Agenda item

Council were presented with a report, the purpose was to provide Council with the outcomes of the Estyn monitoring visit 23 - 27th November 2015.

Members will be aware that since the Estyn inspection in November 2012, the Authority’s education services for children and young people has been in special measures.  In the final report, Estyn identified the following six main recommendations across Monmouthshire’s education services:

Recommendation 1: Ensure that safeguarding procedures are robust and underpinned by a clear policy;

Recommendation 2: Improve standards of attainment for all groups of pupils, particularly in secondary schools;

Recommendation 3: Strengthen the level of challenge to schools and use the full range of available to the authority to improve leadership and management in underperforming schools;

Recommendation 4: Improve corporate planning to strengthen links between the local authority’s priorities and service level targets;

Recommendation 5: Improve self-evaluation across all services and make better use of data to plan services strategically and target resources appropriately;

Recommendation 6: Ensure that performance management is effective and robust and allows elected members and senior officers to identify and address underperformance

In addition to the main recommendations Estyn also identified aspects of Additional

Learning Needs, Inclusion and the Youth Service as unsatisfactory and areas for development.

Estyn carried out a series of three monitoring visits between February 2014 and March 2015 to review how well the local authority was improving. The final monitoring visit took place in November 2015.

Following the final visit, Estyn judged that the Authority has made strong progress in addressing two of the six recommendations and satisfactory progress in addressing the other four as detailed below:

Recommendation 1 - strong progress

Recommendation 2 – satisfactory progress

Recommendation 3 – satisfactory progress

Recommendation 4 – strong progress

Recommendation 5 – satisfactory progress

Recommendation 6 – satisfactory progress

Estyn also noted that significant progress has been made in addressing shortcomings in Additional Learning Needs, Inclusion and the Youth Service.  As a result Estyn considers that the authority is no longer in need of special measures and is removing it from further follow up activity

During debate we noted the following:

·         The Leader welcomed the report and thanked the Council for working collaboratively and recognised the contribution of select and the Cabinet Member.  We noted that the journey was ongoing and lessons had been learnt.

·         Assurance was requested that, the membership of the school improvement group, would provide additionality and clarification was required regarding representation.  In response, we were informed that it had been identified through work with Estyn, critical work that select have a role in providing reassurance, therefore Chair and Vice Chair are critical.  The Chief Officer would present a report, at a future meeting, which would highlight progress and key priorities for future years.  Year on year quartile performance had improved and all performance data was available on the hub. 

·         The Cabinet Member confirmed that performance figures would be presented to the various select committees. 

·         Council welcomed that the authority was out of special measures and welcomed progress, which included strengthened working relationships and role of scrutiny.

Council resolved to agree recommendations:

1.    That Council receive Estyn’s letter following the monitoring visit 23 -27th November 2015.

2.    That Council consider the progress the Authority has made against the six recommendations contained in the 2012 ESTYN Inspection Report.

3.    That Council note that a School Improvement Group comprising of Members, Officers and external experts is set up to continue to ensure that the pace of improvement is continued and advise on issues where required.