Agenda and minutes

No Declarations of Interest were made. 

There were no members of the public or the press in attendance. 

There was nothing to report under this item. 

The minutes of the previous meeting of the Improving Lives Select Commission held on 12^th March, 2014, were considered. 

Resolved: -  That the previous minutes be agreed as an accurate record. 

Councillor G. A. Russell welcomed the Director of Schools and Lifelong Learning, the Head of the School Effectiveness Service and the Virtual Headteacher for Looked After Children (Schools and Lifelong Learning, Children and Young People’s Services Directorate) to the meeting.  Councillor Russell thanked the Officers for authoring the reports and attending the meeting during a very busy time for the Service. 

The Head of the School Effectiveness Service gave a presentation that outlined Rotherham’s Schools’ performance against key areas.  The presentation updated the Improving Lives Select Commission on areas of progress and on areas where further improvements were required.  The context to school performance had to be considered alongside the role of local authorities as set out in Section 13a of the Education Act (1996), the different types of schools and Ofsted’s role as an independent quality assessor. 

Early Years Foundation Stage Service: -

·         There was a new Early Years Foundation Stage Framework;

·         Many children in Rotherham joined the Foundation Stage below their age-related expectations;

·         There continued to be a gap between Rotherham’s performance and the outcomes achieved nationally;

·         Areas where improvements were required included phonics and overall boys’ attainment.

Key Stage One: -

·         Key Stage One performance used to be undertaken by formal assessment, but was now through teacher assessment;

·         The expected age-related performance was Level 2b;

·         Boys’ attainment was an area where improvements were required across Rotherham.

Key Stage Two: -

·         Assessments at this stage were undertaken under ‘exam conditions’;

·         Attainment at Key Stage Two was an area of significant underperformance in Rotherham;

·         Outcomes suggested that children were not making progress quick enough through this Key Stage;

·         Outcomes at the end of Key Stage Two were one measure used to judge whole school performance.

Key Stage Four: -

·         Rotherham had demonstrated significant improvements over this Key Stage;

·         Rotherham’s GCSE performance achieved highly. 

Key Stage Five: -

·         This Key Stage constituted post-16 education, and included sixth-form provision;

·         Performance at this Key Stage was complex and would warrant its own session to fully consider all of the relevant factors. 

In summary: -

·         Attainment and outcomes from across the five Key Stages were one of the ways that judgements were made about schools’ progress;

·         Rotherham was continuing to make good progress at Key Stage Four;

·         Areas where further improvements were required to close the gap between Rotherham’s performance and that achieved nationally were Key Stage Two and Boys’ attainment and Literacy across all Key Stages. 

Discussion followed the presentation and questions and comments were made: -

·         Why was Boys’ performance lagging behind in Rotherham?  Was this due to nature or nurture and what role did learning and assessment styles have?  Was this the case nationally?

Testing conditions were tending to favour girls’ learning and remembering styles.  Continuous assessment methods used favoured girls, whereas single end-of-year or end-of-school-career exams tended to favour boys’ learning styles.  However, some schools were bucking the trend and boys were outperforming girls, but this could be because girls were underperforming. 

Boys matured later than girls and their  ...  view the full minutes text for item 61.

In addition to the Schools and Lifelong Learning Officers who had attended for the previous item, Councillor G. A. Russell welcomed the Headteacher of Broom Valley Community Primary School, and the Executive Headteacher of the Sandhill Multi-Academy Trust. 

The Head of the School Effectiveness gave an overview of the overall attainment of pupils who were eligible for Free School Meals (FSM): -  

·         Attainment gaps persisted between pupils from deprived backgrounds and their more affluent peers at all stages of education, including entry into higher education;

·         The highest early achievers from deprived backgrounds were overtaken by lower achieving children from more advantaged backgrounds by age seven;

·         This gap widened further throughout secondary education and persisted into higher education;

·         The likelihood of a pupil eligible for FSM achieving five or more GCSEs at grades A*-C including English and Maths was less than one third of a non-FSM pupil;

·         A pupil from a non-deprived background was more than twice as likely to go on to study at university as their deprived peer. 

The Pupil Premium: -

·         Introduced by the Coalition Government in 2011;

·         Eligible children were those looked after by the local authority, those who had been eligible for FSM at any point in the past six years (also known as Ever 6 FSM) and for children with parents currently serving in the armed forces;

·         The Pupil Premium gave schools extra funding to raise the attainment of disadvantaged pupils from Reception to Year 11; 

·          In 2014/2015 the amounts of the Pupil Premium would be: -

o   Primary-aged pupils - £1,300 (increased from £900 during 2013/2014);

o   Secondary-aged pupils - £935 (increased from £900 during 2013/2014);

o   Looked-After Children - £1,900 per pupil. 

·         Schools were responsible for how the FSM Pupil Premium was spent, and had to publish how they spent the additional funding and how it had made a difference to attainment of eligible children;

·         Local Authorities were responsible for distributing Looked After Children Pupil Premium to the schools and academies these children attended;

·         Ofsted inspected how schools were deploying their Pupil Premium.  It was unlikely that a school would be judged to be Outstanding if its disadvantaged pupils were not making good progress.

The Head of Service referred to the annexes submitted with the report.  The information included: -

·         Good Practice information on spending the Pupil Premium successfully to maximise achievement;

·         2013 performance for pupils who were eligible for the Pupil Premium including Key Stages One, Two and Four, and how these compared negatively to their more affluent peers’ performance;

·         The £ allocation of Pupil Premium funding to Rotherham schools during 2013/2014.   

The Virtual Headteacher for Looked After Children spoke about how the Pupil Premium for Looked After Children was developing, along with the workforce available to support Looked After Children. 

·         The changing role of the Virtual Headteacher for Looked After Children: -

o   Accountable for the use of Pupil Premium through pupil progress interviews, interventions and impact assessment;

o   Would be accountable for passing the money on  ...  view the full minutes text for item 62.

The Policy and Partnership Officer (Policy and Research, Planning and Regeneration, Environment and Development Services Directorate) presented the submitted report that outlined the requirements of the Child Poverty Act (2010) and the current consultation relating to child poverty. 

The report outlined the requirements and intentions of the Act: -

·         The Act intended that less than 10% of children would live in poverty by 2020/2021.  This was from a baseline of 18% in 2010/2011;

·         In 2011/2012 17% of children were living in relative income poverty;

·         The Act required the Government to produce a Child Poverty Strategy every three years, and for local authorities and their partners to cooperate to produce a local needs assessment and produce a joint local Child Poverty Strategy;

·         Originally the Act had defined poverty as children living in households with less than 60% of the median income;

·         Frank Fields MP’s independent review stated that there should be a shift in focus from relative income measures of poverty to tackling root causes, along with a clear focus on the ‘foundation years’ of a child’s life;

·         Previous consultation that had been undertaken called ‘Better Measures’ related to issues of income, worklessness, parental skills, debt and family stability;

·         The Child Poverty Act (2010) called for the creation of the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission.  The Commission’s ‘State of the Nation’ report published in 2013 called for the working poor to be the focus of the future efforts to eradicate child poverty.

The report also considered Rotherham’s context: -

·         On the latest available figures, around 13,000 Rotherham children – one in five – lived in relative income poverty;

·         64% lived in a lone-parent household;

·         An updated needs assessment was required as it was now estimated that 42% of the families were not in work;

·         Rotherham’s Early Help Strategy had a focus on preventative work with children and families and served as the primary vehicle for addressing and mitigating the effects of child poverty in Rotherham;

·         Rotherham’s Health and Wellbeing Board’s Strategy had a specific poverty priority focussing on reducing health inequalities and improving skills and work readiness;

·         A Strategy for building resilience in Rotherham was being developed and concentrated on four objectives related to sustainable employment and training, inclusive economic growth, helping people to thrive and fulfil their potential and building social capital and helping neighbourhoods to flourish. 

A draft response had been prepared regarding the specific consultation questions that were to be used to shape the next three-year Strategy: -

1.    To what extent do you agree that the draft strategy achieves a good balance between tackling poverty now and tackling the drivers of intergenerational poverty?

2.    Considering the current fiscal climate, what is your view of the actions set out in the draft strategy?

3.    At a local level, what works well in tackling child poverty now?

4.    At a local level, what works well for preventing poor children becoming poor adults?

5.    What more can central government do to help employers, local agencies and the voluntary  ...  view the full minutes text for item 63.

Consideration was given to the report presented by the Senior Scrutiny Adviser: Member Development (Scrutiny Services, Legal and Democratic Services, Chief Executive’s Office Directorate) that outlined the activities of the Improving Lives Select Commission during 2013/2014. 

The Select Commission had received a mid-year update on the 2013/2014 work programme at their meeting on 18^th December, 2014 (Minute No. 42 refers). 

The Select Commission had completed work on: -

·         Children Missing from Education;

·         Local Safeguarding Children Board’s Annual Safeguarding Report and Business Plan;

·         ‘Working Together’ 2013 guidance;

·         Adult Safeguarding Annual Report;

·         Update on Families for Change (outcomes);

·         Annual Lifestyle Survey (2013);

·         School places update;

·         Outcomes for Looked After Children (based on the ten questions to ask document);

·         Narrowing the Gap – the impact of the Pupil Premium;

·         Key Stage Performance;

·         Child Sexual Exploitation;

·         Improving services for people experiencing domestic abuse;

·         Carers’ review – completed jointly with the Health Select Commission. 

The intended item on poverty affecting children and older people had been absorbed into the Overview and Scrutiny Management Board’s work programme.  A further report on anti-bullying was awaiting completion and would be presented to the Improving Lives Select Commission prior to the recess. 

A suggested work programme for the Improving Lives Select Commission for 2014/2015 included: -

·         Children Missing from education (update);

·         Update on Child Sexual Exploitation;

·         Neglect – effects on vulnerable children and young people; 

·         Outcomes for Looked After Children;

·         Updates on Families for Change;

·         Effectiveness of Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub;

·         Annual Safeguarding Report and Business Plan (LSCB);

·         Forced marriage (recommendation from scrutiny review of domestic abuse);

·         Annual Safeguarding Report for Vulnerable Adults;

·         Review of progress: scrutiny review of domestic abuse. 

Given how safeguarding issues for children, young people and vulnerable adults was central to the issues in the suggested work programme it was suggested that ‘safeguarding’ become the common theme of the Select Commission.  It was noted that the Improving Places Select Commission’s central theme would be supporting the local economy, the Health Select Commission’s would be mental health and wellbeing, and the Overview and Scrutiny Management Board’s would be the Department for Work and Pensions and other programmes. 

The Improving Lives Select Commission’s work programme maximised the potential for scrutiny to have an impact and mitigated against the risk of using resources with little impact or outcome.  The work programme needed to maintain flexibility to allow for uncertainties to be accommodated within the planning process. 

Resolved: -  (1)  That the report be received and its content noted.

(2)  That the outcomes of the Improving Lives Select Commission during 2013/2014 be noted. 

(3)  That the suggested work programme for this Select Commission during 2014/2015 be agreed as the central theme of safeguarding.  

·         Wednesday 11^th June, 2014, to start at 1.30 p.m. in the Rotherham Town Hall.  (12.45 noon pre-meeting for all members of the Select Commission). 

Resolved: -  That the next meeting of the Improving Lives Select Commission take place on Wednesday 11^th June, 2014, to start at 1.30 p.m. in the Rotherham Town Hall.