The Officer presented the report on the quality of school improvement processes. The last few years has seen an increasing and improving trend in our performance in a number of areas, such as national categorisation (more schools classed as ‘Green’, none as ‘Red’) and in the outcome of Estyn inspections, with more schools achieving ‘Good’, and a few as ‘Excellent’. But we expect to see more. In order to secure this, we are looking at a wider range of measures and work that the schools do, in order to support that move towards further improvement. That is the basis of the report.

Challenge:

Why is there no comparison with SE Wales on the report for the year 19/20?

The data regionally for 19/20 is not available, but when it does become available we will update the report. But we wanted to share our own schools’ progress in this period as soon as we possibly could.

How can it be ensured that self-evaluations are of the same standard?

The quality of the school development planning and self-evaluation processes: there is no requirement now for a school to write a self-evaluation report, but it’s the quality of the process that the schools have to give them accurate judgements are evaluated through the Challenge Advice visits. Therefore, over the year, Challenge Advisors will work with the school to moderate the work that they do. For example, if there’s a learning walk, the Challenge Advisor may well be involved in that. They may well look at the moderation of Headteachers or Senior Leaders’ judgements on teachers’ observations, but they will compare those with book scrutinise, and listening to learners. The judgement overall, therefore, is that of the Challenge Advisor based on the very rich evidence-base provided by the schools.

Taking that into account, if a school self-evaluated as ‘Good’ but EAS deemed it to be ‘Adequate’, who would be the external moderator of the standard levels?

The National Categorisation Process is used as a summary – a point in time – of where the school is. The information that’s collected by the Challenge Advisor feeds into that report, and the information from the National Categorisation report will reflect the quality of self-evaluation processes that we’ve used here. So it has been through a process itself. Estyn will come to a school and look at it in a snapshot of time, and not necessarily focus on everything in this current model. There is a degree of assurance from our point of view that the judgements we’re looking at here are made by the Challenge Advisor based on what they’ve seen and worked on within the school, and that will then be moderated within EAS through their discussions with their principal Challenge Advisor in order to make sure there’s consistency within that team as well.

What things will be put in place to help schools to drive towards excellence?

Last year a regional protocol was initiated for looking at school development planning. Schools were invited to workshop sessions, which were very well attended by Monmouthshire schools. School development plan surgeries were attended, with secondary schools being offered advice and particular support being identified. As a result, there was additional Challenge Advisor support. In the Autumn term, we met formally with secondary schools, and reviewed the plans again, if any further work was needed. We scrutinised the ‘schools causing concern’ plans. The correlation between self-evaluation processes and their plans has been discussed and modified as a result of their work with Challenge Advisors.

It seems that secondary schools aren’t doing as well as primary. Could this be shown in more detail in the graphs? As it stands, do the primary figures raise the overall level, glossing over the true picture at secondary level?

Yes, there are only 4 secondary schools in Monmouthshire, and the regional picture will have a lot more. The schools are all adequate or better now, the plans for all the schools are fit for purpose and meet statutory requirements. We can break the figures down further for the future.

Chair’s Conclusion:

It’s good that there are no schools in red. It’s concerning that only one secondary is in green. Secondary schools are large organisations; it seems harder to move them The Officer presented the report on the quality of school improvement processes. The last few years has seen an increasing and improving trend in our performance in a number of areas, such as national categorisation (more schools classed as ‘Green’, none as ‘Red’) and in the outcome of Estyn inspections, with more schools achieving ‘Good’, and a few as ‘Excellent’. But we expect to see more. In order to secure this, we are looking at a wider range of measures and work that the schools do, in order to support that move towards further improvement. That is the basis of the report.

Challenge:

Why is there no comparison with SE Wales on the report for the year 19/20?

The data regionally for 19/20 is not available, but when it does become available we will update the report. But we wanted to share our own schools’ progress in this period as soon as we possibly could.

How can it be ensured that self-evaluations are of the same standard?

The quality of the school development planning and self-evaluation processes: there is no requirement now for a school to write a self-evaluation report, but it’s the quality of the process that the schools have to give them accurate judgements are evaluated through the Challenge Advice visits. Therefore, over the year, Challenge Advisors will work with the school to moderate the work that they do. For example, if there’s a learning walk, the Challenge Advisor may well be involved in that. They may well look at the moderation of Headteachers or Senior Leaders’ judgements on teachers’ observations, but they will compare those with book scrutinise, and listening to learners. The judgement overall, therefore, is that of the Challenge Advisor based on the very rich evidence-base provided by the schools.

Taking that into account, if a school self-evaluated as ‘Good’ but EAS deemed it to be ‘Adequate’, who would be the external moderator of the standard levels?

The National Categorisation Process is used as a summary – a point in time – of where the school is. The information that’s collected by the Challenge Advisor feeds into that report, and the information from the National Categorisation report will reflect the quality of self-evaluation processes that we’ve used here. So it has been through a process itself. Estyn will come to a school and look at it in a snapshot of time, and not necessarily focus on everything in this current model. There is a degree of assurance from our point of view that the judgements we’re looking at here are made by the Challenge Advisor based on what they’ve seen and worked on within the school, and that will then be moderated within EAS through their discussions with their principal Challenge Advisor in order to make sure there’s consistency within that team as well.

What things will be put in place to help schools to drive towards excellence?

Last year a regional protocol was initiated for looking at school development planning. Schools were invited to workshop sessions, which were very well attended by Monmouthshire schools. School development plan surgeries were attended, with secondary schools being offered advice and particular support being identified. As a result, there was additional Challenge Advisor support. In the Autumn term, we met formally with secondary schools, and reviewed the plans again, if any further work was needed. We scrutinised the ‘schools causing concern’ plans. The correlation between self-evaluation processes and their plans has been discussed and modified as a result of their work with Challenge Advisors.

It seems that secondary schools aren’t doing as well as primary. Could this be shown in more detail in the graphs? As it stands, do the primary figures raise the overall level, glossing over the true picture at secondary level?

Yes, there are only 4 secondary schools in Monmouthshire, and the regional picture will have a lot more. The schools are all adequate or better now, the plans for all the schools are fit for purpose and meet statutory requirements. We can break the figures down further for the future.

Chair’s Conclusion:

It’s good that there are no schools in red. It’s concerning that only one secondary is in green. Secondary schools are large organisations; it seems harder to move them due to the volume of staff. It seems easier to move primary schools as they have fewer staff. But secondary is so important given the exams. We would all like an improvement to the secondary schools that have slipped.

due to the volume of staff. It seems easier to move primary schools as they have fewer staff. But secondary is so important given the exams. We would all like an improvement to the secondary schools that have slipped.