver a choice of good educational opportunities for children and young people. The Council has a statutory duty to intervene where a maintained school is causing concern. The performance of maintained and academy schools is not separated or differentiated when Ofsted report on the performance of schools in a council’s area.

5. Implications for the Council’s Scorecard Priorities

5.1 The proposal in this report impact on the council’s ability to deliver a good quality choice of education to children and families.

6 Background Details

6.1 Despite the legislative changes by successive governments which mean that the council no longer fulfils the traditional role of a local education authority, the council still has substantial educational duties, including the legal responsibility to ensure that every child has access to a good school. The council also has particular responsibilities for vulnerable children and to ensure that any attainment gap between these children (including those receiving free school meals) and the school population as a whole is reduced.

[IL0: UNCLASSIFIED] 6 6.2 Beyond the council’s direct legal duties, the aspiration and attainment of all children in Sandwell schools should be a central concern of the council and an important element of our strategy for the social and economic regeneration of the Borough. Bluntly, the council’s ambitions to grow the size of the Borough’s economy, increase the number of jobs and increase the average pay of jobs in the Borough will be severely limited if we do not continue to improve educational attainment – and in this, the niceties of different forms of school governance should not stand in the way:-

 Schools contribute directly to creating a workforce with the skills and aptitudes to build the economy that Sandwell aspires to.

 Maintaining successful, diverse communities requires successful schools that meet the aspirations of pupils and their families.

 Successful schools are an attraction to inward migration, and help drive local economic regeneration. Failing schools have the opposite effects.

 Schools can have a significant influence on the aspirations and ambitions of the local population, particularly in creating a positive dynamic between diverse communities and different social and ethnic groups.

6.3 The Ofsted Chief Inspector, Sir Michael Wilshaw published his annual report for the performance of schools in December 2014. The report highlights national and regional performance of schools and mainly focuses on the percentage of children attending schools that are rated as good or outstanding in each Local Authority area.

In Sandwell the difference is marked in that Ofsted outcomes are significantly different between Primary Schools and Secondary Schools. The report states that in Sandwell 82% of primary-age children in Sandwell are attending good or better schools but in the secondary sector this is much lower at 53%.

[IL0: UNCLASSIFIED] 7 6.4 Ofsted outcomes reported in the Chief Inspectors report are as follows:-

6.5 Changes in Ofsted judgements since the first Annual Report of the Chief Inspector of Schools (2012) are as follows:-

Overall Effectiveness Grade School / Academy Up to 31st After 31st August 2012 August 2012 Bristnall Hall Academy 2* 3 1 2 Holly Lodge 3 2 Oldbury Academy 1* 3 4* 3 OSCA 4 3 Perryfields High School 2 3 Phoenix Collegiate 4 3 Q3 Academy 3 2 RSA Academy 2 3 Sandwell Academy 1 1 Shireland Academy 1 1 St Michaels CE High School 3 2 Stuart Bathurst High School 2 3 ACE Academy 3* 4 Wodensborough Ormiston 3* - Acad. Wood Green Academy 1 1

[IL0: UNCLASSIFIED] 8 *Judgements from the previous school at the same site. When schools become sponsored academies they are officially deemed new legal entities and therefore Ofsted and the DfE do not normally make a link between judgements from the previous school and the new sponsored academy.

6.6 Sir Michael Wilshaw’s report noted that as at 31 August 2014 only 53% of secondary-age children in Sandwell attended a school rated good or outstanding by Ofsted, compared to 82% in the primary sector. However, following inspections in the autumn term, which were not taken into account in the report, this figure could reduce further in 2015, to 44.4% of pupils at good or outstanding secondary schools, compared to 74% nationally.

Lessons from London

6.7 Much attention has been given to London, where educational attainment has improved faster and achieved better results than anywhere else in the country in the past ten years; Haringey for example, is ranked as the thirteenth most deprived council area in the country, very close to Sandwell, and yet one hundred percent of secondary-age pupils in Haringey attend good or outstanding schools. Recent communication with Haringey appears to suggest that much of their success is based on the sort of approach advocated in this report.

6.8 Initially attention focussed on the “London Challenge” which was copied in many areas, including the West Midlands, without really replicating the impact. Now longer term analysis has been done it appears that the real difference in London is attributable to two factors: BEM communities improving dramatically and more quickly than in other areas; and white working class pupils keeping pace with national improvements. This is suggestive of the kind of strategy that Sandwell might develop in partnership with its schools. The best London councils are characterised by strong school-to-school partnerships, brokered by the Local Authority, powerful use of data and information, transparency with parents and other stakeholders about schools’ performance, and the utilisation of all the contacts the council has with schools, including traded services, to support improvement. Officers will review current arrangements in Sandwell with head teachers against the practice of better performing councils.

Source Documents: Annual Report of the Ofsted Chief Inspector, Sir Michael Wilshaw, 2014.

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