Director’s Meeting with Secondary Headteachers’ Consultative

Wednesday 11th May 2011

10:30 – 12:00

LA: Anne Canning (AC), Di Warne (DW), Terry Bryan (TB)

Secondary Headteachers: Vanessa Ogden, Graham Price, Steven Pugh, Esther Holland, Kenny Frederick

Minutes: Ian Bennett

NO / ITEM / ACTION
1. Matters arising from headteachers / No matters arising.
Mary Durkin to circulate paper re: preventing violent extremism via Headteachers’ Bulletin. / Mary Durkin
2. Council / directorate update / The ad has now gone out for the new Executive Director of Education, Social Care Wellbeing for Children & Adults post. Appointment expected end of June, to start beginning of Autumn term. AC will keep heads updated.
Helen Lincoln is leaving LBTH in July. Her role will be covered by a 6 month temporary position.
3. Consultation on East Collaborative and raising attainment post-16 / Collaborative comprised of Stepney Green, LangdonPark, St Paul’s Way and Bow Boys. Month consultation ends 27th May. The two responses received so far have been positive. Has to pass through Mayor’s Advisory Board and Cabinet to be approved.
Currently researching how consortia / collaborations work together effectively.
A big focus of the LA this year is on raising attainment post-16. Interesting issue re: retention; in-year retention for years 12 and 13 are way below target. Very low compared with other London boroughs. TH students (and surrounding areas) have the highest university drop-out rate in the UK. Cabinet is proposing funding to combat this. AC / DW to report back with funding options at next consultative.
TH College was last week holding discussions about how best to spend the money replacing the EMA. Unclear how much is to be allocated. AC to e-mail Michael Farley for ???????? / AC / DW
AC
4. Team updates – service redesign and Traded Services / Most restructures are complete, apart from the 14-19 team which is ongoing due to challenges from staff. The two posts in the Secondary Achievement Team have not yet been filled as a result.
E-learning, the consultants and Aim Higher have either had their early retirement / voluntary redundancy or are currently going through compulsory redundancy. Most compulsory redundancies go through by July 7th.
Cecilia Ellis-Sackey and ???????? have years of A level expertise and are both available for work.
Primary Achievement Team moving to the PDC from June.
Traded Services up and running. AC and DW would like to stress that, whether you have bought in or not, the LA should be your first point of call if you run into any problems.
5. Proposals for LA working with schools / The LA is looking at ways of working with schools and hopes to be clearer in ways of working by September. Some ongoing projects (i.e. BSF) necessitate continued close working, but the LA would like to continue to have a relationship with schools, to broker relationships with schools, and to continue with small scale projects (i.e. school improvement work) wherever possible. The LA is happy to work with secondary heads in every way.
There’s a need to identify key areas of focus. Agendas need to be clear, not so focussed on info relaying / sharing.
VO invited AC to part of next secondary phase consultative to discuss curriculum development, school improvement, teaching and learning. / AC
6. Academies / FreeSchools update / BGTC, Ian Mikardo and Sir William Burrough are currently consulting with the community re: academy status.
Primary:
CanaryWharfCollege will be moving into the Docklands Settlement in September 2011 (previous PRU location).
Secondary:
The Wapping and Shadwell Secondary Education Trust business case cannot be approved until suitable premises is identified. Plan for September 2012. Considering changing size of intake.
AC & Isobel Cattermole are being approached by numerous groups interested in establishing schools, most recently the Shaftesbury Group and the Rivendale Group. AC will keep heads updated.
7. Heacteacher performance management / DW has discussed with governors that they still have a statutory responsibility to appoint an advisor for headteacher performance management. Existing / previous SIPs are still accredited and able to do this (including DW and Jane Connolly).
8. Admissions process – mid-year transfers / TB presented the new, enhanced, application form for In – YearSchool Admission. The form would ensure that all relevant information about a child and family is collected and, particularly, that the receiving school has the necessary information to properly plan for the child’s admission and continuing education. A new section ‘Part B’ would require information to be provided by the headteacher or senior staff member of the child’s current or previous secondary school, including, where appropriate, information on the particular reasons for the child’s transfer. Unless this section of the form was also completed and then signed by the headteacher of the child’s current school an application would not be allowed to proceed. This change was aimed at ensuring that a transfer of school was not undertaken lightly as well as provide opportunity for issues to be addressed before an application forschool transfer was received within the local authority.
TB also outlined the proposal to extend the current FAP arrangements to include a wider category than just children who have been permanently excluded or those at risk of permanent exclusion. This was discussed at length and it was subsequently agreed, in principle, to pilot the extended FAP scheme until the end of the calendar year. However, given that it would need the agreement between all the secondary heads in the Behaviour Attendance Partnership, TB would write to individual headteachers to explain the proposed new procedure and confirm their support/agreement for this recommended change.
9. AOB / The Careers contract has been brought back in-house from the end of May with Steve Grocott but will then be facing service redesign. Babcock would not accept a lower fee.
The Mayor and the Lead Member have proposed an Achievement Award Evening whereby highest performer receives £1,000. Suggestion from heads that award be based on progress rather than highest achiever. AC to meet with Lead Member and report back. / AC

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