Venue: Remotely via Teams
Contact: Michelle Roberts, Scrutiny Officer
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Disclosure of Personal and Prejudicial Interests. Minutes: None |
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Prohibition of Whipped Votes and Declaration of Party Whips Minutes: None |
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Letters and Minutes PDF 323 KB Additional documents:
Minutes: The minutes and letter from the Panel meeting on the 15 July 2021 were accepted. |
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Public Questions Questions must be submitted in writing, no later than noon
on the working day prior to the meeting.
Questions must relate to items on the agenda. Minutes: No public questions were received. |
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The New Estyn Regime and Thematic Reviews PDF 10 KB Representatives from Estyn Minutes: Two representative
from Estyn, Kevin Davies and Ceri Jones, attended the Panel and made a
presentation about the revised arrangements for inspections of schools. The Panel also asked them to include the
following issues sent in advance of the meeting: 1.
How will the new inspection regime look at aspects
of the new curriculum and Additional Learning Needs Reform? 2.
The Panel, given the current times, are
particularly interested in how Wellbeing will be looked at? 3.
Another area the Panel have followed closely is
Education Other Than at School services and also schools behaviour strategies,
we would be interested to find out how Estyn will look at this and in
particular how schools work with the most challenging pupils? 4.
Given the upcoming changes here in relation to
regional education activity, do Estyn look at the regional education bodies and
how effectively they are supporting local education? The following was
noted (the full presentation was also circulated) ·
They
started with the caveat that they favour no particular methodology and their
philosophy in terms of inspection, they look at how things are done and then
judge the impact of these by their outcomes. ·
They
recognise that the last year and a half as being really difficult and
challenging for learners and their families.
Estyn have tried to provide information about their plans ahead for the
inspection and engagement work during this next academic year. The academic year 2021/22 will focus on
supporting renewal and reform and as a result of that they are extending the
suspension of the core inspection programme for schools and PRU units to
include the autumn term 2021. They not going to be starting to inspect schools
until the spring term. ·
During
the autumn term, they will continue to ask all stakeholders for their feedback
on the new inspection arrangements, this can be done anytime via the Estyn
website. ·
They
aim to pilot the new inspection arrangements in a small number of schools. So that they can check to see how the
arrangements are working in the new climate.
The impact of COVID will have been large on learning so it will give them
a good opportunity to get out and look at the details of how learning has been
affected during the pandemic. They will
ask individual providers for their agreement to be involved in the pilots. They will still carry out inspections of
other schools where there are exceptional circumstances. ·
At
present they do not directly inspect regional consortia. Rather look at their
work through inspection of local authorities, but this might change. ·
Under
the new arrangements there are still 5 inspection areas and they are pretty
much the same. The first one has been renamed learning. Well-being, attitudes,
learnings, the same teaching and learning experiences is the same. It includes
developments that are the new curriculum. Care, support and guidance, and
leadership and management are the same. ·
And
the most recent announcement from the Welsh Government is that it is their
expectation that every sector uses the period between September and January to
reflect on the guidance and begin preparatory work. ·
The
inspection guidance that has been produced this year is specific and clearer
than ever before. ·
They
talked about how they will look at progress with pupils with ALN as a whole.
They will be evaluating the extent to which pupils developed their physical
skills. Their fine motor skills, mobility, independent living skills, their
social skills as well as their academic skills. The skills that will provide
them with a firm basis for their future life. They will also have a look at
different kinds of additional needs and how well schools provide this in
general. ·
Data
around attendance is not going to be useful at all, so they will not be looking
at that or averages of attendance and how schools compared with one
another. Although they will be having a
look at how schools are encouraging pupils to come back to school, stay in
school and learn in school. And if they can't do that, how they are provided
for virtually. ·
When
evaluating the provision of learning, support the Inspector should consider how
well the school or PRU provides ensure that pupils educated offsite or onsite
receive appropriate support and also how well they use partnerships with other
schools or agencies to provide effective support. ·
They
make it clear in the new inspection arrangements, that Inspectors should
approach the evaluation of the provider’s curriculum in the flexible and
positive way. When they begin inspecting
again, they will need to look at where schools are with the new curriculum.
Schools will be using the Welsh Government document The Journey to 2022 to
guide them. They will be interested to
see how the school’s curriculum aligns with their vision do they know where
they are going with it. ·
They
were pleased to see that the use of the outdoors will be evaluated, that could
be visits and how the well the school enriches the curriculum through
additional activities. ·
They
also want to evaluate how well schools promote a safeguarding culture and also
effectiveness of leadership, including in actively promoting staff wellbeing. They
will also evaluate how effective leaders and managers are in addressing
national and local priorities. ·
There
is an increased importance given to developing pupils Welsh language skills in
formal and informal situation. And the local authority will be producing a
strategic plan to develop Welsh language which will be presented Welsh
Government. ·
The
overarching changes include their inspection reports being even more useful to
schools and people who use them. So changes have included: o
a
rich narrative describing the schools strengths and areas for improvement. They
have removed summative judgments, so for any particular section, any particular
inspection area, there's no longer a specific judgment for this. Only the key
strengths and areas for improvement will be reported. o
then
there is a change to the notice period that schools get. o
there
is no changes to the follow up procedures. Significant improvement as a
statutory category and special measures will still be there. ·
They
said they will have an inspection mind-set which helps them to ensure what is
the best for learners. That this should
enable inspection officers to speak to leaders, teachers and support staff
professionally and constructively when they are out on inspection. They will be
reflective and supportive as well as fair and impartial. ·
The
Panel felt that is was important for them to be updated on the changes and
particularly in the current circumstances following what has been experienced
over the last 18 months. The Panel found it good and refreshing to hear that
Estyn themselves have been reviewing their actions and approach to inspection. The Panel asked: ·
Whether
Estyn talk about ways in which that improvement might be achieved? Or do you
leave it up to the individual schools and local authorities to determine that
themselves? They said they do not suggest the mechanisms by which improvement
could be brought. What they do look at are the things that need to be improved
and they try and prioritise them so that they are distilled to a small number
of key recommendations. ·
Are
the five inspection areas at all weighted? The Panel heard that these are not
weighted they are all equal. ·
We
have heard more parents wanting to home school, what challenges does that
present for you as an inspection body? They Panel heard that once pupils
deregister from school they do not fall under the Estyn but that the local
authority does work to support home schooled pupils were possible. |
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Update - Education Covid Recovery moving into new school year PDF 9 KB Minutes: The Director of
Education updated the Panel on the current situation with Covid recovery as the
new school year begins. ·
The situation is still quite fluid. Welsh
Government guidance came through in August and the most recent guidance
appeared last Friday. So the Panel were given a synopsis of the main changes. ·
There is a clear imperative that we try and
normalise schools as much as possible and return to a state of business as
usual. So as we are in alert level 0 our current policy means that any contacts
of confirmed Covid cases are exempt from isolation if they do not have
symptoms, have been double vaccinated and are under the age of 18. It is
potentially good news because we will not have to self-isolate whole groups in
secondary schools and bubbles of classes within primary schools in the new
academic year. But if anyone has symptoms of COVID and you have a positive test
as a people in Swansea they must isolate immediately, so there's a huge
responsibility in terms of working with parents and carers in Swansea to ensure
that they understand their responsibilities. ·
There is no longer a requirement towear face masks or face coverings. However, if a pupil
feels that they would still like to wear a face mask, of course that would be
permitted and for secondary schools we propose the wearing of face coverings on
school transport. ·
Another change is that we have been working
under relaxed duties where there was flexibility for schools to stagger the
start times and finish times in schools. This will now come to an end so
schools will return to their normal times so they will operate the normal start
and finish times that they had before COVID. ·
We will be maintaining the cleaning high level
cleaning regime in school. ·
All staff and secondary pupils are encouraged
to take LFT tests twice a week and to report those results really to the online
portal. ·
There will be a change in operational guidance
that schools have become used to, which has been produced at a national level
and then considered again here in Swansea at a local level, this will come in
from 20th September. We will support our
school to get grips with the new national framework over the next couple of
weeks. We are going to meet with all head teachers in Swansea shortly. We have two weeks lead in time to understand
the ramifications of that mean framework and we're still working on it
ourselves to distil the main messages out of that. ·
As before, the environmental health officers in
TTP test trace and protect will be responsible for contacting each positive
case. Schools still need to maintain
some kind of record if they have a positive case of the pupil. ·
The Chief Medical Officer in Wales considers
that children, young people are no longer clinically extremely vulnerable and
they are going to be removed from the list of shielding patients in Wales.
However, there will be a small number of pupils who still receive specialist
clinical advice. ·
The Panel heard that we are still awaiting more
information from Welsh Government about the air quality and ventilation
including what is recommended in our classrooms. Our health and safety officer here in Swansea
made the recommendation that a trickle of air flowing through a classroom would
be sufficient. However, we have different types of buildings for our schools,
so we need to take account. ·
As far as educational visits are concerned, any
type of educational visit will need to be risk assessed, including those
international visits in light of the traffic light system. And obviously the risk assessment has to take
consideration of any staff members will supervise children abroad and what
would happen if they could contracted COVID and how would those children be
supervised abroad if that was the case. ·
All parents have been written in Swansea in
advance of schools opening to convey the expectations we have of them when
school commences. |
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Update - Regional Scrutiny moving forward PDF 9 KB Minutes: The Director of
Education updated the Panel on the current position with the regional education
partnership moving forward. ·
The new partnership will be developed during
the course of this autumn term. The
three councils will take a report to their full Council to approve the new
legal agreement. This new legal
agreement will allow the formation of a new formal joint committee for the new
partnership. In the meantime there is a shadow joint committee in operation. Each constituent council to be within a
formal partnership, so that approval for a new legal agreement is pivotal. ·
The new draft legal agreement does contain very
precise scrutiny arrangements as well as governance arrangements for the new
partnership. It will have different
layers of governance and interrelationships between the groups. The new legal
agreement will allow a new joint committee to be given delegated
responsibilities from each constituent Council to be the decision maker in
terms of the new partnership. The Joint Committee would meet quarterly. It will
include the Leaders from each of the councils and the three cabinet members for
each of those councils. And the Chief Executives will be involved, the
Directors of Education as well as the head of the new partnership. ·
The next layer will include the Scrutiny
Councillor Group. This will operate in the same vein as the current ERW
Scrutiny Councillor Group. ·
While there is a process of transition into a
new legal agreement, there has to be a winding down of the current one. So at
the current ERW has a Joint Committee with its current membership. It will need to meet at least once this term
to wind matters down so that the new partnership can be formulated and sealed. ·
The new education partnership will also have a Strategic
Group which will feed into the Joint Committee.
This will be made up of the head of the new partnership with the three
Directors of Education and also any strategic officers working within the new
partnership. There will also be an officer’s Operations Group who will feed
into the Strategic Group. The final
layer will be the Stakeholder Group and that will be made up of 12
Headteacher’s covering the primary, secondary, special and pupil referral unit
sectors. ·
It is anticipated that report will go to
Council in November. |
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Work Programme 2021/2022 PDF 109 KB Minutes: The Work Programme was noted. |
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