Agenda item

The Committee considered the School Leadership and Contextual Paper 2016/17, which highlighted some of the current challenges facing our schools and the Education Service, and provided an overview of contextual school data and leadership arrangements as follows:-

(1)  School statistics

(a)  Number of schools/pupils

(b)  Number of pupils (Wales)

(c)  Number of pupils in Welsh schools

(d)  Number of teachers/support staff (fte)

(e)  Free school meals (all pupils)

(f)    Free school meals (5-15 age range)

(g)  Additional Learning Needs

(h)  Absenteeism (primary)

(i)    Absenteeism (secondary)

(j)    Financial reserves

(k)  NEETS (not in education, employment or training)

(2)  School Federation Footprint

(3)  Acting HT/Leadership Footprint

The following questions/observations were raised on the report:-

·       Officers were asked about delays in providing special educational needs to children once the need has been established.  The Head of Education Services explained that the team responds swiftly to any flagged up need and if any delays do occur they tend to be of a specific nature.  Each school’s progress on this is monitored and there are Family Liaison Officers in place to support schools, families and children;

·       Asked if there were any trends apparent from the data, the Director of Education & Children informed the Committee that one of the trends in Carmarthenshire over the past five years is the reduction in the number of children who are statemented.  500 less children have been statemented and that is due to the additional support provide to schools;

·       Asked how needs and training are identified, the Head of Education Services explained that the Authority works very closely with the Cynnydd Programme and officers intervene where necessary.  The Learning Transformation Manager added that the Local Authority has a responsibility to develop a programme of actions, the Youth Engagement Framework, in partnership with voluntary organisations.  The Cymorth Project also offers a range of interventions whereby young people in KS3, KS4 and school leavers can be identified, tracked and engaged with;

·       Concern was expressed that there may be too many schools in Carmarthenshire and the consequential effect on the budget this causes. With this in mind, officers were asked what the intention is with regards to federation as there are currently only four formal federations in the county.  The Director of Education & Children explained that this is a concern for officers as there are a number of challenges and pressures on staff in administering 98 primary schools, some of which cannot perform within their allocated budget.  Officers were currently working on a report dealing with this challenge which will be presented to the Executive Board for consideration.  He stressed that officers have to look at every possible option before the decision is made to close a school;

·       Concern was expressed over the difficulties being encountered in recruiting headteachers which will be compounded by the number of headteachers who will be retiring over the next few years.  The Head of Education Services informed the Committee that there are currently 16 teachers on the National Professional Qualification for Headship programme who will hopefully graduate at the end of February.  This is an encouraging number for Carmarthenshire and bodes well for our succession planning processes. The NPQH programme has been refined and improved. From now on it was hoped and anticipated that two cohorts will graduate every year thus ensuring that we will have enough potential headteachers with the appropriate qualifications in our ‘Carmarthenshire Headteacher resource bank.  He conceded that there was still quite a challenge in recruiting secondary school headteachers.  The Authority is participating in the WG pilot on School Business Managers which it is hoped will develop more efficient practices across our schools removing unnecessary workload from the Headteacher.

RESOLVED

6.1     that the report be received;

6.2     that a report be presented to a future meeting of the Committee on           the steps being taken by the Authority to attract more people into           teaching and to attract more teachers to progress to become           headteachers.