Decision details

The Senior Advisor for Secondary Education gave a presentation in respect of departmental performance with reference to the Performance Monitoring Report for the second quarter (July to September) of 2010/11 with a particular focus on 14-16 years education offering and take up and school exclusions.

The presentation included details of: recent developments, the current curriculum offer, 2010 GCSE performance data and new performance measures including details of the newly introduced English Baccalaureate.  The Chief Officer: Learning and Achievement undertook to circulate further details of this qualification.

The Schools White Paper had confirmed that reviews of vocational qualifications and the secondary National Curriculum would take place and that the age of compulsory participation in education or training would be raised to 17 in 2013 and 18 in 2015.  The Coalition Government had also withdrawn the requirement that all young people were to have access to a revised education entitlement including the full range of Diplomas.

The percentage of pupils achieving GCSE grades A* to C in English stood at 68.5% and the percentage achieving GCSE Grades A* to C in maths stood at 63.6%.  This was an increase on the previous year’s results. 

Outturns for the new English Baccalaureate qualification were based on achievements in a narrow combination of subjects.  It was stressed that schools were being asked to ensure that while remaining mindful of the requirements of this new qualification they continued to provide a broad and varied curriculum offer that met the requirements of young people

During the 2009/10 academic year there had been 15 permanent exclusions which represented 0.09% of the total school pupil cohort.  The Chief Officer: Learning and Achievement said that the vast majority of students were well behaved.  There had been a noticeable fall in the number of fixed term exclusions compared to previous years; something that was attributed to the early intervention work that was taking place with schools.  The number of fixed term exclusions had also fallen over the four year reporting period.  During the 2009/10 academic year there had been 441 fixed term exclusions however it was stressed that when a child had been excluded on multiple occasions these were counted as separate exclusions.

The Panel expressed concern about the work that schools set for pupils subject to exclusions lasting for longer than one day.  It was agreed that this concern would be followed up with schools.

The Panel congratulated teaching staff on the support work that they carried out with pupils to try to prevent exclusions.