Is he proud of this Conservative Administration record regarding Children’s Primary Education in Medway, given that they have been in complete control since 2003?
Minutes:
Is he proud of this Conservative Administration record regarding Children’s Primary Education in Medway, given that they have been in complete control since 2003?
Councillor Wicks stated that during the period 2003-2010, Medway had undertaken substantial investment and development of early years provision with the creation of 19 children’s centres and Foundation Stage units. This investment had improved the outcomes by the end of the foundation stage and was beginning to impact on Key Stage 1 outcomes.
The Early Years Foundation Stage results had improved significantly from 2005 into 2010, 2005 being the earliest year for which the Council had data.
At Key Stage 1, performance at level 2+ was close to the national average. The focus of work in recent years had been on improving performance, particularly for boys, at level 2B+.
Primary education in Medway ended as children reached the age of 11 and the national benchmark for the end of this phase was key stage 2 SATs, where Medway had improved by the same number of percentage points in English level 4+ and mathematics level 4+ as national improvement gradient. However, the percentage of children below level 4 was higher than the national average and this remained a concern and a focus for ongoing work.
The achievement of vulnerable groups by the end of primary had improved significantly over the last year. Looked after children achieved better than the national average for this group and had gone on to secondary phase well placed to make good progress. Similarly, in 2010 there was a 5 point increase in children eligible for free school meals achieving level 4+ in English and maths, closing the gap between this group and the rest to 18%, which was better than the national gap.
Councillor Wicks stated that he remained concerned about progress through key stage 2 and performance by the end of primary phase. The Council was working in partnership with schools to raise girls’ achievement in maths, and boys’ achievement in English and to continue to raise the achievement of disadvantaged groups.
Councillor Crack asked whether the Portfolio Holder for Children’s Services was equally proud of the way in which his department mishandled the recent primary school closure and merger programme? Also, the fact, in spite of some improvements, Medway primary schools finished very low down in the national league tables in a recent report.
Councillor Wicks responded by stating there were something like 19 schools originally in the Primary Capital Scheme and the only comments had been made about two where the adjudicator got involved. The adjudicator’s judgement on how the Council undertook all that consultation and made its decisions was that it was a good, clear, transparent, straightforward process and did not have the disadvantages which some perceived and that the amalgamations which were brought about through that programme had to be good news for a large number of our children.
He said that as far as league positions were concerned, the last league table that Councillor Crack referred to was one that was based on the SAT2 tests which were boycotted by a large number of schools across the country and as such was an invalid measurement.