Issue - meetings

This report shows the overall performance of pupils in schools in Bath and North East Somerset in 2017.

The Senior Education Improvement Adviser gave a presentation to the Panel on this item. A copy of the presentation can be found on the Panel’s Minute Book and online as an appendix to these minutes, a summary is set out below.

Summary Performance

Early Years Foundation Stage Results - The proportion of pupils achieving a Good Level of Development (GLD) increased in 2017 and is now above national (72% compared to 71%).

Phonics Results - The proportion of children meeting the year 1 phonics threshold has stalled at 79% for the past three years and is below the national average of 81%.

Local authority officers have quickly identified three schools with a trend of low phonics outcomes to join a phonics project funded by a successful bid to the RSC Strategic School Improvement Fund.

Key Stage 2 Results - At Key Stage 2 (KS2) 63% of pupils in B&NES reached the expected standard in reading, writing and mathematics combined, this is slightly above the national average of 62%.

Progress from Key Stage 1 to Key Stage 2 improved in all three subjects from 2016 to 2017. Progress in reading is now significantly above the national average at 0.6, whilst progress in writing and maths remain significantly below the national average at -1.3 and -1.1 respectively.

Key Stage 4 (GCSE) Results - Progress of secondary pupils in B&NES has fallen slightly compared with 2016 to -0.06 compared with -0.02 in 2016 and -0.03 nationally. This data is affected by Beechen Cliff’s decision to continue with the iGCSE qualification for English Language and English Literature, which is not counted in the Performance Tables and other government statistics. As a result Beechen Cliff’s Progress 8 score, English Progress Scores and proportion of pupils achieving a pass grade in English are extremely low and this has an effect on the overall results for the local authority, particularly for boys. The Progress 8 score for the LA without Beechen Cliff’s results would have been 0.02 and if the iGCSE results had been counted the figure would have been 0.06.

Key Stage 5 (A level) Results - The proportion of students achieving the highest grades has fallen compared with last year and is now below national. This is mainly due to a fall in the proportion of boys achieving 3 A*-A grades. Similarly there has been a fall in the percentage of students achieving strong grades in ‘facilitating’ subjects, due to a large fall for boys, although this figure remains slightly above national overall.

The Disadvantaged Pupils Gap at the end of reception for B&NES is generally nearly double the national gap.

Year 1 Phonics - The overall phonics score in B&NES has stalled at 79% mainly due to the fall in the proportion of disadvantaged pupils reaching the threshold. The B&NES gap has worsened considerably to its lowest level.

The Head of Education Transformation said that this was serious cause for concern as it is hard to recover if the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 60