Issue - meetings

That the attainment of Flintshire children and young people for the year 2014-15 be noted.

The Senior Manager – School Improvementintroduced a report to provide Members with a summary of pupil attainment in statutory assessments across primary and secondary school phases for the school year 2014-15.  The report also provided a summary of data in relation to attendance and exclusions. 

She introduced The Senior Challenge Adviser who would be able to provide up to date information on each of the key stages.

The report mainly focussed on the performance at each of the key stages and identified that across the foundation phase, key stage 2 and key stage 3 showed a steady trend of improved performance at both the expected and higher than expected level.  However, at key stage 4’s main indicator level 2+, Flintshire’s performance unexpectedly dipped in 2015 resulting in a drop in the local authority ranked position from 3^rd in 2014 to 8^th which was a worrying downward trend over the last two years.

The Senior Challenge Adviser explained that this year a new system had been introduced where schools set their targets at the beginning of the year in a uniform way, using an online system and there were three points in year where the projections were reviewed.  The most up to date projections were based on the most recent information available for key stages 2, 3 and 4 using data from December 2015/January 2016.  For Flintshire schools at Foundation Phase the latest projection was 87.1% which was an improvement on the figure for the previous year of 84%.  There had also been a significant increase in the projection for key stage 2 which had increased from 87% to 89.5% and for key stage 3 the figure had increased from 80% to 84% to 87% over the past few years to 87.5% and it was expected that this rate could be maintained or increased in the following years.  It was therefore felt that the schools could be fairly optimistic about the results that would be achieved when the outcomes were released in the summer.  For the county as a whole, the trend had been of positive improvement and it was felt that this could be maintained. 

Councillor Nancy Matthews said that the figures in the report were historical and she felt that it was very encouraging that the schools had continued to adapt their school development plans following the setting of their targets at the beginning of the year which had resulted in increases in the figures achieved.    

The Senior Manager – School Improvement explained that the previous model used to set targets had not been fit for purpose and the introduction of this new system had given schools the confidence to know that the data would inform the target setting and would create more robust targets.  She added that one benefit of the new system was that the targets were reviewed at various points throughout the year rather than never being reviewed once they had been set. 

The Senior Challenge Adviser spoke of the work of the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5