Archived decisions

Contact: John Clarke, Assistant County Education Officer, Standards & Improvement Branch, County Office. Tel: 01962 84 6464

1 Introduction

1.1 This paper reports on changes to the system for categorising schools by their quality, changes which are currently being consulted on with schools. Its purpose is to inform members of the panel of these changes to provide essential background for the panel's work. Annually figures relating to the number of schools in each category will be produced for the panel, along with the plans to support those which are not yet effective. It is important that all concerned understand the basis on which the judgements relating to effectiveness are made.

1.2 Since the revisions are at the level of process and procedure and there is no change of policy, this paper is for background information for the work of the Panel. There are no matters which require decision

2 Background

2.1 The Education Department began categorising Hampshire schools by their quality in 1998 and, thus, the process has taken place annually, for the last three years. The system was introduced following a process of extensive consultation with schools. It allowed officers and members to see changes in overall school quality year on year and also allowed the LEA to have confidence that it was targeted its resources at the schools in greatest need and applying the principle of `inverse proportion to success'.

2.2 The processes used in the categorisation of the last three years were good in their time but now require renewal. Three factors have led to the decision to up-date the procedures.

2.3 Firstly, one of the sub-texts of the Ofsted report on the LEA, (May 2001) was that there needed to be more clarity in what Hampshire means by monitoring, challenge, support and intervention. While the inspectors were impressed with the work in school improvement and found substantial evidence of all that work in the fabric of schools and the Education Department, they were unable to find a document which set out chapter and verse of what is done in this area.

2.4 Secondly, at about the same time as the Ofsted inspection the DfES issued a new Code of Practice, governing LEA/School relations. This provided an opportunity to look again at the whole area of monitoring, challenge, support and intervention and the system of categorising schools

2.5 Thirdly, three years of operating one system was long enough to establish some trends in terms of school quality and about the right interval since the system began to look at it afresh.

3 The New System

3.1 The full document, in final draft, appears as an appendix and the main points will be explained to members at the Panel's meeting. In essence, the new system does the following:

· it sets out clear definitions for schools of monitoring, challenge, support and intervention and gives examples of these;

· it simplifies the previous system of categorisation so that there will now be just 4 categories rather than 6 - highly effective, effective, requiring some improvement and requiring much improvement;

· it takes greater account of all the work which schools have been doing over the last three years in developing their arrangements for self-evaluation;

· it makes clear how, and under what circumstances, the LEA will provide extra support and the expectations of improvement which it has of schools;

· it sets out how the LEA will respond to unforeseen difficulties which occur in-year, between two categorisation processes.

4 The future

4.1 The new categories will apply from December 2001 and the first data from that process will be available to the first meeting of the Panel in 2002. At that meeting members will receive information relating to the proportion of schools in each category and lists of all schools which require additional support together with an indication of the nature of that support. Subsequent reports will provide information relating to the progress of each of these schools.

4.2 Annually, reports will be prepared for the panel setting out changes in the performance of schools and providing an evaluation of the work done in support of them.

Recommendations

The Panel is asked to:-

1) note this report

2) note that a seminar on the revised categorisation procedures will be arranged for members of the Panel and other interested Members.

Section 100 D - Local Government Act 1972 - Background documents

The following documents disclose facts or matters on which this report, or an important part of it, is based and has been relied upon to a material extent in the preparation of this report.

N.B. the list includes:

1 Published works

2 Documents which disclose exempt or confidential information as defined in the Act

None