MINUTES OF A MEETING OF THE CREWE MULTI ACADEMY TRUST (“CMAT”) (CO. NO. 09379253) HELD AT THE OAKS ACADEMY ON 11th OCTOBER 2018 AT 9.00am Directors/Trustees present: Fintan Bradley (FB) Chair Emma Hooley (EH) Headteacher Jasbir Dhesi (JD) Dame Patricia Bacon (DPB) Left at 10.58 Andrea Herron (AHe) Left at 11.39 Rachel Ellis-Jones (REJ) Janice Leverone (JL) Also in attendance: Jenny Gough (JG) Clerk David Kay (DKA) Deputy Headteacher Arrived at 9.22 Left at 11.39 Sharon Bowker (SB) Assistant principal - finance Cheshire College South & West Apologies from: Simon Yates (SY) PART ONE MINUTES – NON-CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS Introductions and Apologies for Absence The Chair welcomed those attending the meeting. Apologies were received and accepted from SY. Two items of AOB were declared. 1. DfE Secure Access Arrangements and 2. Ofsted Preparation. Declarations of Interest Trustees were asked to declare any potential pecuniary interest or conflict of interests with the business to be discussed during the meeting. No interests or conflicts were declared. Declaration of Interest forms for 2018-19 have now been completed by all trustees. Page 1 of 11 ACTION: JG to return the completed Declaration of Interest forms for 2018-19 to EH. The trustees agreed that FB as Chair could sign the Code of Conduct on their behalf to confirm their agreement to it. FB signed the Code of Conduct. ACTION: JG to return the signed Code of Conduct to EH for filing at the school. Minutes Minutes from the Meeting on 21st September 2018 Q. Has the model safeguarding policy come out yet? A. Yes. The policy will be reviewed at the next board meeting. ACTION: FB to write the impact statement for the September Minutes. The school is now using twitter more to promote the school. Local Governing Board (“LGB”) Update At the meeting with Matt Miller on Friday 21st September it was agreed that the trust would set up a LGB. It was agreed that a revised Scheme of Delegation, a membership list of the Local Governing Board and a Terms of Reference for the LGB would be approved at the November meeting. ACTION: JG to add the approval of the revised Scheme of Delegation, LGB Membership List and the LGB Terms of Reference to the November agenda. It was further agreed that:- any meetings of the LGB before the November board meeting could take place as working groups until the Board is formally constituted; and the trust board delegated authority to the working group to appoint LGB members. ACTION: JG to send a reminder email to all trustees to request feedback/comments on the template produced by Matt Miller. All responses need to be collated and send to Matt Miller by 23rd October. It was agreed that the authority to approve the revised safeguarding policy would be delegated to the LGB Working Group. At the first meeting of the LGB Working Group it was affirmed that Helen Nellist would become a member of the academy trust. Sharon Bowker would become a trustee. ACTION: JG to add the appointment of Sharon Bowker as a trustee to the agenda for the November meeting. Rachel Ellis-Jones will chair the LGB. The meetings will take place in the late afternoon/early evening. Page 2 of 11 The Scheme of Delegation is currently with the College’s Clerk for advice. One more community representative is being sought for the LGB. The trust meetings will receive notes from each LGB meeting. ACTION: EH/FB to follow up the possible lead for a community representative from the Town Council. The minutes were agreed as a true copy of the meeting. They will be signed at the next meeting when the impact statement drafted by FB has been inserted. ACTION: JG to add FB’s impact statement to the September minutes and bring a paper copy to the November meeting for execution. The Action Log was reviewed. See updated action log. 9.22 – David Kay arrived Examination Report 2017/18 The Examination Report 2017/18 was circulated to all trustees in advance of the meeting. At the present time the data checking exercise is still in progress and there could still be slight changes to the results data. There have been some changes already to marks in English, RE, History and Geography. The Progress 8 is now -0.8 as of 3.10.18 and it was stated that this could still change, but it will remain at -0.8 for the performance tables. The 2017/18 cohort has dealt with a legacy curriculum. They had a three year Key Stage 4 curriculum. There was not enough guidance provided to assist with their option choices which is why only one student was eligible for the EBacc. Q. Can you explain the bucket system? A. It is a pupil’s 8 best subjects and they fall into buckets. Maths and English are double weighted. Humanities, MFL and Science are next and then all other subjects. The absence of guidance meant that pupils chose more open bucket subject choices so they did not qualify for the EBacc. 47% of pupils this year are eligible for the EBacc and this year’s Year 11 cohort are on a two year Key Stage 4 curriculum. Q. How can the trustees have confidence in the in-house data? A. The in-house data collection has improved now and become more accurate. There is a new tracking system called Pupil Progress. The Creative Arts department piloted it and the art data accurately predicted the results in line with the grades actually achieved. There was an anomaly with the music grades but that was due to the software company being three to four grade marks off the boundary. The company has now corrected the grade boundaries. This software is now being used in all subjects in Year 10 and 11. At Appendix 2 of the Examination Report it can be seen that there has been a dip in Maths across the local authority. The Curriculum Team Leader in Maths is changing the Page 3 of 11 specification from EdEXL to [ ]. This builds in tolerance to the school’s grade boundary. Q. Does that impact on where you grade? A. Yes. The tier of entry and consideration of it will be looked at at Mock 1. The effect of outliers was discussed by the board. There are 10 students having a 0.2 effect on the overall figure. Case studies have been written to demonstrate the interventions put in place by the school and impact on overall performance. There has been some success captured in the case studies. Ofsted are able to take the outliers’ data out of the Progress 8 figure if the case studies are robust enough. It would make the Progress 8 figure -0.6. Q. Are any of the outliers pupil premium pupils? A. Yes. More than 50% of the school’s pupils are granted pupil premium funding. Currently all data inputted into SIMs is uploaded into an analysis tool called Sister Analytics. All key assessments across the year are inputted not just the usual assessments which only happen 3-4 times a year. For example in English the final assessment consists of two papers with five questions on each paper. The pupils would complete internal assessments throughout the year using a similar format and the results of which would be used to predict their final grades. Q. When will this system be implemented across the school? A. It is in Year 10 and 11 at the moment. It is hoped by the start of next academic year it will be throughout the whole school. The table in the report which sets out a breakdown of each subject, the grades achieved at mock 1, mock 2, actual and national averages was discussed. Those subjects marked with an asterix are still graded from A*-G. The other subjects are in the first year of a new GCSE syllabus. There were no grade boundaries published before the exams. The school worked with Sir Thomas More Catholic School, Crewe and other link school to consider the grade boundaries. The subjects with the biggest disparities in the accuracy of data was seen in Music, Computer Science and French. Q. The disparity between predicated and actual was 3% in Music last year and it is 15% this year. Is there an issue with teaching and learning? A. The trustees were referred to page 37 of the The Oaks Academy Improvement Plan 2018- 19 which was circulated to all trustees in advance of the meeting. The national average in each cohort taking music is 7%. At this school 19% of the cohort took music. It is a time consuming subject due to the amount of rehearsals needed. Some pupils had no instrument or voice. This year only those who were capable of the GCSE were allowed to take the option. Those that were not capable were offered alternative subjects. The Pupil Premium pupils are funded for music lessons, but some of them refuse to take them. Q. Good teaching and learning would still have added value. How do we measure value added? How can we demonstrate improvements made from each pupil’s entry level? A. It would be necessary to look at the data. It was reaffirmed that trustees need to see the data which shows progress. It was further commented that it is difficult with the Creative Arts subjects because it is English and Maths which are baselined at entry. Page 4 of 11 Q. Do schools do an initial assessment? A. There are baselines.