Agenda and minutes

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In accordance with the code of conduct adopted by the City and County of Swansea, no interests were declared.

To approve and sign the Minutes of the previous meeting(s) as a correct record.

Resolved that the Minutes of the Education & Skills Policy Development Committees held on 11 July & 12 September 2018 be agreed as correct records.

Nick Williams gave a detailed and informative overview presentation on the above topic areas.

Included and detailed in the presentation were the following areas:

·       Main Changes to Estyn Inspection procedures and more streamlined process of 5 main review areas;

·       Pupil Development Grant formerly called the Pupil Deprivation Grant (PDG) – Introduced in 2012/2013 to provide extra money to schools based on number of pupils eligible for free school meals (FSM);

·       PDG also provides money to regional consortia to be spent on looked after children (LAC);

·       Extension of PDG in 2015/2016 to include 3-5 years olds;

·       Further extended in 2017/2018 to include children otherwise than at school (EOTAS);

·       Welsh Government (WG) guidance on the use of PDG;

·       Challenge advisers monitor the use and implementation of this guidance in schools, this is included in the visit report  for the support visit for the autumn term (SV1);

·       31 overarching recommendations from WG on how the money should be targeted to improve educational outcomes;

·       Local ERW adviser in Swansea is Dylan Williams;

·       Sir Alasdair McDonald, National Lead for the initiative ‘Reducing the Attainment Gap & Learning from Others but Implementing in Your Own Way;

·       Education Endowment Foundation Teaching & Learning Toolkit  evaluation exercise and outcomes.

Members of the Committee discussed the various issues raised during the presentation and asked questions of the Officer who responded accordingly, this included comments and queries on the following areas: -

Examples of good practice in local schools and need to share and promote these, possible invitation to both a comprehensive & primary school to attend a future meeting, issues around the funding which focuses on FSM ‘under achieving’ pupils, where some FSM ‘high achieving’ pupils also need additional encouragement, recent changes to key stage 4 and impact on FSM children across Wales, monitoring of LAC pupils, potential impact of universal credit on number FSM pupils going forward, PDG in Wales can also benefit non FSM pupils which is different to England, role of Governors in monitoring the spend of PDG in schools, possible development of a lead governor role for PDG pupils(similar to LAC pupils), invitation to local ERW rep to attend a future meeting, Learning Toolkit results and feedback, need to raise young people’s aspirations going forward.

The Chair outlined the Workplan for the Committee for the remainder of the Municipal Year 2018/2019.

Further to the discussion at Minute No.21 above, the Director of Education liaise with relevant schools and the regional ERW representative to arrange invites to future meetings as appropriate.

A further possible topic of ‘after school clubs’ was suggested as a future area of discussion for the Committee.

Resolved that the Workplan as shown in the report with the amendments outlined above be noted.