Report of the Director of Education

This report provides an analysis of the 2019 outcomes of statutory assessment at the end of the Early Years Foundation Stage, Key Stage 1, Key Stage 2, Key Stage 4 and Key Stage 5. The report also includes summary of performance according to groups by ethnicity. The final validated results became available in February 2020.

The Committee received a report of the Director of Education which providedan analysis of the 2019 outcomes of statutory assessment at the end of the Early Years Foundation Stage, Key Stage 1, Key Stage 2, Key Stage 4 and Key Stage 5. The report also included a summary of performance according to groups by ethnicity.

Officers referred to the main points and themes within the report which included:

• Early years outcomes;
• Primary school outcomes;
• Secondary school outcomes;
• Post-16 outcomes;
• Outcomes by groups, including disadvantaged children, those with English as an Additional Language (EAL), Our Children, children with SEND and children by ethnicity; and
• Next steps.

Some of the key points and themes that arose from the Committee’s discussions were:

• That GCSE and A-Level results for 2020 would be based on teacher assessments as no examinations would be taking place, noting that the situation had been made more challenging by the move from modular assessments to a system where results were based on final examinations at the end of the course, and concern that pupils from BAME groups could be negatively affected due to unconscious bias;
• How the Council could support schools to have a more inclusive curriculum that represented all communities in the city, commenting that this should not just be restricted to Black History Month; and
• Request for an update on work to ensure young children were school ready.

The Head of Schools Quality Assurance and Strategic SEND outlined how GCSE and A-Level results would be assessed, which involved schools sending two pieces of each student’s work to the examination board, along with the grade they expected they would have received and a list ranking all students entered for that subject.  She advised Members that the Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation (Ofqual) was standardising grades against schools’ historic performance and that this was concerning for Manchester schools which had previously been failing but were now on a strong improvement journey.  She reported that attainment data was analysed by ethnicity and that this would continue with the 2020 results.

The Director of Education informed Members that there was some very good practice in Manchester of ensuring that the curriculum was relevant to all communities and that the data analysis of outcomes by ethnicity would be used to identify schools which had good practices and share that learning across the city.  The Executive Member for Children and Schools informed Members that discussions were currently taking place on how issues relating to Black Lives Matter and racial equality could be better addressed and that further information on the Council’s response could be provided to the Committee at a later date.

The Director of Education reported that the Council was involved in the Greater Manchester plan to improve school readiness but that a lot of young children had not been in early years settings over the past few months due to COVID-19, although schools were now able to re-open to nursery children.  She advised the Committee that the Council had been working to address this, for example, providing learning materials to the families of two-year-olds who were eligible for the free two-year-old early years offer; however, she reported that the money that the government was providing to schools to enable pupils to catch up on missed learning did not include support for early years.  In response to a Member’s question, she reported that COVID-19 had placed an additional financial strain on early years settings, particularly as many parents were not yet sending their children back to these settings, and that work which had started prior to the pandemic on addressing financial challenges in this sector would be resumed.

Decision

To note the report.