Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from Tony Little.

Councillors Catherine Dann, Brian Crowe, Judith Cooper, Peter Curling, John Hensley, and Anita Macdonald declared a personal interest in all items on the agenda due to their roles as a School Governors.

All items were Part 1 and were considered in public.

The minutes were agreed and signed by the Chairman.

To take evidence from the following witnesses:

Ø      Sue O’Brien – Schools Improvement Officer for Inclusion

Ø      Steve Foot – Head of Minet Junior School

Ø      Clive Neathy – Head Teacher of Rosedale college 

Ø      Charlie Taylor – Head Teacher of The Willows School.

The Chairman welcomed all of the witnesses to the meeting, and asked Sue O’Brien (Schools Improvements Officer for Inclusion) to begin her presentation. The witness said:

• The last local strategy was completed in 2003. A representative group of stakeholders are meeting under the joint chairmanship of Pauline Nixon, Head of Access & Inclusion and Sue O’Brien to write a new strategy. Step one of the strategy has been out for initial consultation and step two will be in place for consultation at the beginning of the next academic year. The aim is to review current inclusion provision and to formulate strategic direction across schools and the local authority.
• Creating the post of Principal School Improvement Officer for Inclusion has raised the awareness of what should be seen in schools as “universal” and “targeted” when considering pupils with additional needs. It is only when this level of support is considered insufficient to narrow the progress gap between a pupil and its peers should wave 2 or 3 be deemed necessary:
  • Wave 1 - Inclusive quality first teaching for all;
  • Wave 2 - Additional interventions to enable children to work at age related expectation or above;
  • Wave 3 - Additional, highly personalised interventions

• The Inclusion development programme (IDP) is 3 year programme with
  •  Year 1 focusing on Speech Language and Communication Dyslexia;
  • Year 2 focused on Autism;
  • Year 3 focusing on Behaviour.
• IDP  is based on Quality First Teaching which are Organised into three areas:
  • Understanding the area of difficulty
  • Being able to identify the barriers to learning for children having difficulties
  • Knowing how to overcome these barriers
• All schools were offered IDP training centrally and at these sessions the school-based training materials were distributed. Schools have been given support in delivery through whole staff sessions. An audit of “take-up” has just been completed and the results will be available in the autumn.
• In 2007, 1.5m children were identified as having SEN in England– 19.2% of all pupils. In 2007, £2.5 billion spent on delegated and retained SEN budgets. Schools determine the use of delegated SEN budgets, providing opportunities to use funding flexibly to be more effective. Many schools have developed holistic and strategic approaches to planning provision and monitoring impact.

The Chairman opened the floor to questions. Members asked the witness whether the needs of the children in these schools were being met. The witness said the whole strategy is based on meeting the needs of the children and accommodating their varying needs.

Members asked the witness what steps were being taken to ensure school attendance was being kept on a high level. The witness said that there is an attendance monitor at every school. The attitude of the child is monitored to uncover any underlying issues beneath their truancy. The attendance monitors work in coalition with the education welfare officers, and are able to enforce the law in order to tackle parents who support the act of truancy. Officers said that there is a very effective Education Welfare Service in Hillingdon,  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

Update presented by School Improvement Advisor Jean Knapp.

The Chairman invited Jean Knapp (Education and Youth Learning officer) to begin the update on Mathematics performance in Hillingdon. Officers began by stating that the statistic on student performance in the field of mathematics seems to have remained constant in recent years. However, there is a need to look at the strengths and weaknesses of the system and what has been done to improve the performance in recent years. There is a need to improve the maths performance. Hillingdon supports the plans for addressing these issues of improvements in Hillingdon schools, which is due to begin next year.

Members asked officers how useful the POC recommendations had been during their review of maths performance in 2003. Officers said the recommendations had been helpful at the time and were taken into consideration when addressing issues of improvement. However, as performance is ever-changing it was very important for the recommendations to be up to date.

Members asked about staff knowledge of the subject. Officers said a large number of maths teachers in the borough lack subject knowledge. Teacher training programmes have been introduced in areas where teachers lack knowledge and expertise, and a minimum academic requirement in mathematics has been enforced on all those who wish to teach the subject. Teachers also take part in online self evaluation tests, and are encourage to broaden their use of Information and Communications Technology during their teaching sessions.

The Chairman thanked the officers for attending and offered them the opportunity to leave.

Agreed:

The Chairman asked officers from the Education and Children’s Services directorate to elaborate on acronyms used in their reports. The Committee agreed that the first time an acronym is used in a report its full name should also be included. Officers agreed to practice this in future reports.

To receive the reports and presentations from Sarah Harty - Head of Resources, Policy and Performance (Education Directorate).

The Chairman welcomed Chris Spencer, Director of Education and Children’s Services to present the Performance & Finance and 2009/10 Budget reports. The Officer said:

• The Council is well placed to deal with the economic challenges ahead and have exceeded the £12 million target for balances by the end of 2009/10
• A clear HIP programme has been established that has helped steer the Council from a position of having low balances to one of having healthy balances at the same time as dealing with significant external challenges around asylum funding and reduced general funding from central government
• The timetable for the budget has been brought forward from previous years so that a balanced budget can be presented to the Cabinet/SMT (Senior Management Team) away day in November.
• There are a number of cost pressures for the group, particularly around recruitment issues within Children’s Services, where the cost of agency cover is a continuing issue.  Officers are working with Corporate Human Resources to endeavour to address this issue.
• The group is also working towards delivering the savings identified as part of the Service Review, with the focus on furthering the work on preventative services.  However, it will be particularly challenging to find additional savings over and above these targets.
• The funding of Asylum remains a significant issue.  Officers are continuing to work with Home Office officials and ministers to seek additional funding to ensure that the full costs the Council incurs are reimbursed through the grant regime.  Officers have amended a UK Border Agency template to enable all Asylum costs to be clearly identified.  This has been circulated to authorities by UKBA.  The findings should help further our discussions on full funding and around specialist status.

The Chairman thanked the officer for attending the meeting.

To consider the Work Programme

The Committee agreed the Work Programme for 2009/10.

To consider the latest version of the Forward Plan

The Committee agreed the Forward Plan.

The meeti