A message from Chris Malone, new Head of Education & Learning

I hope you have had a positive start to the term. I am looking forward to meeting education leaders, teachers, practitioners and of course children across Warwickshire, so that I can learn more about your current successes and challenges. My most recent experience is as Strategic Lead for Education Quality in Oxfordshire, following a long career in education across a wide range of roles including primary headship, inspection and commissioning.

In Oxfordshire I have established a successful county-wide system-led school improvement service in partnership with the Teaching School Alliance. I look forward to finding out more about your Teaching Schools, and your ‘system leaders’. I completely support the new role of councils as one of the partners around the table of school improvement; you are the experts!

At this turbulent time in education, I fly three flags: 

The first reflects my value-driven approach; making a difference. I enjoy working with teams and partners to maximise the impact of all that we do. 

The second is a relentless focus on children and their educational achievements, especially learners less likely to succeed. I look forward to visiting your schools and am especially keen to hear about children eligible for pupil premium who have out-performed their peers. I believe strongly that leadership in education is about maximising children’s life chances, and not about bureaucracy. I sometimes remind myself of Charles Dickens’ image of the Circumlocution Office where papers pile up and nothing is achieved, to make sure that I do not fall into that trap. This is a helpful reminder as we shape the new world of academies and trusts. 

The third is the curriculum. We know that Ofsted is planning big changes for next year and I anticipate a welcome revival in the value placed on the curriculum as an enabler, both academically, and for the well-being of children and adults. 

I look forward to meeting you in person in due course, and meanwhile I invite you to email me with examples of recent successes in your school. Do send me digital photos as there is a blank wall in my office beside the map of all Warwickshire’s schools.

Chris begins in her post on 25th September. You can contact her by email on chrismalone@warwickshire.gov.uk. 

Provisional Headline Results for 2017

Primary Assessment Results

Congratulations to Warwickshire’s pupils and teachers on another successful year of assessment results.

EYFSP – The percentage of pupils achieving a good level of development increased again in 2017 with 73% of Warwickshire’s pupils achieving this measure. This is up 2 percentage points (ppts) on last year's result for Warwickshire and on the national 2017 average, which currently stands at 71%.

Phonics Year 1 – In 2017, the percentage of Year 1 pupils in Warwickshire working at or above the required standard in the phonics recoding test was 82%, the same as in 2016.  This just beats the current national average of 81%.

For KS1 – 66% of Warwickshire pupils achieved the expected standard or above in the combined Reading, Writing and Maths measure in 2017, 4ppts higher than the previous year and 2ppts higher than the current provisional national result of 64%. 13% of Warwickshire pupils achieved the ‘working at greater depth’ standard compared to 11% of pupils nationally for the same Reading, Writing and Maths measure.

For KS2 – 62% of Warwickshire pupils achieved the expected standard or above in the combined Reading, Writing and Maths measure, 1ppt above the current provisional national result of 61%. 10% of Warwickshire pupils achieved the ‘working at greater depth/high’ standard compared to 9% of pupils nationally for the same Reading, Writing and Maths measure.

Progress data is not yet available to the Local Authority. You can view your school's progress data via the KS2 Performance Tables checking exercise website: https://tableschecking.education.gov.uk/

Please look out for an e-mail from our Insight Service (insight@warwickshire.gov.uk) containing your school's and consortium's data position statements. These contain the latest 2017 results and were sent out on 1st and 4th September.

Please note that all 2017 results are still provisional and could be subject to minor changes. Further analysis of individual subjects, published national and other benchmarking data will be made available by the DfE during the Autumn term.

Secondary Examination Results

Thank you to all secondary schools and academies that posted results on both examination result days in August. Congratulations go to all Warwickshire students and teachers for the success that was achieved.

2017 saw the first set of English and Maths GCSE results reported using the new 9-1 grading system.

Key Stage 4 - Based on a 91% response rate (32 school results), 70% of pupils achieved the new Standard Pass (9-4) in English and Maths with 48% achieving the new Strong Pass (9-5) in both English and Maths.

The average Attainment 8 score stands at 49.3 and the percentage of Warwickshire pupils achieving the EBacc (with Strong Pass in English and Maths) stands at 24%.

Progress 8 data is not yet available to the Local Authority. These results will be made available by the DfE later in the Autumn term. They will also publish provisional KS4 results on their statistics website mid-October time.

Post 16 - Based on a 78% response rate (21 school and college results), 16% of Warwickshire students achieved the AAB or higher standard in at least 2 facilitating subjects.  The average A Level grade achieved was a C+.

There is no national KS4 or Post 16 data available at this point.

Please note that all 2017 results are still very provisional and will be subject to change. Published national and other benchmarking data will be made available by the DfE during the Autumn term.

School Improvement Fund bid successful

We're delighted to let you know that the collaborative bid from Warwickshire Local Authority and Warwickshire's Teaching Schools to the DfE Strategic Improvement Fund has been successful.  Just under £500,000 has been awarded to support school improvement activity in identified primary and secondary schools across the county.

The funding will challenge the underachievement of disadvantaged pupils through three specific areas:

• improving the reading skills of boys;
• maths problem solving and;
• developing leadership and governance.

Projects will be starting after half term and run until summer 2019 with activity led by Teaching Schools.

Margot Brown, former Headteacher at Priors Field Primary School in Kenilworth, has been appointed to co-ordinate the overall project and will be based at the Local Authority.

We would like to thank all of the schools that supported the writing of the bid and your prompt responses to requests for information.

More information will be shared in due course.

Changes to organisation of the SENDAR Plan Coordinators

From September SENDAR Plan Coordinators will be organised slightly differently.  Up to now we have had a Core Team covering new referrals, a Conversion Team transferring Statements to Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plans, a Post-16 Team largely covering support to young people leaving compulsory schooling and a number of temporary workers helping to clear the backlog of Statement to Plan conversions.

From 1^st September 2017 all Plan Coordinators will work in small teams assigned to geographic areas and will cover all work, whether transferring statements or managing new referrals.  This model facilitates strong professional relationships with all stakeholders (families, schools, colleges and local professionals) and prepares the service for the post SEND change period from 1^st April 2018.

Our Post-16 team will be called Post-16 Plan Coordinators.  Their role will be similar to that of other Plan Coordinators but will focus on young people preparing for adulthood and all the extra responsibilities that this entails.

We will continue to have a small number of temporary workers supporting our work in reaching the 31^st March 2018 deadline with all Statements transferred to EHC Plans.

Please refer to this list to find the SENDAR Plan Coordinator for your school.

Skills for Employment programme grant

The Skills Challenge grant worth up to £40,000 was launched in April 2017. Education providers working with business partners can submit expressions of interest to deliver projects which would address specific skills challenges. Two schools have made submissions to date.

The deadline for submissions is 5pm on 29^th September 2017.

Full details and the expression of interest form are here: http://www.warwickshire.gov.uk/sfegrants. 

If you wish to discuss the grant, please call 01926 418027.

OFSTED report on Children's Services published

Following our recent inspection, OFSTED has now published its report on Children's Services in Warwickshire.  Whilst the inspection has found that Warwickshire Children’s Services ‘requires improvement', overall we are very much moving in the right direction.  This is evidenced in the OFSTED report and the assessment that ‘children are safe in Warwickshire’.

We are on a journey of continuous improvement and striving for the transformation of children's services so as to achieve excellence.  We accept the report reflects where we are on our improvement journey and support the recommendations made by OFSTED, which once delivered will strengthen further our direction of travel.

Positive Findings

The OFSTED report endorsed that children are safe in Warwickshire.

Practice was praised in a number of areas, including our work with our most vulnerable children through, the Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH); arrangements for tackling Child Sexual Exploitation, our work around children missing from home, care and education and effectively supporting children looked after with disabilities.

The report also highlighted the effective work undertaken by our family support workers, our Emergency Duty Team and the high quality of social work assessments.

Adoption is a real strength and we have more “fostering to adopt placements” than many other authorities, this means that children become part of their new permanent families at the earliest opportunity. 

Our work with Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking is culturally sensitive and responsive to these vulnerable young people’s needs.  We work closely with Care Leavers to ensure they are aware of their entitlements to financial support to set up home or to access education and training and to ensure their achievements and progress are recognised.

The report noted we have a vibrant and active Children in Care Council (CICC), supported by a well-designed system of elections to ensure children looked after and care leavers of various ages are involved.

The Inspection was extremely complimentary about our staff and the relationships which they forge with children, young people and families. 

Ofsted Action Plan 

The 12 recommendations and additional learning from the report have been incorporated into an action plan.

Our top four priorities are:

1. recruiting additional social workers to ensure the size of our caseloads are reduced
2. embedding the case-recording system
3. improving our strategic engagement with Health
4. working closely with partners to ensure children and families get the right help at the right time.

There are some specific actions set out in the plan relating to the Virtual School, improving education, employment and training opportunities for care leavers, and working with partners to ensure the Early Help Strategy is clearly understood and delivered in partnership with all agencies.

Updates from Warwickshire Music

The latest Warwickshire Music magazine is available to download here.

You can also find a list of of group activities and County Groups available to pupils living across the Warwickshire area here.

Warwickshire Music County Group membership includes:

• Coaching by professional musicians
• Performance opportunities in major venues in Warwickshire and beyond
• Courses and tours

For more details get in touch with Warwickshire Music by phone on 01926 742630 or by email on music@warwickshire.gov.uk 

Warwick Poppy Appeal

The Big Knitted Christmas Tree 2018

All Saints' Church, Emscote, would like to highlight the following activity, open for schools to participate in:

Spend time with others to knit squares for our BIG KNITTED CHRISTMAS TREE!

Your squares will join those knitted by others to create a 17ft Community Christmas tree on display at All Saints Church, Emscote from December 2018.

Come and see what we build together! Groups already committed to the project are St Michael's Church, Northgate Methodist Craft Group, The Mothers' Union, The GAP Community Centre, Emscote Infant School, All Saints School, Warwick Books, Warwick Wools.

See this flyer for more information.  The deadline for a knitted 'tree of intent' is Thursday 24th November 2017

To express interest, contact All Saints church office:
Telephone: 01926 492073
Email: allsaints.emscote@outlook.com