Agenda and minutes

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The minutes of the 15 March 2022 were accepted by the Panel.

The Panel noted the letter to the Cabinet Member following the Panel meeting on the 15 March 2022.

Questions can be submitted in writing to scrutiny@swansea.gov.uk up until noon on the working day prior to the meeting. Written questions take precedence. Public may attend and ask questions in person if time allows. Questions must relate to items on the open part of the agenda and will be dealt with in a 10 minute period.

No public questions were received.

The Convener outlined the role of the Education Scrutiny Performance Panel, highlighting the key points highlighting point around effective working.

Invited to attend Cllr Robert Smith (Cabinet Member Education and Learning, Helen Morgan Rees (Director of Education), includes:

a)    Estyn Inspection of Education Services in Swansea and resulting Action Plan. Sarah Hughes (Head of Improvement and Monitoring Unit)

b)    Overview of the structure of and key priorities for Education currently. Sarah Hughes (Head of Improvement and Monitoring Unit)

c)     Partneriaeth Regional Education Partnership briefing and current position update. Rhodri Jones (Head of Achievement and Partnership Service)

d)    Pupil Voice Manifesto, what is it and the current position. Rhodri Jones (Head of Achievement and Partnership Service)

(a)  The Team Manager for Education Strategy Sarah Hughes outlined the recent Estyn Inspection of Education Services in Swansea.  She told the Panel:

·       Estyn provide a single judgement on whether a local authority’s education services should be placed into a category of ‘causing significant concern’. Estyn judged that education services in Swansea do not fall into this category.

·       The report was published on 1 September 2022 and identified many strengths and notable features.

·       The local authority has been invited to submit two case studies on its work in relation to strong support for school improvement and the quality of support in mainstream schools for pupils at risk of disengagement, which will then be published by Estyn.

·       Two recommendations were made. The first is to ‘review post-16 provision to ensure that it meets the needs of all learners’, and the second is to ‘strengthen Welsh-medium provision across all ages and areas of the local authority’.

·       Work had begun to address the areas of recommendation prior to the inspection. New strategies for post-16 provision and vocational provision are in development and key stakeholders, including children and young people, sixth forms, further education institutions and work-based learning providers will be involved in the continued development of these strategies. They agreed to build updates on progress with both the Estyn recommendations into our work programme this year.

·       The Cabinet approved Swansea’s Welsh in Education Strategic Plan in July 2022, which has since been approved by the Welsh Government. A ten-year vision for increasing and improving planning for Welsh-medium educational provision in Swansea is included in this plan. A delivery plan will be developed with stakeholders from Partneriaeth Addysg Gymraeg Abertawe (Swansea Welsh Education Partnership) during the autumn term.

·       The Cabinet Member, Director and the Panel agreed and were pleased that it has been a highly successful inspection and is a good reflection of the work taking place in our schools.  The Cabinet Member emphasised that although we have had this great outcome, we are not going to be complacent but look to continually to improve.  He also thanked the work of the Panel in their role as a critical friend.

·       The Panel wished to pass on a thank you to all those involved in getting this excellent outcome.

(b)  An overview report giving details of the structure and key priorities for Education currently was presented by the Team Manager for Education Strategy.

(c)   Rhodri Jones the Head of Achievement and Partnership provided the Panel with a written briefing on Partneriaeth, the regional education partnership including a current position update.  He explained that

·       The new partnership is a regional collaborative arrangement designed to promote excellence in all of our schools and settings. It is a legal entity and services three local authorities in South-West Wales – Swansea, Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire.

·       The new model has addressed previous concerns (in previous partnerships) about communication and strong relationships across the region are developing as a result. 

·       The partnership key function is to deliver a professional learning service to schools and school leaders. 

·       The core school improvement remains as part of the local authority provision and Partneriaeth officer supplement when appropriate.  Explaining that this avoids duplication of support and adds value for money.

(d)   The Head of Achievement and Partnership also gave details about the Swansea Pupil Manifesto.  Explaining that a Pupil Voice Professional Learning Community (of secondary school teachers and pupils) has come together to develop a pupil manifesto for Swansea and this was presented to Council on the 7 July 2022.  It outlined ‘what matter to them’ and outlined a range of innovative and positive ideas that Swansea council should consider as a means to help improve the communities of Swansea.  The Panel asked about inclusion of those children and young people who may not be confident at expressing themselves or that may be disengaged from the education system.    We were told that it is considered very important that we hear and focus upon getting involvement from those ‘quiet voices’. Officers are looking at how best this can be done including speaking to other local authorities to see how they are approaching this.  The need for a corporate approach to this was also emphasised.  The intention is for the Pupil Voice Manifesto to feed into planning and consultation corporately including for the new Corporate Plan and revision of the Abertawe 2023.

The Panel agreed their work programme for 2022/2023 with the addition of:

·       Updates on progress with two recommendations contained in the Estyn report of Education Services in Swansea

·       Cooking lessons in Schools

The Panel also agreed to look at how they can include the voices of children and young people in their work.

The Panel noted the recent individual Estyn Inspections list.