Issue - meetings

Provisional Learner Outcomes

Meeting: 01/11/2018 - Education and Youth Overview & Scrutiny Committee (Item 24)

24 Learner Outcomes 2018 (Provisional) pdf icon PDF 85 KB

Additional documents:

Decision:

(a)       That the attainment of Flintshire children and young people for the year 2017-18 in the Foundation Phase, Key Stage 2, Key Stage 3 and the provisional data for Key Stage 4 be noted; and

 

(b)       That the Committee invite a representative of the WJEC and a representative of the Head Teacher Federation to attend a future meeting to discuss the recent English change boundaries and the monopoly of the WJEC.

 

Minutes:

The Chief Officer (Education and Youth) introduced Mr David Edwards, Primary Core Lead for Flintshire, and Mr Martyn Froggett, Secondary Core Lead for Flintshire (GwE) to the meeting. 

 

The Chief Officer presented the report to update the Committee on provision outcome achieved by learners in Flintshire for 2018 across all phases of Education.  She provided background information and advised that following Welsh Government (WG) consultation on future publication of teacher assessments, the WG no longer published comparative Foundation Phase, Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 3 data at school, local authority, and consortia level and therefore beyond a comparison with national averages there was no comparative or benchmarking information available.  As a result of the changes announced by the WG in the reporting of data, Chief Officers for Education in North Wales had agreed that a standard scrutiny report would be produced by GwE to ensure compliance with the changes and a consistent approach across the region covering all data sets.  A detailed overview of Flintshire’s performance was contained in the appendix to the report.

 

The Chief Officer reported on the main considerations in the report and advised that overall Flintshire outcomes across all key stages remained strong and performance compared well to national and regional averages.   She drew attention to the reform of GCSEs at Key Stage 4 and the impact of the introduction of the new GCSE suite of qualifications in Science, as detailed in the report.  The Chief Officer explained that there had been significant change to grade boundaries since Summer 2017 and November 2017 compared to Summer 2018, particularly at C grade in English and Mathematics which had made it difficult for schools to ensure accurate projections and target setting.  She explained that this issue was currently the subject of ongoing official communication between the WG and Qualification Wales.

 

In response to a question from Rebecca Stark, the Chief Officer agreed to circulate a copy of the response from the WJEC to the letter sent by Head Teachers, to the Committee. 

 

Mr David Edwards referred to the changes to areas of learning in the Foundation Phase and advised that when benchmarked against the national averages schools in Flintshire were performing well.  He continued that Flintshire’s Key Stage 2 results remained strong and the percentage of pupils achieving the expected and higher levels was above the national average for all core subjects. 

 

            On the subject of school Leadership Mr. Edwards reported that there was continued interest in teachers who aspired to leadership and headship positions and said that the percentage of applicants from Flintshire was higher than in other regions.

 

Mr Martyn Froggett provided contextual information regarding KS4 and said that whilst initial information regarding results was shared there was no access so far to comparative and benchmarking data.  He continued that on most performance indicators the performance of Flintshire schools was above the national average in comparison with 2017 (based on provisional data).  He explained that the decrease in performance in English was currently the subject  ...  view the full minutes text for item 24