Agenda item

Consideration was given to a report which provided the Select Committee with a review of secondary school and sixth form performance.

Members were informed that the pandemic caused the closure of schools and cancellation of examinations in 2020, with students being awarded their centre assessment grade or calculated grade, whichever was higher. This increased grades and meant that results for 2020 could not be directly compared to other years. In addition, performance data was not available at the school level making 2020 analysis very limited. The report provided a performance overview by summarising the 2020 published data and reflecting on trends in 2017-2019 published data.

In 2020, GCSE and A’ level outcomes for Oldham pupils were below national averages and the gaps between Oldham and national averages were wider than previously, the trends from 2017 to 2019 also showing a widening gap in GCSE and A’ level outcomes.  It was important that children and young people in Oldham should have an education which enabled them to achieve as well as those from any other parts of England. To realise this vision, the Borough’s students must firstly attain in line with their peers in statistical neighbour boroughs and then with national averages. This had started to happen at Early Years and Key Stages (KS) 1 and 2, but at KS4 this appeared difficult to shift and the position was unclear at KS5.

Oldham Learning was the Council’s approach to creating a sustainable, sector-led school improvement system which involves a wide range of stakeholders including schools and colleges, academies and multi-academy trusts. It was noted that, in order to facilitate this and to prevent the potential for fragmentation across a disparate education provider landscape, Oldham Learning will need to develop a clear and coherent strategy for improving education outcomes across the Borough. This will be developed through the Summer term 2021, ready for implementation from September 2021.  The University of Manchester had been commissioned to consult with sector and system stakeholders to establish a robust outcomes framework by end of June 2020 which will inform the strategy direction and production. 

Members queried the performance gap between Oldham and the national position, being advised that the Service was impatient for the improvements at Early Years to KS2 to work their way through to KS 4 and 5, and that a Covid Recovery Plan was aimed at getting children back to school over the coming weeks and then working to address the imbalance in performance.  Responding to a request for sight of the Recovery Plan, the Cabinet Member noted that there were issues of performance to consider that existed prior to the Covid pandemic and which were picked up in the Recovery Plan.  A Member noted that information was presented for Oldham as a whole and suggested that future reports might have performance broken down on the basis of school and Ward level data to assess levels of achievement across the Borough.

RESOLVED that

1.            the secondary school and sixth form performance be noted;

2.            the sector-led school improvement activity be noted.