Contact: John Clarke, Deputy County Education Officer, County Office
Tel 01962 846459 email [email protected] or

Alan Rawlings, Senior Inspector/Adviser (Secondary) and Key Stage 3 Strategy Manager, County Office, Tel 01962 846917 email [email protected]

1 Summary

1.1 This report outlines developments in the support of secondary schools through the Key Stage 3 Strategy and also explains some new approaches with individual schools. It supports Aim 1 of the Corporate Strategy (maximising life opportunities).

1.2 Race and equality impact assessment has been considered in the development of this report and no adverse impact has been identified.

2 Background

2.1 The Key Stage 3 Strategy was launched in 2001, initially through a focus on English and mathematics. This means that pupils who start Year 10 in September 2004 will have benefited from the approach of the Strategy in these subjects throughout Years 7, 8 and 9. Other strands have been added subsequently. These are science, information and communication technology (ICT), foundation subjects and, most recently, behaviour and attendance.

2.2 The LEA has a strong history of providing comparative performance data to assist with secondary school self-evaluation. This has included the progress of pupils as expressed through value added measures and developed by the Information and Research Unit of the Education Department. This year and for the first time, national value added data have been provided by the DfES for Key Stage 2 to Key Stage 3 and for Key Stage 3 to Key Stage 4.

2.3 The most recent development has been in the refinement of these value added measures to take account of contextual information and specifically a social deprivation factor. This work has been carried out by the Fischer Family Trust and has allowed the LEA, for the first time, to set its own analysis of pupil progress in a wider national context. As a consequence, it has been possible to pinpoint some schools where it seems that the achievements of pupils could be stronger even though, on the face of it, attainment is broadly average.

3 Key Stage 3 - A Whole School Approach

3.1 With the exception of the behaviour and attendance strand where work has just started, all schools are now at the point where they are focusing on particular aspects of the Key Stage 3 Strategy rather than addressing all of its elements. In addition, a number of themes have been introduced in 2004/2005 to help schools embed practice through a common focus. These are:

· learning through literacy

· cross curricular ICT

· assessment for learning

· leading in learning (which is concerned with thinking skills).

3.2 A greater emphasis is also being placed on four main areas:

· improving teaching and learning, especially the methods that are used

· promoting inclusion and tackling underperformance

· strengthening the whole curriculum, especially pupils' independent learning

· supporting school leaders to capitalise on the Strategy and its resources.

3.3 Whilst the underlying agenda of raising standards at the end of Key Stage 3 remains, the Strategy is now focusing more explicitly on the typical school improvement priorities that schools are facing.

3.4 Materials are now being produced that support aspects of pupil learning. An example is the comprehensive guidance linked to training on how teachers can work with learners to help them identify their achievements and what they can do to improve further. This focus on Assessment for Learning has already been piloted successfully in a few Hampshire schools in conjunction with King's College, London.

3.5 In 2004/2005, every secondary school will therefore be engaging with the Key Stage 3 Strategy according to need and the school's improvement agenda. It is expected that over a half will also focus on one of the whole school themes. The extent of contact through visits by consultants may be only a few days or in excess of 30. All schools will also be offered about 12 days of off-site training on key themes plus additional briefings to support school leadership teams.

4 Local Management

4.1 Many schools have reported the increasing complexity of managing the Strategy,
especially when several consultants are working in the school on different strands. In those instances where the school improvement agenda is substantial it has also become increasingly important that the LEA co-ordinates well its support alongside the monitoring role of the attached inspector. In 2004/2005 a new pattern of local management will therefore be introduced.

4.2 Following a trial of the approach in 2003/2004, the support of 12 schools will now be co-ordinated and monitored by a named member of the local school improvement team. A School Improvement Manager will meet Key Stage 3 consultants and the attached inspector regularly to review progress and, where necessary, revise the support programme. This will be informed by the reports written for the school and the LEA. The reason for this change of approach is not necessarily because the LEA has a concern about the capacity of a school to capitalise on the support that is offered. It is so that a more flexible and responsive approach can be sustained. For example, although the programme of support for 2004/2005 is currently being finalised in conjunction with schools, staffing capacity has been built in so that any untoward outcomes from the 2004 Key Stage 3 tests and the evaluation activity described in paragraph 5, below, can be addressed quickly in the autumn.

4.3 Ten schools have also agreed to begin to work together in a Networked Learning project that will be supported by the National College for School Leadership. The project began with a 24-hour conference for the headteachers, attended also by the County Education Officer and his deputy. The project will explore and develop ways to ensure that pupil progress improves in all schools and they will work together to achieve this. The Education Department will facilitate the work and will explore ways of deploying the consultant and inspector time already going into these schools, in more efficient and effective ways - sessions for staff from more than one school, for example, in order to squeeze more value from the staff time. It will also work with the leadership teams and middle leaders across the ten schools to develop further capacity, especially in such key areas as coaching for better performance.

4.4 This project represents a new departure for the LEA and its progress will require careful monitoring, not only in terms of pupil progress in these schools but also in the success, or otherwise, of the process aspects.  Bringing together the experience and skills of headteacher and education department staff in this way promises to open up new relationships and ways of working. It will be important to evaluate what works and what does not and to build any lessons learnt into the core work of the LEA in the future. 

5 Evaluation of Impact

5.1 The DfES has set LEA targets for 2004 in respect of Key Stage 3 and GCSE
outcomes. The LEA will therefore be carrying out a detailed evaluation of these results and the findings will be reported to this Panel at a later date. The Networked Learning project will need to run its course before any meaningful assessment can be made but in respect of Key Stage 3, in particular, this evaluation will be carried out immediately and focus primarily on:

· LEA results in relation to national data and those of statistical neighbours;

· the progress of pupils who took the Key Stage 3 tests in 2004 compared with their results when they took the Key Stage 2 tests in 2001;

· the extent of improvement by those schools that have received most support from Key Stage 3 consultants;

· an assessment of the effectiveness of the LEA's implementation of the
Key Stage 3 Strategy and its impact on standards, learning and teaching.

Recommendations

1 That the report be noted.

Section 100D 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.

NB The list excludes:

1 Published works

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