Decision details

The Chair welcome Elizabeth Adewale, Young Advisor, to the meeting.

Emma Aye-Kumi, Scrutiny Manager, briefly introduced the report and invited the Committee to put questions or comments to Jackie Jones, Service Manager for School Improvement and Intervention.

The Committee noted that:

·         The Transition Working Group (TWG) first met in the summer to look at producing a document to establish common principles and to support schools to self-evaluate their transition process.

·         The TWG met again in November to look at how to improve the transition process for Yr 6 pupils from the moment they know which school they have been allocated, and also at how schools can work within their ‘clusters’ to become the secondary school of choice for the primary schools in the area.

·         Recent changes in secondary leadership in the borough had presented the opportunity for improvement

·         Pupils going out of the borough for their secondary education did so through choice and not necessity, since there was sufficient capacity to provide places for all Lewisham-resident secondary-age pupils.

·         From a financial perspective, school places needed to be filled and stable for schools to function effectively since school budgets were linked to pupil numbers.

·         Transition was a school-led process and therefore it was for individual schools to decide how to measure success and gather feedback.

·         There were examples of excellent practice for SEN children with ECHP plans. School SENCOs from Year 6 and Year 7 meet every summer to share information about children with SEN to support their transition from primary to secondary schools

·         Currently Lewisham schools have a common transition day in the summer term for all Year 6 children moving on to Lewisham secondary schools.

·         It was felt that the most appropriate way of improving transition within the school-led system was to highlight issues to the schools’ governing bodies and leadership teams and encourage them to oversee and scrutinise good practice.

·         It should be borne in mind that some parents would opt to go out of borough regardless of the quality of Lewisham schools as it may make geographical sense to do so. Similarly some parents would seek out faith schools, single sex schools, grammar schools. High speed links to Kent could mean that the journey to Kent grammar schools could be quicker than a bus ride within the borough.

·         Some parents were put off applying to schools owing to concerns about the safety of the surrounding area and the school journey, rather than due to concerns about the school itself.

·         The current Year 7 cohort was the first to have experienced 2 years of the new curriculum and officers were confident that the issues of drift in KS3 would be resolved as schools were becoming more adept at mapping backwards from the GCSE requirements to KS2. This was also helped by improving communication and relationship building between primary and secondary schools.

·         Officers were confident of a big culture change happening in the borough’s secondary schools that would soon improve results and in time, parental perceptions.

·         Some members felt that more advertising of Lewisham schools was needed, and that secondary schools could begin to create a ‘buzz’ by being proactive about going into primary schools at an earlier point, such as Year 4 or 5. Many schools were already doing this. The policy of allowing out of borough secondary schools to advertise in Lewisham Life was questioned.

·         The proposed Citizen Free School had yet to secure a site, and so there was no confirmed start date.

·         Key measures of improved transition would be a mixture of hard data – for example more students staying within the borough at secondary level, academic progress, improved behaviour and attendance, and soft data that captured the pupil and parental views.

·         The consistent message coming out of all of the evidence was that there could be no one-size fits all approach to transition and that the individual governing bodies would need to drive and measure improvements to transition

·         In respect of the significant increase of homework between Year 6 and 7, some members had concerns that too much homework in KS3 was limiting children’s opportunity to experience extra-curricular activities such as scouts, dance classes, etc. Officers gave assurances that there were many enrichment opportunities available within the secondary school offering, and explained that homework levels were a decision for individual schools and their governing bodies.

·         Head teachers were reported to be working collaboratively, rather than in competition with each other, with a view to raising teaching standards and sharing expertise. The Secondary Challenge was mentioned which had been launched the previous week.

Elizabeth Adewale, Young Advisor, made a number of comments based on her recent experience of transition, both between primary and secondary school, and when transitioning to sixth form college. The Committee heard that, in her experience, taster days were very helpful. She had found the lack of challenge in Year 7 to be so demotivating that she struggled to pick up in Year 8. She recalled that she had found the volume of homework overwhelming compared to primary school. She added that the Year 9 and the start of GCSEs had come as a shock, having spent two years coasting. Elizabeth raised the issue of teaching to pass exams and said she would have preferred a broader education rather than only learning what was needed to answer an exam question. Alongside this, she would have liked career sampling to start sooner, the Committee heard.

RESOLVED:

1)    that the contents of the report, verbal evidence from officers and Young Advisors be noted.

2)    That Kate Bond, Head of Standards and Achievements, would circulate the Secondary Challenge leaflet to the Committee.