Agenda and minutes

To receive any apologies for absence.

Councillors Aled Evans, Huw Wyn Jones, Keith Jones, Elfed Roberts and Gareth Williams; Anest Gray Frazer (Church in Wales) and Rita Price (Catholic Church).

To receive any declarations of personal interest.

No declarations of personal interest were received from any members present.

To note any items that are a matter of urgency in the view of the Chairman for consideration.

None to note.

The Chairman shall propose that the minutes of the previous meeting of this committee held on 23^rd January, 2018 be signed as a true record  (attached).

The Chair signed the minutes of the previous meeting of this committee held on 23 January 2018 as a true record.

To consider the report of the Cabinet Member for Education  (attached).

*10.10am – 10.55am

The report of the Cabinet Member for Education was submitted, noting the outcomes of the report commissioned into the Foundation Phase. 

During the discussion, the following main points were highlighted:

·         Despite the finding that social skills were lower among children than in the past, the performance in Gwynedd in terms of the personal and social indicator was high and suggested that it was not as great a problem as the linguistic factor.

·         The fact that the performance among children in Gwynedd in terms of output was third throughout Wales, including in the language field, suggested that the primary system as a whole was functioning as it should and that children were leaving the primary system with the necessary skills to enable them to reach their full potential.

·         Pressure should be put on governors to make every effort to employ Welsh speakers for every post at a school, although admittedly this could be challenging in some areas.

·         the report jumped from one thing to another rather than concentrating solely on the foundation phase.

·         several references were made in the report to the weakening of the Welsh language, e.g. the comment that not every staff member adhered to the school's language policy at all times and that they turned to speak English with non-Welsh speaking pupils.  There was also a suggestion here that children were allowed to answer tests in English when the situation arose, contrary to the policy of responding to tests in Welsh.  It was also necessary to bear in mind, when referring to pupils with 'English as an additional language', that English was also an additional language for the 64% of the children of Gwynedd who came from Welsh speaking households.

·         there was no reason why all children, with the exception of newcomers, could not pursue their schooling in Welsh.

·         the fall in the number of Welsh speakers at our primary schools was a cause for concern and this needed to be addressed at once or there was a danger that the numbers would fall to such a degree that it would not be possible to justify the policy at all.

·         It was acknowledged that immersion education in the foundation phase was critically important and that the language centres played a very important role in immersing KS2 pupils.

·         Although it was understood that there had been no empty spaces at these language centres to date, should such a situation arise in future, consideration could be given to extending the provision beyond year 2 only, but bearing in mind that the younger the child, the less pertinent the course was to them.

·         there was room to strengthen the bridging element between the foundation phase and meithrin groups in the field of oracy.  There were some excellent people in the meithrin groups who promoted language acquisition skills and who also had clear expertise in the foundation phase who could also assist meithrin groups so that the children's baseline would improve when they started attending school.

·         It was not believed that there  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

To consider the report of the Cabinet Member for Education  (attached).

*10.55am – 11.40am

Submitted - the report of the Cabinet Member for Education, giving an outline of the Additional Learning Needs and Inclusion Service that came into force in September 2017, detailing the main successes of the service and the fields that required further development to ensure an effective and efficient service to the Gwynedd and Anglesey Education Authority partnership.

During the discussion, the following main points were highlighted:

·         The Other Net programme, which supported parents where there was uncertainty or lack of understanding of the implications of home education, was praised and it was noted that individuals who had been outside the education system for years had moved back into mainstream education with the input of this programme and Comic Relief.  Councillor Cemlyn Williams declared a personal interest, as he was a director of Cwmni Sylfaen which had links with this programme in the past.  He was not of the view that it was a prejudicial interest and did not leave the meeting.

·         Schools were central to the success of the new system and it was important that the teachers / assistants received the necessary training to move this forward.

·         The support of the Health Board was also central to the success of the service.

·         Concern was expressed that the Counselling Service currently had a waiting list of almost 100, but collaboration with CAMHS was welcomed.  It was noted that this work bisected the remits of several scrutiny committees and that preventive philosophy was also becoming more prevalent in schools.  It was noted that there was a need to look at the reasons for the increase in anxiety among young people.

·         The report did not refer to able and talented children, who were also children with additional learning needs.

·         the service was very much appreciated in the main stream.

·         the individual development plans were long-winded documents that generated an additional workload for schools.

The Area Education Officer was asked to give his impressions of how things had progressed so far and of any problems he anticipated in future.  He noted that:

·         the changes had been substantial and significant, not only to include the provision for schools and the way of working with schools, but also in terms of the work across two counties.

·         That an important element of the success of Phase 1 of the statutory review was that, as a whole, the process had responded to any changes as it progressed.  Nevertheless, some things had already changed, in response to the observations made by schools and in order to make the service even more efficient. 

·         Since it was a very broad field and that questions often arose, the user group was set up so that the improvement process could continue indefinitely.

·         Phase 2 of the review would mean more changes again, and that lessons learnt in Phase 1 would be incorporated in Phase 2 so that it could be considered as part of the brief for the next steps.

·         the plan to rationalise the team, etc., had addressed half the anticipated  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

To consider the report of the Cabinet Member for Education  (attached).

*11.40am – 12.25pm

*estimated times

Submitted - a report on behalf of the Cabinet Member for Education seeking the opinion of the scrutiny committee on the proposed education principles that would form the basis for fulfilling the Education Department's vision for the system to ensure a high quality of education for the children and young people of Gwynedd for the twenty first century.

Based on the results of the consultation with Governors and schools, and the Education Department's vision, members of the scrutiny committee were specifically asked for their views on the following principles that were being considered as the foundation for the education system for Gwynedd in future:

·         A system of viable secondary schools;

·         Two age ranges within the same class in the primary sector;

·         Approximately 80% of non-contact time for the Head teacher to concentrate on leadership issues in the primary sector.

Based on readily available information, the following observations were highlighted during the discussion:

·         There must be clarity about what the impact of adopting these principles will be.

·         It was likely that a teacher or a teacher's hours would be cut in some schools and that would be very difficult for a head teacher, especially if he/she was in charge of two or three schools.

·         This was only the beginning and there was a great deal more scrutiny to be done.

·         The lack of applicants for posts in the majority of primary and secondary schools was a cause for concern. 

·         The system was too fractured to attract the next generation of leaders.  For example, department heads at the smallest secondary schools did not have the opportunity to develop leadership skills because, as single person departments, they did not have the time to lead the department and there was no one in the department to manage it.  Furthermore, since primary schools were often too small to have a deputy head teacher, opportunities here were also lacking for people to develop leadership skills.

·         The substantially greater demands imposed on people with regard to educating and leading meant that posts in schools had become far less attractive.

·         The questions in the questionnaire could have been more penetrating, e.g. rather than asking only for an opinion on the statement "It is important to give Head teacher enough time to manage and lead ...", the respondents should also have been asked whether they agreed with the statement despite its implications.

·         As regards the suggestion that secondary school head teachers should be in charge of around 900 pupils, there was a wish to see robust evidence in support of this in the form of research work in this country and throughout Europe about the size of school that worked best and yielded the best result among children.

·         Although the intention to merge some small schools to make them more viable was welcomed, this was not practically possible in Gwynedd at present and the head teachers would spend a large proportion of their time travelling between sites.

·         the colleges' recruitment policy, which insisted that those seeking to pursue  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.