Agenda item

For the Community and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee to receive an update on school standards and achievements during the 2022/23 academic year from Early Years to Key Stage 5.

Councillor Gwen Grahl (Cabinet Member Children, Young People and Schools) introduced a report which updated members on the school standards and achievements during the 2022-23 academic year, covering Early Years through to Key Stage 5. She began her introduction by highlighting the challenges that teaching staff and pupils had faced across Brent in recent years, including responding to and recovering from educational setbacks during the pandemic, cost-of-living pressures, the ongoing shortage of funding in the education sector as a whole, the significant rise in SEND demand, the need to improve infrastructure at some sites, and the recent changes in eligibility criteria for early years provision. In raising those challenges, she felt that, despite those difficulties, schools had delivered outstanding outcomes for children and young people. To provide an example, she highlighted that 95% of schools in Brent were graded as ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted. The outcomes for SEND pupils were consistently achieving above the national averages at key stages 1, 2 and 4, and at GCSE level, 38.3% of results were at A* - C grade or equivalent compared to a national average of 25.3%. In presenting the report, Councillor Grahl paid tribute to teaching and school support staff across the borough who were educating and supporting Brent’s children and young people.

Nigel Chapman (Corporate Director Children and Young People, Brent Council) added to the introduction of the report, explaining that the data in terms of performance related to the academic year 2022-23, but the report also provided some updated contextual information about the current position which went beyond 2022-23. He highlighted that the performance of Brent schools remained strong and above the London average, particularly Ofsted outcomes, and the attainment in the majority of areas was well above the national average which he felt should be celebrated and reflected the strength of school leadership in the borough. In discussing attainment, he advised the Committee that the attainment of disadvantaged children was above the national average at all key stages. He also highlighted section 3 of the report which showed the targeted focus on the attainment of boys of Black Caribbean heritage, which he advised had led to improvements in achievement levels over the last 12 months. He recognised, however, that there was still more work to do with that cohort to improve attainment levels even further.

Specifically addressing the comments raised by the speakers under item 3 – deputations – Councillor Grahl thanked the parents for their comments. She advised them that she had written to the Secretary of State the previous week to pass on the concerns raised by parents, asking for the academisation of Byron Court Primary School to be reconsidered, and she committed to sharing any response received on that. At the school, an Interim Executive Headteacher had been appointed which parents had been informed about. In relation to whether the Council would push for a reinspection, Councillor Grahl committed to doing all within her power to ask for that at the right time once improvements were put in place.

The Chair thanked Councillor Grahl and Nigel Chapman for their introduction and invited officers to provide an overview of the work being done around Byron Court Primary School. Shirley Parks highlighted that the Council had set up a RIG for Byron Court Primary School in September 2022. This was following a review by the Settings and School Effectiveness Team in May 2022 that had identified the need for improvements in certain areas as well as in response to some concerns raised by school governors. She advised members that the RIG had met regularly and dealt with and supported a range of different issues including Early Years Foundation Stage, writing, safeguarding, SEND, and leadership, as well as monitoring and tracking pupil progress. The RIG now continued to support on some of the issues identified by Ofsted and the issues that were already in progress, such as tracking the attainment of children with SEND. The Council had also brokered some consultancy support for the school to address specific issues which continued. The School Effectiveness Lead Professional, who was the key relationship holder with the school, had provided the school with detailed support on learning walks, supporting leadership and management. In concluding the overview of current support arrangements, Shirley Parks added that the school automatically received additional resources tailored to their needs from the local authority as a RIG school. In response to a query on the RIG process if the academisation went through, Shirley Parks explained that the RIG process would no longer be in place if the school academised because the Harris Federation Trust, who had been identified by the DfE to be the sponsor for the school, would have their own school improvement staff, methods and approaches and would take over responsibility for the school improvement journey. The Council was working with Harris Federation and would continue to work with them to support the school in the future, because the Council maintained the view that any child in a Brent school, whatever its governance status, was a Brent child who should be getting the best quality education. In further response to a query regarding what level of supervision the Council would have of Byron Court should it be academised, Nigel Chapman explained that once an academy order was in place and there was an academy sponsor then the responsibility for running and managing that school sat with them. The Council would retain responsibilities around education, such as elements of admissions and support for children with SEND.

The Chair thanked officers for the update.

The Committee had also been joined by two headteachers at Brent Schools and the Chair invited them to contribute to the Committee regarding the work they were doing in their own schools and any key headlines they wanted to raise.

Andy Prindiville (CEO of All Saints Trust and Headteacher of St Gregory’s Catholic Science College) introduced himself to the Committee and informed members that his school had been very successful in 2023. The progress of each of the school’s statistically significant ethnic groups was above the national mean for all students and across the board there were no groups of children who underperformed against the national average. He highlighted he was particularly pleased with the school’s Progress 8 Score and Attainment 8 Score for the year, both of which were significantly above the national average.

Michelle Ginty (Executive Headteacher, Salusbury Primary School & Fryent Primary School) introduced herself and added that she also led the Kilburn Cluster of 15 schools, working with headteachers of both academies and maintained schools to collaborate and support each other to ensure all children received the best possible education. She advised the Committee that the schools had done very well in the last year, and she was pleased with the progress they had made. The focus on the granular detail of how different groups were performing was a key aspect in how schools were being led, and she highlighted the impact of that work when schools connected with the local authority. She highlighted that schools received support through the work with the Inclusion Service to support vulnerable children and support for funding for the West London Zone, a charity working with 40 vulnerable families to ensure children had additional support to be successful in school. She highlighted the impact of that support for those children not just academically but also emotionally.

The Committee then moved on to ask questions of officers present with the following points raised:

The Chair welcomed Brent Youth Parliament (BYP) representatives to the meeting, who had two questions to officers in relation to the report. The first question related to section 3.12.6 of the report which laid out the anti-racist approach being delivered to school leaders and headteachers. BYP welcomed the approach to breaking down barriers and training school leaders and teachers to share anti-racist knowledge and deliver best practice. Their question related to the involvement of children and young people within the anti-racism strategy and whether there were any plans to include children and young people in the strategy so that they could have a say. Nigel Chapman asked for headteachers to provide an overview of how they involved children and young people in anti-racism at their schools, highlighting that the Council had delivered the Leading from the Top Programme that focuses on anti-racism to school leaders and a briefing on the topic to governors, led by a well-respected trainer in the field. Schools across Brent were now integrating this training through their school leadership and across the schools, including their school councils.

Andy Prindiville fed back that his school had found the programme to be very good. His school had focused on the Senior Leadership Team initially and had now asked middle managers, such as Heads of Years, and the school’s Student Parliament to integrate the learning. As a result, the Student Parliament had set up an Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Working Group that had conducted a racial justice, equality and diversity audit on the school, with the school now working on the next steps to put the actions of that audit into practice. Year 11 students had also developed a set of PSHE resources for children. In terms of what good looked like, Andy highlighted that his school would aim for outstanding practice, using the Ofsted framework to help in its approach. Questionnaires to parents and students also helped understand how well these policies and strategies had been implemented. Michelle Ginty highlighted that the schools she worked with had benefited from the same programme and started with the same approach from the senior leadership down. The primary schools she worked for were very connected to their communities, so families and children were involved in that work as well. For example, one of the leadership groups within Salusbury Primary School was the Reading Ambassadors, who had looked at the school’s reading curriculum and the resources available to see how the school could ensure those resources represented all of the communities within the school. As a result texts the school now use have changed. The school had subsequently had World Book Day Celebrations where many children brought in those diverse texts and dressed as those characters which reflected their communities.

Brent Youth Parliament then highlighted Table 3 of the report which showed that only 60% of special schools in Brent had received an outstanding or good Ofsted rating compared to regular state schools, at 100%. They asked how the Council and schools planned to ensure those schools were given extra help and resources to ensure those schools were performing at a good or outstanding standard. Jen Haskew (Head of Settings and School Effectiveness, Brent Council) highlighted that, while it may appear as a large percentage, it was a small number of schools. The way the Council worked with schools to ensure it was offering all Brent children at least a good or outstanding education was to use the RIG process for maintained schools. One school amongst the special school group was a Brent maintained school and had a RIG in place as soon as the Council learned of its negative Ofsted outcome. The Council had worked with that school for over a year now and was expecting Ofsted to revisit and regrade more positively. For schools that were not a maintained school, the Council could not implement a RIG. However, the Council worked very well in partnership across the family of schools in Brent. The Council was working with the improvement groups at other schools using processes within the School Effectiveness Framework.

Continuing to respond to BYP, Andy Prindiville explained the strategies in place within his school to provide support and resource to SEND pupils. The school ran an extensive Saturday morning programme between 9am – 12pm for children to come in and every child received 45 minutes of additional teaching at the end of each day outside of their regular curriculum. Classes also took place during school holidays. St Gregory’s had looked at the good practice taking place in primary school where there was a significant focus on literacy and silent reading and replicated this in the secondary school with every child in the school involved in silent reading on Thursday mornings. One-to-one tuition was also given to children with SEND and a homework club for children with SEND was available. In terms of sharing good practice across the Brent school family, Andy explained that he was the CEO of All Saints Trust which consisted of 5 schools which collectively took the same approach to SEND. He added that Brent Council had a good relationship with all of its academies which was not the case nationally, and schools worked closely with Council senior leaders around SEND and developing best practices. There was also a secondary headteachers group who met on a half-termly basis to share best practice. Michelle Ginty added that support for children with SEND in Brent schools focused on early identification, working with parents, and designing appropriate provision that was monitored and evaluated through a graduated approach of assess, plan, review. She felt this was shown when comparing performance data in Brent to national averages.

Councillor Grahl thanked BYP for their questions and correctly identifying the challenges in SEND support. She advised the Committee that there had been a large increase in demand for SEND support and schools were playing catch up to that. The Council’s SEND Capital Programme aimed to put in place 400 more places for young people so that those schools were less under pressure. There were also limitations in the provision from central government in relation to retention and recruitment which was a challenge in SEND with many schools requiring agency staff to fill those gaps. As well as this, she highlighted an increase in neurodiversity diagnoses and felt there was an inadequate model in place to provide for those young people. As such, at a political level she hoped to see a government focus on these issues and a long term plan with higher investment for SEND and the training and recruitment of staff.

In relation to SEND, the Committee asked where the successes were shared. Nigel Chapman highlighted that the report was one way to do that, and there was also a celebration of SEND that happened biannually to showcase the work being done for children and families. The Brent Parent Carer Forum also helped to amplify the work that happened locally.

The Committee asked what tangible improvements had been identified at schools where RIGs had been put in place following the implementation of actions recommended. Jen Haskew advised that RIG overall was a successful process, and the Council usually saw schools who had been subject to a RIG achieve a good or better outcome at their next Ofsted inspection. On average, there were between 4-6 schools party to a RIG at any one time, which was done through a partnership model working closely with schools, school leaders, staff and governors to monitor improvement plans, put in place necessary resources and continually evaluate the impact of that. At one school, a Section 8 Ofsted inspection identified that if the school was to receive a full inspection then the outcome may be less than good, so the Council implemented a RIG and met half-termly with the group which consisted of Jen Haskew as Chair, the Chair of Governors, the headteacher and other members of staff as appropriate. In between the RIG meetings the group carried out the actions agreed at the RIG, some of which were to put in place extra resources for writing through commissioning a consultant to work in the school amongst other actions. As a result of this work, when the school was reinspected it received a very good ‘good’ rating following a full Section 5 inspection with a positive report and no indication that the school was at risk of falling below good.

In relation to admissions, the Committee queried what level of control the Council had for supporting local parents to get their placement preferences. Shirley Parks highlighted that Brent was doing well in relation to parents obtaining one of their top 3 preferences of schools for their child. Following national offer day, 89% of parents got one of their first preference secondary schools. In relation to specific admissions cases, it was agreed this could be discussed offline.

The Committee commended the figures in the report showing there had been good attainment above the national average generally, but noted Nigel Chapman’s statement in his introduction that there was more to do in order to increase the attainment of boys of Black Caribbean heritage. They asked what strategies were in place to improve that performance and bring them to parity with their peers. Nigel Chapman responded that there had been some improvements over a short period of time before the pandemic when there was a focused effort by school leaders to target that group with additional support. Schools also worked closely with families and parents around this. Another element of this work was the focus on Best Start for Life, which consisted of different programmes across the borough running for the first 1,001 days of a child’s life, aimed at particular groups who were often not taking up services, which included boys of Black Caribbean heritage, and encouraging those families to take up the offer of support in Family Wellbeing Centres, with a focus on early reading and school readiness.

In response, the Committee highlighted that there may be cultural reasons why some boys of Black Caribbean heritage may not want to exhibit their full potential in front of their peers and asked whether there were any strategies in place to make learning and achieving more attractive to pursue. Andy Prindiville felt that it was important point around making potential cool, and this had been recognised in his school. One of the strategies that had been done with all groups of underachieving children in the school was to bring in a colours system where pupils could wear a coloured badge sewn onto their blazer to showcase what they were really good at. This had started for boys in particular, identifying the boys who were very good at sport and they proudly wore their colours around school which encouraged others to do so. Then the scheme focused on those who were good at geography, history, biology, chemistry and so on so that there was no stigma to having those emblems showing that they were good at those things. In addition, the school opened on Saturday mornings from 9am – 12pm for further support and all children received an additional 45 minutes of tuition in various subjects every day after school. It was important to engage with families to ensure parental support for these additional support sessions. He concluded by highlighting the importance of good role models for children and young people who were representative of the different communities within the school, and St Gregory’s had actively recruited for Black male role models. Michelle Ginty added that the success achieved in primary school did not always sustain through to secondary school as children’s peers became more important to them than their parents, so establishing connections and building those relationships with children and families was essential. This was done through home visits, identifying families who would benefit from additional support and helping them see the school as partners in their child’s education, and having ambition for their children and describing those ambitions to the parents. In Salusbury Primary School there was also a Careers Month which brought in parents to talk about their own careers and create that ambition and enthusiasm for achievement.

The Committee requested that future reports showed comparisons over time and highlighted that there were no comparison figures for the attainment of boys of Black Caribbean heritage. They were advised that the comparison data for boys of Black Caribbean heritage was not available in the public domain as it had not yet been verified. That comparison data could be shared to the Committee following the meeting for members information.

The Committee asked for an explanation of the meaning in relation to paragraph 3.3.1, which stated that ‘there are 88 state funded schools in Brent that are either maintained schools, voluntary aided schools or academies’. Nigel Chapman explained that the sentence aimed to demonstrate that there was now a mixture of schools and differences in the way they were ran and governed. The local authority was not responsible for the running and management of around 50 schools in Brent. There were 37 maintained schools and 17 voluntary aided schools in Brent which the Council was responsible for, but the remaining schools were a mix of academies or free schools. This meant there was a proportion of schools in Brent that were not accountable to the Council. 

In relation to stakeholder and ward member engagement, the Committee asked how and when that was done in relation to school standards and achievements and other major changes within the education sector or for specific schools. They heard that the Council would aim to involve all relevant stakeholders regarding significant issues affecting local schools. In relation to stakeholders, the Council had a Settings and School Effectiveness Board with representatives from across the school sector and school governors which drove the strategic work and signed off the School Effectiveness Framework. In relation to ward councillors, it was the responsibility of the school and governors to engage and consult relevant parties including parents and ward members through their delegated responsibilities around school attainment and performance. Specifically for Byron Court, there had not been any specific consultation with ward members by the local authority but the school had organised meetings with parents and other parties post-inspection which ward members had been invited to. If there was a particular issue around school organisation that affected a school that the Council was responsible for, ie. a maintained or voluntary aided school, then the Council would expect to consult ward members on that. For example, ward members had been consulted on school reorganisation proposals related to pupil number changes at Leopold Primary School, which had been done before any decisions were made by Cabinet. The Lead Member would also engage ward members on wider issues affecting policy.

The Committee asked about how schools dealt with safeguarding issues and in particular peer on peer bullying. They were advised that all schools had safeguarding policies on their websites and then a range of policies that sat below that. They were advised that there was also a vibrant Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) network across Brent with every school having at least one DSL who was trained to a higher level in safeguarding. Those Leads met regularly and held a DSL conference every year, visiting particular topics and common themes across schools, where peer on peer bullying had been a topic previously. Those themes were raised as agenda items from both national issues and from DSLs themselves. Shirley Parks added that every year there was an anti-bullying campaign as part of anti-bullying week that was supported by the Council, including sharinganti-bullying materials for schools to use. This year a video by children and young people had been shared which was described as impactful. The schools also worked hard during anti-bullying week to raise the profile of the campaign and ensure children felt safe to raise issues.

The Committee asked whether there was a proactive policy in place to identify children and families entitled to pupil premium, as it was felt the figures presented an under-enrolment in that programme. Shirley Parks acknowledged the concerns. She informed members that the Council and schools were currently exploring an approach for auto-enrolment in Brent which would mean the children who were in families entitled to benefits that triggered Free School Meals and pupil premium funding would be automatically enrolled rather than having to self-refer to be assessed. Other local authorities had trialled this approach which had helped to identify more children but it would take a few months to put in place. From a schools perspective, Andy Prindiville highlighted that one of the challenges was the stigma associated with self-identifying that a family had difficulties which schools worked hard to break down. His own school had now set up a food bank and many families were accessing that who were not claiming any other benefits. Michelle Ginty added that her schools were trying to incentivise families and offered £100 towards school uniforms when the pupil joined the school and £50 twice a year towards after school activities. The Committee heard that one difficulty was the large number of families with no recourse to public funds which made some pupils ineligible for accessing pupil premium. In order to support those individuals, the Council had allowed schools to identify where pupils had no recourse to public funds and the Council had then funded places for children where it was known they were living in challenging circumstances. Some of that work also involved connecting families with Family Wellbeing Centres.

The Committee noted the statement that ‘96% of schools in Brent are good or outstanding’ but highlighted that the majority of schools were rated ‘good’ rather than ‘outstanding’. They asked why more of Brent schools were not considered outstanding, particularly when this figure was compared to two years previously when that figure had been 97%. Jen Haskew explained that there had been a change in the Ofsted inspection framework. Before 2020, schools that were judged as outstanding were exempt from inspection unless something caused a concern that would require a reinspection, so many of Brent’s schools sat with an outstanding judgement for around 12 years. Since then, the Ofsted framework had changed three times and it had become much more challenging to achieve an outstanding judgement. Previously, schools were rated on a best fit judgement but now needed to achieve all points in the ‘good’ rating and all points in the ‘outstanding’ rating to be rated as such. In response to whether the Council was wary that other schools might fall risk to the issues faced by Bryon Court Primary School, Nigel Chapman stated that the Council felt confident that the risk of this occurring was low. He stated that he received termly updates in relation to the performance of schools to monitor this. Councillor Grahl added that those Ofsted processes were relevant to Byron Court because it had not been examined for a long period of time and there had been a lot of changes to the school during that period. More broadly, she felt that the type of inspection Ofsted conducted with the use of single word judgements and the relationship of Ofsted with schools required improvement.

In considering the sharing of good practice, the Committee asked whether there were tangible benefits from schools engaging with each other to share good practice that officers could share with the Committee. Michelle Ginty informed members that there was a group of schools in Brent working together through peer reviews, where triads of schools worked to share good practice. For example, one school would demonstrate a part of their provision they felt was excellent and the heads from two other schools would evaluate the quality of provision and give feedback on what was done well and identify areas for improvement. In this way schools got the benefits of each other’s knowledge. Andy Prindiville added that St Gregory’s had some good work on transition from Key Stage 2 to 3 where primary school teachers had looked at the secondary school curriculum being offered and advised whether that level had already been achieved at primary school level.

The Chair thanked those present for their contributions and drew the item to a close. He invited the Committee members to make recommendations with the following RESOLVED:

i)              To recommend that the work happening across schools to share best practice was publicised more widely to give confidence to families that schools were working together to ensure the best education for children and young people.

ii)             To recommend that best practice continued to be shared amongst all schools in Brent.

iii)           To recommend that the Council, with the support of schools, prioritised and accelerated the active enrolment programme for those eligible for pupil premium.

iv)           To recommend the Council continues a focus on hearing the voice of boys of Black Caribbean heritage and ensuring they achieved parity with their peers.

v)             

vi)           To request that the Committee are provided with performance indicator comparisons across demographically similar boroughs.