Agenda item

RESOLVED:

The Committee resolved to make the following referral to Mayor and Cabinet:

That any action plan to take forward the recommendations from the Education Commission Report be presented to the Children and Young People Select Committee for consultation.

4.1       Christine Gilbert, Chair of the Lewisham Education Commission presented the report to the Committee and highlighted the following five key messages from the report’s finding:

1.     The report urged LB Lewisham to build on its strengths in collaborative working across schools. This included the work of the Head’s Leadership Forum building partnerships across the borough and providing a school-led approach to school improvement.

2.     The report suggested that Lewisham should be more active in managing the Government’s agenda and shaping the academisation policy to the needs of Lewisham. The Council should support schools that are interested in becoming Multi Academy Trusts or Academies to ensure they were not alienated.

3.     There should be the creation of a Lewisham Secondary Challenge to create targeted support based loosely on the London Challenge model.

4.     The pride in and achievements of Lewisham schools should be celebrated and channelled into a shared vision for education locally.

5.     The Council should continue to work to support schools and have positive relationships with them no matter what changes arose as a result of changes in its legal responsibilities. 

4.2       Nicky Dixon, local resident and parent addressed the Committee outlining her views on the report. During her address to committee, she highlighted the following key points:

·         With cross party support at national level, government legislation on academisation could be defeated.

·         There were some recommendations in the report that Ms Dixon felt were positive such as: the collaborative approach and partnership working; emulating the London challenge; and consulting with third party experts.

·         Parents should have a voice as to whether their school becomes an academy or part of a Multi Academy Trust (MAT). Home-grown MATs should have the support of the whole school community.

·         Through the organisation “Rescue our Schools”, Lewisham parents were given a voice at the House of Commons Education Select Committee. It was important that parents’ voices continued to be heard at a local level and that the introduction of Regional Schools Commissioners did not reduce this.

4.3       During the discussion and following questions and challenge from members of the Committee, the following key points were raised:

·         Partnerships between schools could include a role for the local authority. There were various options listed in the report but schools and the local authority could shape their own model of a secondary challenge style support network.

·         To be a Multi Academy Trust there needed to be a partnership of at least three schools. The current Government believed that stand alone academies were not the way forward and MATs offered more advantages to school.

·         It was important for the Council to work with all schools and support each of them to make their own decisions, in order to maintain a positive relationships between the local authority and schools even if some schools decided to become academies.

·         There had been a number of assumptions on places planning at secondary level and work needed to be done to test these. It would be helpful to renew direction on places planning and this could include consultation with the community and parents.

·         During the course of the work the Commission undertook, they had heard a very high level of parent dissatisfaction about their own childrens’ secondary schools and their voices not being heard and schools needed to address this.

·         There should be a strong focus on the classroom including retaining and recruiting high quality teaching staff. This was addressed in chapter 5 which focussed on better practice within the classroom. Improving secondary schools’ relationships with parents was a challenge but more needed to be done to improve this.

·         Schools should be more than just producers of good exam results. The overall well-being of students and their preparation for adulthood and the world of work or further education needed to be considered.

·         Nicky Dixon and Christine Gilbert were thanked by the Chair and Committee for attending and Ms Gilbert and her fellow Commissioners were thanked for their work.

4.4       RESOLVED:

The Committee resolved to make the following referral to Mayor and Cabinet:

That any action plan to take forward the recommendations from the Education Commission Report be presented to the Children and Young People Select Committee for consultation.