Agenda item

Educational attainment has broad benefits on health, wealth and happiness. Inequalities in educational attainment between children from more and less affluent backgrounds is an issue nationally and has worsened in recent years.  

The Consultant in Public Health introduced the report and highlighted the following areas.

The Challenge

Addressing inequality - At key stage 2: Disadvantaged pupils doing less well in B&NES than nationally e.g. 30% reaching expected standard at KS2 compared to 44% nationally. The gap between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged pupils is large, with an attainment gap of 36% compared to 23% nationally.

At key stage 4: In 2022/23 in B&NES the attainment gap at KS4 had relatively narrowed and was more in line with the national attainment gap, though still wider. The gap between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged pupils remains large.

Ambition - Reduce the attainment gaps by improving the performance of disadvantaged pupils across B&NES.

Whole system approach to reducing the attainment gap

In an average year, children spend around 20-24% of their waking hours in school and so around 76-80% of their waking hours outside of school. Socio-economic factors and the physical environment account for 30-55% of our health outcomes – the same factors also play a crucial role in education attainment.

The wider environment in which children and young people grow up in therefore has a huge role to play. As B&NES Council and system partners are in a position to influence some of these wider or core determinants, a whole systems approach to addressing the attainment gap helpful.

Project aim and methodology 

Aim: Investigate the potential causes of the educational attainment gap in B&NES, with a focus on the core determinants of health outside of school settings, and make recommendations as to how a whole systems approach could help address the gap.

Research / potential solutions

What does the data tell us? What does the published and grey literature tell us? / What do professionals and young people tell us? / 60 + interviews and focus groups.

Multi partner task and finish group (Met 4 times – the final one as a workshop).

Triangulated findings inform Action Plan.

What the data tells us… 

In primary schools in B&NES, the number of FSM pupils has almost doubled from 1,238 in 2015/16 to 2,407 in 2022/23 in B&NES (an increase from 9% to 18%). Poor attainment in the disadvantaged cohort is not restricted to a few schools in B&NES, but is more widespread?, and across rural and urban areas.

There is a very weak association between the size of the disadvantaged cohort and attainment in the disadvantaged cohort in schools in B&NES. Schools in B&NES with 40% or more disadvantaged pupils have the lowest attainment for both disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged pupils (does not indicate causality).

Interviewees / Focus group participants

Education settings: The Hut / First Steps Twerton / St Martins Garden Primary / East Harptree and Ubley Primary / Oldfield School / Bath College / Director of Secondary, Lighthouse Partnership Trust.

B&NES Council: Head of Virtual School / Head of SEND / Education Inclusion Officer / Educational Psychologist / Welfare support.

Young people: Via Off the Record (care experienced young people) and Youth Connect.

Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise: Brighter Futures / Nurture outreach service / Youth Connect South West / Mentoring Plus / Bath Area Play Project / Bath Mind.

Health and Care Services: School Nurses (multiple) / Family Nurse Partnership (multiple) Health Visitors (multiple) / Speech and Language Therapist / Early Years Community Practitioners (multiple).

Drivers of the education attainment gap

Many different factors and core factors are contributing to the education attainment gap - no one silver bullet. Can address by removing barriers and building protective factors - Poverty an over-arching factor.

Core Factors:

• Barriers to social mobility
• Barriers to community cohesion, inclusion and equity
• Inequitable social and cultural capital
• Under-resourced home learning environment
• More complex home social environment
• Reduced family and education setting relationship
• Health and wellbeing needs
• Reduced early intervention
• Limited engagement with services/settings

Specific challenges for B&NES:

·  The visible gap between wealth and deprivation and its impact social mobility

·  Difference in social, sporting and cultural opportunities that CYP access

·  Focus on academia in schools and the impact of this on employment options and social mobility

·  How different areas look (different investment in different areas) and the impact this has

·  A lack of diversity and the impact this has on minority groups

·  Large rural communities and challenges with public transport impacting access to education settings, public services and youth clubs

Action Plan

Approximately 65 actions / 5 priorities.

Takes an “equity-based approach” to reducing the attainment gap by suggesting that there should be a greater focus on removing the barriers to educational attainment to support those at greatest risk

Whole system approach

The following priority/outcome will be embedded in B&NES new Culture Plan: Help to address the educational attainment gap by increasing social capital, aspiration and social mobility in children and young people from disadvantaged families; for example, by supporting skills and knowledge development, enhancing identify and belonging, and reducing barriers to participating in the cultural and heritage offer.

This will also translate into practice… for example by being embedded in culture projects such as the new fashion museum; a national lottery bid for funding includes a CYP outreach post that (if the bid is successful) will proactively build relationships with communities, families and settings to support meeting this outcome.

Governance

Aligns well with the Be Well approach…

Take collective action on the social, economic, environmental and commercial factors that drive our behaviours, as well as supporting individuals and communities to make positive choices.

Work at different levels of the system to change not only the actions we take, but the structures that support them and the health beliefs that the system holds.

Exploit the value of working together on the building blocks of health (in this context the building blocks of educational attainment).

Both Be Well B&NES and the HWB have broad membership that aligns with the core determinants.

Update to and feedback from:

·  School Standards Board

·  School Heads Forum

·  CDAS

·  CYPs Sub-Group (reports to HWB)

Councillor Liz Hardman welcomed the report and said that she agreed with the recommendations. She asked what measures were likely to be put in place as part of the drafting of the action plan.

The Consultant in Public Health replied that a draft action plan was nearly complete and would look at expanding the culture and heritage offers to young people. She added that they would be working with schools to gather evidence with regard to funding as a larger cohort would equate to additional funding.

She said that they also planned to engage with private schools and external leisure providers.

Councillor Joanna Wright commented that she would like to see the report be given more of a profile, due to its importance, and suggested a press release be arranged in due course. She said that she was aware of the disparity across the area and that through her work on the Alice Park Trust that funding is not readily available.

She proposed a practical solution – all children / young people to be issued with a Discovery Card. She added that the Panel should seek an update on this work every six months.

The Consultant in Public Health replied that from a community element it was very important that there was wider awareness of the report. She said that she would take the suggestion regarding the Discovery Card away for further discussion with colleagues.

Kevin Burnett asked if they had considered involving Parish Councils in their plans at all.

The Consultant in Public Health replied that they had not and welcomed the suggestion. She added that they would also like discuss how the use of Section 106 funding through planning might be used for youth clubs or other elements of infrastructure.

Councillor Ruth Malloy said that she agreed with the suggestion of issuing a Discovery Card to all children and young people and also posed whether a Library Card should be considered as well. She said that young people also need supportive parents and carers so that they feel involved and encourage lifelong learning.

She referred to page 83 of the agenda re: Attainment by Ethnicity and said that they needed to be cautious with results as there are low numbers from the Black and Other ethnic groups in this cohort.

She said that support in languages should be promoted, especially for those young people that English is not their first language.

The Consultant in Public Health replied that as part of their work they intend to go out into the communities and discuss these issues across a range of generations. She said that opportunities relating to lifelong learning will be in the action plan.

She added that the relationship between parents, carers and schools will also be looked at. She said that an EIA would be required for when analysis of the ethnicity attainment is carried out.

Councillor Robin Moss said that he welcomed the report and agreed that for the KS2 figures there was no magic bullet. He stated though that the attainment gap has been there for quite a while and questioned why this remained an issue for B&NES.

The Consultant in Public Health replied that there were a number of Core Factors, in particular Poverty that remain factors within B&NES alongside the barriers associated with Social Mobility and geographical constraints.

The Chair commented that the Panel should be updated on the progress of this work in six months time.

The Panel RESOLVED to:

i)  Note the work underway on a whole systems approach to reducing the educational attainment gap.

ii)  Review the draft report and provide feedback.

iii)  Support the ambitions of the work by considering opportunities to champion the work underway.