My report to council

Posted By: Irene Davidson
Date Posted: 17/10/2008

Thank you Mr Mayor for the opportunity to report to the Council the latest developments on various matters relating to the Children, Schools and Families Portfolio.

It has been a very busy quarter, not only undertaking my own portfolio but doing my best to stand in for the Leader of the Council during his illness and it is nice to see that his health is improving. I hope he goes from strength to strength and look forward to his return to his office as Leader.

SCHOOLS SERVICE

Investment in Schools Buildings Programme
We are pleased to inform Council that once again Rochdale is ahead as the first Authority in the country to shortlist three large consortiums to tender for Rochdale’s £200 million BSF Project. We remain on timetable to start construction at Hollingworth BEC and Siddal Moor Sport College Heywood in January 2010.

We look forward to the conclusion of the negotiations that are taking place with Willmott Dixon who are the contractors chosen to build the new St Anne’s Academy Middleton. The contract is due to be signed mid November.

The remodelling/upgrade works at Bowlee Park Primary School, Middleton, are progressing well and are due to be completed in December 2008.

The orchestra pit at Oulder Hill Theatre and new external Sports facilities at Matthew Moss, Rochdale, have both been completed over summer.

Provisional Results
We are very pleased to report that the provisional results from schools indicate that we have, yet again, exceeded our previous performance for GCSEs. For those students taking examinations in the summer, 59% have gained 5 or more good GCSEs (A*-C grades) – our increase of 3 points is greater than that seen nationally; and there has been an increase in the number of students with good grades in both English and mathematics at GCSE. Both of our LA targets have been met or exceeded. We are the 11th best in the country for improving GSCE results (out of 150).

At Key Stage 2, for our 11 year olds, we are again at the national average in mathematics (78%) and science (88%). We are the second best in the country for improvement in science results. At Key Stage 3 we have seen a very good increase in mathematics – up 5 points to 75% and our target has been exceeded. There is still work to do and we are targeting resources in improving English at both key stages 2 and 3. We are hoping to appoint a literacy champion, to work across the Council, as part of our drive to improve the literacy levels of children, parents and carers across the Borough. We will inform Council of any future developments.

OFSTED
OFSTED inspections of schools continue to report that there is a significant amount of good educational provision in our schools. There have been no schools placed in an OFSTED category over the last 9 months and the only school in special measures, Balderstone, received a positive first monitoring visit by HMI (Her Majesty’s Inspectors).

Childcare Family Workers
As part of our support for the most vulnerable children we are very pleased to see the introduction of Childcare Family Workers based in schools – 7 in all, working with clusters of 2 or 3 schools. Some of these workers are already in place; the rest will be assigned by Christmas. This is another example of integrated service working to improve the provision for children and families.


LEARNERS & YOUNG PEOPLE’S SERVICE

The additional investment from the Council to the Youth Offending Team has increased the amount of reparation work undertaken by young people as a pay back to local communities. Recent projects include work at Middleton Cemetery, glass clearance at Angel Meadows playground, ground clearance at St Thomas’s Church, Newhey and Holy Trinity Church in Middleton. Smaller pieces of work have been undertaken such as gardening work for elderly people and there is also joint working with the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers at Zetland Place.

Alongside this, the additional funding for the Youth Service has enabled more young people to take part in Friday and Saturday evening sessions and the five new school-based police officers are in place. Support for young people to take part in positive activities is an important part of preventing youth nuisance. And we hope to do even more. Rochdale has been allocated additional funding to support the new national Youth Crime Action Plan to target problem areas and take action to bring about change. We will be working with the police to identify the needs and commission provision to improve the situation.

We are now in our second year of offering 15 hours of free per-school provision to 3 and 4 year olds and I am delighted to say that the take up is at 95%. Being a national pilot has brought this benefit to Rochdale ahead of other areas and the high level of take up shows how much it is valued.

At the other end of the age range, the number of young people leaving school this summer who have a definite offer of education, employment or training has increased to 94.5%. The Connexions Service will continue to work hard to make sure that those who are still not settled have the support they need.

CHILDREN’S SERVICES

Virtual School Head for Children in Care
We now have our new Virtual School Head (VSH) for children in care, her name is Gillian Barrett. She was a primary school head in Tameside before joining us.

The VSH is an important step forward for Rochdale in delivering and improving the attainment and attendance at school for children in the care of the Rochdale Council, wherever they are at school. (ie not just in the Borough).

As elected members will know, children in care have been falling behind the general improvement in attainment levels for all children and young people in the Borough.

The VSH role is to work closely with schools and other relevant teams (e.g. school improvement, children’s social care, education welfare) to ensure that children in care receive additional help and support (where necessary) so that they can achieve their potential, attend and succeed at school.

Corporate Parent
This Forum is poorly attended by Elected Members. There are currently only eight Members of Council attending regularly out of 60. We need more Elected Members to join the Corporate Parent Forum and commit themselves to the role. It is fully understood that Members are busy but we would urge you to try to attend as many as possible. The next meeting is on 4 December and they are all in the Council diary for the Municipal Year.

ContactPoint
The Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) wrote to all Early Adopters on 28 August to announce that the deployment of ContactPoint will not begin in October 2008 as originally planned. Although they have been working incredibly hard with delivery partners, they have identified some issues following system testing and are working urgently to address them. As a result, more work needs to be undertaken before embarking on the final phase which includes testing with users. Therefore a decision has been made to postpone deployment until January 2009 to allow sufficient time to test the system to ensure it is right.

Early Adopters are being kept up to speed on the results of ongoing testing and we anticipate that the DCSF will be in a much stronger position to inform us of progress at the end of September.

Update
An update on past questions for Council.

Teenage Pregnancy
The under-18 conception rate has improved. The 2006 rate is 49.0 per 1000 girls which is down from 50.8 per 1000 girls in 2005.


Exclusions
Permanent exclusions have reduced from 54 in the school year 2006/7 to 51 in the school year 2007/8. Fixed period exclusions have also reduced by 13.23% from 2006/7 to 2007/8 school years.

Council will agree with me that these are excellent results for Rochdale and further information can be obtained by Claire Hodgson, Inclusion Officer.

Finally, I would like to thank all Members of my Group, Members of Council and Officers for their help and support over the past quarter. It has been really appreciated.

COUNCILLOR IRENE DAVIDSON