Agenda item

-        Strategic Director of Children and Young People’s Services to report.

Councillor Lakin, Cabinet Member for Safeguarding and Developing Learning Opportunities for Children, introduced a report by the Strategic Director of Children and Young People’s Services, which set out details of how the Local Authority was working intensively with Rotherham schools to design and deliver a new ‘school improvement partnership’ with effect from April, 2011.  At that point, fundamental shifts in Government policy on schools and local education provision would combine with stringent financial cuts to Local Authorities to make current practice unsustainable.  A new settlement needed to be established with schools and new approaches to individual and collective school improvement to ensure children and young people continued to progress as they should.  This proposed partnership built on the considerable successes of Transforming Rotherham Learning (TRL) over the last five years, but would require a step-change in system leadership, support structures and resourcing to be effective.

The Partnership proposal was designed to:-

·              Ensure the sustainability of the Transforming Rotherham Learning mission in the new political and financial context.

·              Recognise school leaders’ aspirations to combine individual freedoms with a strong collaborative culture.

·              Mobilise the expertise of strong schools and school leaders on behalf of the whole community, especially the most vulnerable.

·              Secure continued local control over the Rotherham agenda.

·              Sustain the relevance of the Local Authority as a partner in provision for children and young people, albeit in a more ‘junior’ role.

What this required was a fundamentally new settlement and relationship between schools and the Local Authority which recognised the changes required by National Government, but integrated them into the local professional culture which was markedly different from that in most other Local Authorities.  Such a settlement would be based on partnerships in Learning Communities 0-19, which were Head Teacher led and supported by a smaller, but still valued Local Authority.  School improvement energy, expertise and resources would increasingly be provided by lead schools and Head Teachers rather than a central School Effectiveness Service team.  Head Teachers and other leaders, working through representative structures, would take responsibility for commissioning school support, financing it and evaluating its impact.

Within this new settlement, the role of a smaller but high quality School Effectiveness Service would be to:-

·              Manage a challenging transition period between the old world of school improvement and the new, retaining Head Teachers’ confidence in a period of unprecedented disturbance.

·              Support the most vulnerable schools, not least those in Ofsted categories.

·              Champion the progress and wellbeing of the most vulnerable learners across the local system.

·              Build the capacity of the new leaders of school improvement, through targeted professional development and the brokering of networks and collaborations.

·              Broker entrepreneurial activity beyond Rotherham in the sub-region and beyond.

·              Ensure the alignment of the new school improvement profile with broader Children and Young People’s Services and the Council’s priorities.

Funding for Local Authorities and schools remained unclear until both budgets were confirmed later this term.  What was already evident was that the Local Authority’s capacity to support local school improvement would be significantly reduced by losses from revenue and grant funding and staffing; much of that responsibility would, therefore, pass to schools who, it was promised, would have sufficient resources to purchase support.  Schools may be persuaded to contribute to a collective Partnership budget to secure services of the quality and range they required.  There were precedents for this within and beyond the Service Level Agreement model.  Heads were currently working with the Local Authority to review the DSG which had earmarked £750,000 funding for Partnership activity.  The Government was currently out to tender on management of an ‘Endowment Fund’ (£110 m initially) to resource innovative school improvement practice, to which a bid was intended. Creating the collective capital to fund local school-led improvement activity would be vital to the improvement of standards and in ensuring Rotherham was not to become the playground of Academy chains and commercial predators.

If the Local Authority and schools failed to establish a new settlement, the risks of damage to local provision were fundamental and urgent.  They included:-

·              An increase in schools electing to become Academies, including in the Primary and Special phases.

·              Atomisation of the local system where schools chose to ‘go it alone’, competing for resources and position.

·              Significant reductions in the DSG and, therefore, the capacity to operate collectively, if Academies and Trusts increased.

·              Commercial activity by external providers – private companies and Academy chains – working to their own agendas in Rotherham.

·              A breakdown in relationships – in effect, the end of the local school system serving the local community.

Cabinet Members welcomed the excellent partnership that existed already within Rotherham schools and the commitment to succeed by Head Teachers.

Resolved:-  (1)  That the proposals for a new Rotherham school improvement partnership be approved.

(2)  That a further report on the new proposed governance structures be submitted to the Cabinet.

(3)  That Cabinet enter into a minimum of a two-year agreement be entered into with the Partnership, ensuring a period of relative stability with the new governance arrangements.

(4)  That progress be reviewed twice a year by the relevant Scrutiny Group.