Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence had been received from Councillor Paul Godier.

Councillor Dowling declared a personal interest as he is a governor at Miltoncross School.

RECOMMENDED that the minutes of the Education, Children and Young

People Scrutiny Panel meeting held on 22 September 2014 be confirmed

and signed by the Chair as a correct record.

RESOLVED that the minutes of the Education, Children & Young People Scrutiny Panel held on 22 September 2014 be confirmed as a correct record.

The following witnesses will be attending to speak and answer questions from

the panel:

·         Marc Harder, Education Improvement Commissioning Manager (interim)

·         Julien Kramer, Interim Head of Education

·         Deamonn Hewett-Dale, Head Teacher of The Flying Bull Academy

·         Sandra Gibb, Head Teacher of St George's Beneficial C of E Primary School

·         Fiona Calderbank, Head Teacher of Milton Cross School

The Chair welcomed all guests to the meeting and introductions were made around the table before evidence was given. 

(a)  Julien Kramer, Interim Head of Education and Marc Harder, Interim Education Information Commissioning Manager

Mr Kramer explained that the Pupil Premium Grant received from government is just under £10 million.  This is allocated to schools and the school governing bodies along with the head teacher are responsible for deciding where best to use this money within their school and are accountable for this.  The local authority holds high quality data and uses RAISEonline data which shows that Portsmouth is continuing to make reasonable progress to narrow the gap. The local authority has a strategy on how work is carried out with schools???

Mr Harder circulated a short paper giving information of the role of local authority with regard to Pupil Premium (PP).  He explained that school leaders must ensure that the details of spend and the impact on outcomes is publicly stated on their website.  The local authority in its statutory role must ensure that outcomes in the city are improved for children.  The LA also has a role in oversight, advice and sharing of best practice.

Role of the Local Authority
The local authority has a team of education officers who visit their schools regularly and during their visits challenge school leaders on effective use of the grant and advise on nest practice from other schools both locally and nationally.  A toolkit is available on the DFE website which highlights research from the Sutton Trust and others into the effectiveness of different interventions and the relevant value for money aspect.

The LA has initiated a PP programme for secondary schools within the city where the GCSE gap was second to bottom in the 'national league table' of 2013.  This has involved a number of streams:

·         Brokering additional resource from an external secondary education officer

·         Facilitating and chairing a network of head teachers to work on PP

·         Seconding a deputy head at a city Secondary School funded by the LA and schools to work across all secondary phase provision in sharing good practice,

·         Hosting a workshop for all Secondary Heads with sub-regional lead HMI running a seminar on the priority of PP in school inspections (summer term 2013/14)

·         Hosting a workshop for secondary and primary heads with the national PP Champion  (Sir John Dunford) on November 17 2014

·         Having a lead Head teacher, Fiona Calderbank, to work alongside the Local Authority on this agenda as part of the seconded heads programme (primary). 

·         Re-focusing analyses from the Education Information Services Team on 'narrowing the PP gap.

·         Attending regional / national conferences, for example the South East Regional Ofsted conference in March 2014 at which Sir Michael Wilshaw HMCI and other national speakers showed the gap for South East LAs and showcased those areas where gaps are being narrowed.

·         Ensuring that there is a focus at the cluster level on narrowing the gap.

Impact of pupil premium

Mr Harder advised that the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 32.

·         Monday 24 November at 7:00pm

This was agreed at Monday 24 November at 7pm.