Agenda item

The Chair welcomed Sir Alan Wood, adviser to the Government’s Education Recovery Programme, to the meeting and invited him to present to the Board.

Sir Alan ran through the background to the programme and explained that Sir Kevan Collins, the Education Recovery Commissioner, reported weekly to the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State to advise them on the effectiveness of the Department for Education’s (DfE) plans. The Programme had 3 objectives: (i) to ensure that children were supported to raise their attainment; (ii) to close the gap between the highest and lowest performing pupils; and (iii) to support the services that support children’s learning. In order to achieve these objectives, the following areas of focus (the 3 ‘T’s) were being pursued: (i) access to teacher time; (ii) ensuring the quality of teaching through professional development and training; and (iii) a targeted tutoring programme.

Sir Alan said that the Programme aimed to build an education system that was stronger and fairer than pre-covid. Schools would clearly be the main driver of change but they were also looking at how local authorities could work with wider groups of partners to achieve the desired objectives. They would also be looking at how best to reach children not in school settings, including pre-school.

Sir Alan advised members that the Programme would have significant resource implications and they were talking to the Prime Minister and Secretary of State about this. For example, it was clear that the current targets in the National Tutoring Programme would not be achieved with current resource levels.

Following the introduction, the Chair invited members to comment:

·       Members raised concerns about various aspects of the National Tutoring Programme (NTP) – for example around levels of take up and quality of tutoring. Members felt that locally-determined approaches could often be more effective and the LGA could feed in some best practice examples of these. Sir Alan acknowledged that there were challenges with the NTP and that it was hoped to address some of these as it moved to phase 3. He agreed that there needed to be less prescription and more local flexibility and they would be talking to local authorities and school groupings to determine their needs. Sir Alan said they were open to new ideas and offered to talk to headteachers in Board members’ local areas to discuss how the NTP could be improved

·       Would the Programme be looking at whether Ofsted could be reformed to better support education recovery? Sir Alan said that this was outside the scope of the Programme but, given that it would not be possible to inspect all schools individually in the timeframe, there may be scope for undertaking thematic reviews.

·       What was being done on career-related learning to address growing anxiety amongst teenagers? Sir Alan said that they weren’t taking any specific steps at this stage but DfE were working on it at both 16-19 and under 16 level.

·       Members felt that there was too much emphasis on academic catch-up in the current plans which would put too much pressure on many young people. There needed to be greater emphasis on their mental and emotional wellbeing and on giving them opportunities to socialise with their peers again. Play Streets and Forest Schools were suggested as examples of how this could be achieved. Sir Alan agreed that the approach needed to strike a balance and said that any additional summer activities needed to be a broad academic/cultural/recreational experience.

·       Improving the physical and mental health of young people was considered to be key and this would need to involve training professionals to recognise these issues and to address them. Links should be made into Higher Education, Further Education and employers.

·       How could parents be more effectively engaged in the catch-up process – this would be crucial to its success, particularly for more vulnerable children.

·       It was felt that now would be a good time to assess the things that had dropped off the curriculum, and services that had been lost in recent years, and to consider reinstating some of them.

·       It was considered important to listen to what young people themselves were saying. There may be a number of positive aspects of lockdown for children that could be built into future learning.

·       Teaching staff had been under a lot of pressure during the last year and so members felt it was important that catch up programmes took account of that and didn’t lead to burn out. School governors could also have an important role to play.

Sir Alan said that an announcement on further funding was expected from the Government in the next couple of weeks, when further details of the Programme would also be revealed.

The Chair thanked Sir Alan for his time and urged him to continue to use Board members as a resource and sounding board for the Programme’s work.

Decision

Children & Young People Board noted the update.