Contact: John Clarke, Deputy County Education Officer, Tel 01962 846459 [email protected] or Chris Wilson, Senior inspector/Adviser (Strategic Management), Tel 01962 846517 [email protected]

1 Summary

1.1 This report sets out the outcome of the process of categorisation, carried out by attached inspector/advisers with schools during 2004/05. It details the number of schools in each category and, for the first time, groups them into district council areas. Appendix 2 gives the names of schools being project-managed because they are not yet effective schools.

1.2 This paper supports Aim 1 of the Corporate Strategy (maximising life opportunities). These data form the basis for the use of centrally retained funds for school improvement, to enable schools to improve rapidly and to raise standards of achievement by pupils.

2 Background

2.1 Attached inspector/advisers make an annual visit to schools to make a judgement on behalf of the LEA of the overall quality of the school. In previous years this process was called "categorisation". In 2004/05, because of changes in expectations of how schools manage themselves, this process had a different focus although largely the same criteria. Changes were reported to the Panel on 19 October 2004. Renamed "Validation of the school's self-evaluation" the process asked for a balanced view by the attached inspector/adviser of how the school was performing against six criteria. These were:

· the school's capacity for continuous self-improvement

· the school's commitment to meeting the needs of all pupils in its local community

· that pupils consistently make appropriate progress in relation to their prior attainment

· that educational standards are satisfactory or better

· that appropriately challenging performance targets are consistently set for pupil attainment

· that the overall judgements on standards, teaching and leadership in the most recent Ofsted report were at least satisfactory (when the Ofsted report was in the previous 12 months).

2.2 Against these criteria, judgements were made as to whether the school was highly effective, effective, satisfactory or unsatisfactory. This language has changed to bring it in line with the language used in Ofsted inspection reports to judge the overall effectiveness of a school. Details of these criteria, the judgements and how they would be arrived at were shared with headteachers prior to the process.

3 Outcomes

3.1 The results of the validations are given in Appendix 1 at Table 1. Compared with 2003/04, 109 schools have improved by one category, 1 school by two categories, 64 schools have declined by one category and 3 schools by two categories. There has been no change to the category of 362 schools.

3.2 Of the schools judged effective last year, 47 have improved to highly effective schools. Fifteen of the schools judged as unsatisfactory last year, needing substantial improvement, have improved to satisfactory.

3.3 Of the schools previously judged to be effective, or needing some improvement, 18 have declined to become unsatisfactory. Nine schools continue for a second year to be unsatisfactory and four schools continue to be so for more than two years. All of the schools in this category are project managed by the local teams, led by a school improvement manager directed by the Strategic School Improvement Manager (SSIM) in the area. Many schools judged now as satisfactory are also project managed. A list of these schools is given as
Appendix 2. The SSIM will continue to write to the local member if any of the schools in their areas are being project managed.

3.4 The outcomes of validations organised into district council areas are given in Appendix 1 in Tables 2 - 13.

4 Conclusions

4.1 Whilst the trend is upwards, with more schools improving than not, much remains to be done to ensure that unsatisfactory schools make rapid improvement, especially those that have been in this condition for more than two years.

5 Legal implications

5.1 None.

6 Financial implications

7.1 None.

7 Personnel implications

7.1 None.

8 Impact assessment

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

9 Crime prevention issues

9.1 None.

10 Views of the Local County Councillor

10.1 Not sought in the drafting of this report.

Recommendations

1 That the report is noted.

Section 100 D - Local Government Act 1972 - background documents

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

NB: the list excludes

1. Published works

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

None