This week I highlight an Ofsted report into A level uptake and retention rates in 2013/14, the release of statistics for young people not in education, employment or training, the latest data from the DfE on the number of Statements of SEN and EHC Plans in place and support being offered to help schools increase take-up of school meals.

OFSTED REPORT INTO A-LEVEL UPTAKE AND RETENTION RATES
Ofsted recently published a short report about the uptake of A-level subjects in 2013/14. It highlighted which subjects were the most popular and provided a breakdown of the male to female ratio for each AS and A-level. It also outlined the retention rate of students who moved from AS to A-level in each subject.

The report was compiled as a follow up to a previous report ‘Maintaining Curiosity’ which, as one of its recommendations, outlined that secondary schools should ‘monitor and evaluate the progression of different groups of pupils and their continuation to science-related pathways in education, employment or training, against the national proportions for those groups’. The new report publishes information to allow schools to make those comparisons.

LATEST STATISTICS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE NOT IN EDUCATION, EMPLOYMENT OR TRAINING (NEET)
Official figures released yesterday show that the proportion of 16 to 24 year olds recorded as NEET in January to March 2015 fell annually and is now at the lowest comparable rate since records began in 2001. Now more than nine in ten 16-17 year olds are participating in education or training. This trend continues for 19 to 24 year olds who are NEET with the lowest comparable rate in 10 years.

DATA ON THE NUMBER OF STATEMENTS OF SEN AND EHC PLANS
The Department for Education has this week published data from the annual SEN2 data return, which is mandatory for local authorities to complete. The return is the only source of data to report on all statements of SEN and EHC plans maintained by individual local authorities. The data indicated there were:

• 4,205 statutory Education, Health and Care (EHC) plans in place on 15 January 2015
• 235,980 statements of Special Educational Needs (SEN) in place on 15 January 2015
• 1,360 new EHC plans issued between 1 September and 31 December 2014
• 25,780 new statements of SEN issued between 1 January and 31 December 2014
• 2,765 EHC plans transferred from statements of SEN or Learning Difficulty Assessments (LDAs).

SCHOOL MEAL SUPPORT
The DfE is offering free support to schools to help them increase the take-up of school meals. Make School Meals Count, a scheme being administered by The Children’s Food Trust provides schools with bespoke training, support and materials to help them develop ways of encouraging more pupils to take up school meals. To benefit schools must apply by the end of May. From September this year Ofsted will look at the meals provided by schools as part of its assessment of how they encourage pupils to adopt healthy lifestyles.

This week I take a look at the impact of the election results on education and the promotion of British Values with the introduction of the new Counter Terrorism Security Act 2015 which comes into force on 1 July.

ELECTION RESULTS 2015
In the aftermath of the election even though the Prime Minister remains the same, we have a new majority Conservative Government, so questions about the future of education are inevitable. The Conservatives education pledges from their election manifesto included:

• the academisation of all failing or coasting secondary schools
• more free schools (with 500 already planned)
• compulsory GCSEs in English, Maths, Science, a language and History /Geography for secondary school pupils (schools that fail to offer this will only be able to receive ‘good’ as their highest possible Ofsted rating)
• every pupil should know their times tables by heart, be able to read a book and write a short story with accurate punctuation, spelling and grammar by the age of 11

Nicky Morgan continues to serve in her Cabinet role, having been the Education Secretary for the past 10 months. Tristram Hunt is the new Shadow Education Secretary, Nick Gibb retains his role as Minister of State for School Reform, as well as Sam Gyimah who retains his place in the Department as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Children and Education, so the education scene at Westminster has not suffered a dramatic change following the results.

PROMOTION OF BRITISH VALUES
All schools have a duty to provide a broad and balanced curriculum and promote spiritual, moral, social and cultural education (SMSC), which should include promotion of British values. The promotion of British values is a requirement for academies. As of 1 July 2015, the new Counter Terrorism Security Act 2015 means that governors must also ‘have due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism’.

Governing bodies should, however, deal with the threat of extremism in their school proportionately and appropriately. Indeed, Prevent Duty guidance published by the Home Office in March states schools should incorporate the threat of extremism into wider safeguarding policies. The guidance largely limits itself to setting out the extent of the legal duty, rather than providing any ‘how to’ examples. There is no requirement for Governing bodies to appoint specific link governors for preventing extremism in schools or for governors to raise the issue outside of a safeguarding context.

As we all now know David Cameron has returned to Downing Street with the Conservatives having won the general election.  Writing in The Telegraph just before the election Mr Cameron promised to put an education bill before the House of Commons within 100 days of a new Conservative government.  We will have to wait to see who the new Education Minister will be in the coming days.  In the meantime I have detailed below a couple of items of interest that have been publicised over the last week.

YOUNG CARERS IN SCHOOLS
This is a new England-wide initiative run jointly by the Carers Trust and The Children’s Society Young Carers in Focus partners that equips schools to support young carers and awards good practice. The initiative is funded by The Queen’s Trust and The Big Lottery Fund.

SHOULD SCHOOLS TO BE JUDGED OVER FIVE YEARS RATHER THAN ONE?
Cambridge Assessments (an exam board) has suggested that schools should be judged on their performance over five years instead of one. The announcement comes on the back of its report Volatility in Exam Results which found that schools are often faced with unexplained significant changes in exam results from one year to the next, even after adjusting results to take account of external factors such as the reliability of marking.

The report did not explore the reasons for such volatility at school level, but responding to the study Tim Oates, Group Director of Assessment Research and Development at Cambridge Assessments, said that it was sufficiently significant to suggest that schools should be judged over a five year period, rather than one.

As you are all aware by going into election purdah, there have not been many releases from the Government, however I have highlighted some links and documents below which you might find helpful in your role as Governor.

WHAT SHOULD SCHOOL LEADERS AND GOVERNORS EXPECT FROM EACH OTHER?
A multi-agency resource was recently published to improve the effectiveness of school governance. ‘What Governing Boards Should Expect From School Leaders And What School Leaders Should Expect From Governing Boards’ is designed to encourage mutual support and respect among school leaders and Governors.

The National Governors’ Association (NGA), the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT), the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) and the Local Government Association (LGA) have jointly developed the resource, originally released in 2008, to address the changed role of school governance and the challenges this presents.

Some of the expectations this document makes clear are that while Governors must have the confidence to have courageous conversations, in turn, school leaders must be willing to be challenged. Also while Governors must be knowledgeable about the school, including its pupils, staff and community, in turn, school leaders must provide information to them in the appropriate way.

NEW RESEARCH INTO SPORT AND FITNESS IN SCHOOLS
Research from Fit for Sport has shown that high numbers of primary school children are below the recommended level of fitness. From an analysis of 10,000 children, from across 80 different schools, the researchers pulled together the results from their ‘Activity Challenge’ which consisted of three timed activity challenges. These focused on hand/eye and physical coordination, muscular/cardio-vascular endurance and simple catching, jumping and running activities. The findings indicated that:

• 67% of children did not meet the recommended fitness levels for their age group
• 24% were well below the recommended fitness levels for their age group
• less than 20% of children reached their age-related targets in stamina and endurance
• 40% of 5-7 year olds struggled to do 60 start jumps in 60 seconds
• only 16% of girls and 21% of boys get the recommended levels of physical activity per week

SUTTON TRUST RELEASES SOCIAL MOBILITY MAP
Social mobility think-tank the Sutton Trust has released a map showing the levels of social mobility in parliamentary constituencies across the country. The map is based on data from five measures:

• performance of disadvantaged pupils in early years test
• performance of disadvantaged pupils in Key Stage 2 tests
• performance of disadvantaged pupils at GCSE
• progress of non-privileged/disadvantaged pupils to universities
• progress of non-privileged graduates to professional occupations

The mobility map itself does not include any insight into why certain constituencies have higher social mobility than others, although, the Sutton Trust’s Director of Research and Communications, links the findings to existing evidence. He identifies quality of teaching as being the fundamental issue and suggests high quality professional development could make a substantial difference to school standards.

Welcome back after Easter I hope you all had a lovely break.  With Parliament dissolved and the election soon upon us, I thought this week it would be interesting to take a look at the Parties main education pledges and to highlight a free Schools North East session to analyse the election outcome and the implications for North East schools.

PARTIES MAIN EDUCATION PLEDGES
Conservative Party
• Protect school funding per pupil
• Create at least a further 500 free schools in England by 2020
• Zero tolerance for failure – immediate support to turn around failing or coasting schools
• 30 hours free childcare for working parents of 3 and 4 year olds

Labour Party
• Protect education budget for 0 to 19 year olds so it rises in line with inflation
• Cut university tuition fees to £6,000 a year
• Ensure all primary schools guarantee access to childcare from 8am to 6pm
• Cap class sizes at 30 for 5, 6 and 7 year olds

Liberal Democrats Party
• Guarantee qualified teachers, a core curriculum and sex education in all state schools
• Ring fence the education budget for 2 to 19 year olds
• A strategy to end child illiteracy by 2025
• 15hrs a week free childcare from the end of paid parental leave

UKIP
• Scrap sex education for primary school children
• Allow secondary schools to become grammar schools
• Scrap fees for students taking degrees in science, technology, maths or engineering on condition they pay UK tax and work in the discipline for five years upon completing studying
• Abolish Key Stage 1 SAT tests at primary school level

Green Party
• Scrap university tuition fees
• Bring academies and free schools into the local authority system
• Ensure all teachers are qualified and end performance-related pay
• Scrap Ofsted and SATS

FREE SESSION ON THE ELECTION OUTCOME AND IMPLICATIONS FOR NORTH EAST SCHOOLS
Once the votes have been counted and a Government (hopefully!) has taken office, what can we really expect to happen? whose policies will count? what will they look like in practice? what will the results mean for Ofsted, oversight, exams, academies and free schools, teachers, funding and the curriculum? how will pledges in other policy areas impact on schools and the North East region? and ultimately, what changes are schools going to be expected to implement?

Schools North East is offering a free session in central Newcastle on Friday 15 May from 8.30 to 11.00 a.m. to analyse the election outcome and the implications for North East schools. They will be joined by Laura McInerney, Editor of Schools Week, along with guests from the Parties and beyond.

To secure your place at this event, please email info@schoolsnortheast.com or call 0191 204 8866.

Whilst today is the last day of the Spring term I still wanted you to benefit from my weekly update.  This week I am focusing solely on the School Governance Amendment Regulations and publication of revised Statutory guidance on the Constitution of governing bodies. There is much to consider going forward and we will need to discuss the implications of the Amendment Regulations and Statutory Guidance during the summer term.

AMENDMENT TO SCHOOL GOVERNANCE REGULATIONS 2015
Following its targeted consultation, the Department for Education has now put in place new regulations which bring the arrangements for new governing bodies and shadow governing bodies into line with the 2012 constitution arrangements.  The amendment regulations come into force on 1 September 2015 and allow governing bodies to:

• use Associate members (i.e. individuals on the governing body who are not actually governors) on panels set up to deal with staffing matters (e.g. Grievance or Disciplinary Hearings);
• decide whether individual governors of a particular category could hold a term of office of less than four years, as determined by the appointing body at the time of appointment.

REVISED STATUTORY GUIDANCE ON THE CONSTITUTION OF GOVERNING BODIES
The Statutory Guidance indicates governing bodies should publish on their website information about their members. The information should as a minimum include for each governor:

• their name;
• their category of governor;
• which body appoints them;
• their term of office;
• the names of any committees the governor serves on; and
• details of any positions of responsibility such as chair or vice-chair of the governing body or a committee of the governing body.

Governing bodies should also publish this information for associate members, making clear whether they have voting rights on any of the committees they serve on.

From 1 September 2015, governing bodies must publish on their website their Register of Interests, as is already the case for Academies. The register should set out the relevant business interests of governors and details of any other educational establishments they govern. The register should also set out any relationships between governors and members of the school staff including spouses, partners and relatives.

Finally, governing bodies should make it clear in their Code of Conduct that this information will be published on their governors and, where applicable, their associate members. Any governor failing to reveal information to enable the governing body to fulfil their responsibilities may be in breach of the code of conduct and as a result be bringing the governing body into disrepute. In such cases the governing body should consider suspending the governor.

This week I provide an update on the Deregulation Bill and how it will impact on schools, highlight the publication of updated statutory guidance for all schools on Keeping Children Safe in Education, statutory guidance for secondary schools on providing Careers Guidance and non-statutory guidance on Mental Health and Behaviour and improving counselling services in schools.

UPDATE ON THE DEREGULATION BILL
The Deregulation Bill was designed to lessen the burden of regulation in many areas of public life and is scheduled to receive Royal Assent before the dissolution of Parliament. The Bill contains a clause and a schedule on schools and these remove several powers and requirements as follows:

• the power of the Secretary of State for Education to make regulations requiring maintained schools or local authorities to set performance targets;
• the requirement for governing bodies to establish pupil behaviour principles, on which the Headteacher has had to base the school’s behaviour policy;
• the requirement of schools to have home-school agreements;
• the requirement on schools to produce paper copies of Ofsted reports, denominational inspection reports or reports by HMCI following certain types of complaint against a school.  Schools must still inform parents about the outcome of inspections.

UPDATED VERSION OF KEEPING CHILDREN SAFE IN EDUCATION
Yesterday the Department for Education issued an updated version of the statutory guidance ‘Keeping Children Safe in Education’.  The document contains information on what schools should do and sets out the legal duties with which they must comply.  It should be read alongside statutory guidance ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children 2015’ which applies to all the schools, and departmental advice ‘What to do if you are worried a child is being abused 2015- Advice for practitioners’.

Governing bodies should ensure all staff in schools read at least part one of this guidance and I would anticipate the LA’s Schools HR Team will provide an update in due course.

STATUTORY GUIDANCE ON CAREERS GUIDANCE PROVIDED BY SCHOOLS FOR YEAR 8 TO YEAR 13 PUPILS
This statutory guidance outlines why schools (and local authorities that maintain pupil referral units) must secure independent careers guidance for young people.  What they must do to comply with their legal responsibilities in this area and the role of the Governing body and Headteacher in shaping the guidance and support offered by the school.

NON-STATUTORY MENTAL HEALTH AND BEHAVIOUR GUIDANCE
The DfE has recently published non-statutory advice clarifying the responsibility of schools in supporting children and young people whose behaviour may be related to an unmet mental health need. Alongside this guidance the DfE has also published advice on how to improve counselling services in primary and secondary schools. It sets out the Government’s expectation that over time it would expect to see all schools providing access to counselling services and recognises that effective counselling is part of a whole school approach to mental health and well-being.

This week I highlight additional Government funding to recruit highly skilled governors, report on the Government’s commitment to PHSE provision in schools and the publication of the Government’s response to it its consultation on proposals to establish a College of Teaching and a professional development programme for teachers.

£1 MILLION TO HELP SCHOOLS RECRUIT HIGH CALIBRE GOVERNORS
Schools Minister Lord Nash announced on 18 March that more than £1 million would be provided to help schools across England recruit highly skilled governors. The funding provided by the Department for Education (DfE) will support a new partnership between SGOSS – Governors for Schools and the Education and Employers Taskforce to recruit and place more high calibre governors in schools.

An online tool will be developed to help more schools search for suitable volunteers and more bespoke support will be available to the schools that find it the hardest to recruit the experienced governors they need.

GOVERNMENT SUPPORT FOR PSHE PROVISION
In a speech to the Bright Blue foundation on 10 March, the Secretary of State for Education, Nicky Morgan MP, reiterated the government’s commitment to more robust and comprehensive Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) provisions in schools. In particular, she outlined her concern for young peoples’ responses and reactions to offensive digital content which had put pressure on the government to act.

Her speech was in response to recent criticism that the government is taking PSHE too far and proposing to teach young people about sex and consent at too young an age. Defending the government position, Nicky Morgan outlined that ‘a good PSHE education should cover all of the skills and knowledge young people need to manage their lives, stay safe, make the right decisions, and thrive as individuals and members of modern society’.

CONSULTATION OUTCOME ON PROPOSALS TO ESTABLISH A COLLEGE OF TEACHING AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME FOR TEACHERS
From December 2014 to February 2015 the Government sought views on proposals to establish a new, independent professional body for teaching (a College of Teaching); and raising the quality of teachers’ professional development by using teaching schools to design and deliver programmes that were evidence based and had an impact on improving teaching practice. The evidence base would be accessible in formats that teachers could apply to their own practice through a new online professional development portal.

The outcome document published today provides a summary of the responses received to the consultation, and of the discussions that took place in various groups of teachers, Headteachers and their representatives. It also outlines the steps that Government proposes to take in response to what it heard during the consultation.

This week I highlight proposals that will require new nursery and pre-school staff to undertake paediatric first aid, the launch of a sports coach website for primary schools, the announcement of members of the Commission on assessment without levels and new Department for Education non-statutory advice on basic rules of procurement which aim to ensure that public funds are spent openly and fairly.

New nursery and pre-school staff will be required to undertake paediatric first aid for the first time
New Government proposals will mean newly qualified staff with a childcare level 2 and 3 qualification must have an emergency paediatric first aid or full paediatric first aid certificate. The announcement follows a review by the Department for Education (DfE), carried out in response to a petition by Joanne and Dan Thompson, the parents of Millie Thompson, who tragically passed away following a choking incident at her nursery in October 2012.

The training proposals will be subject to a full consultation during the next Parliamentary session. The proposals are expected to come into effect by September 2016 and will cover all early years settings except childminders.

New sports coach website launched for primary schools
A new website was launched this week to help primary schools recruit and develop sports coaches using more than £450 million of funding set up to secure an Olympic legacy. The Coaching in Schools Portal, unveiled by Sports Coach UK, will provide advice for Headteachers on how to recruit, develop and use coaches effectively using the government funding. To coincide with the launch, Sport England has produced some short films to illustrate how schools can use the funding.

Members of new Commission on assessment without levels announced
The DfE has recently established the membership of the Commission on assessment without levels. The Commission will support primary and secondary schools to implement new assessment systems following the removal of levels. It will identify and share best practice in assessment with schools across the country and ensure they have information to make informed choices about effective assessment systems.

Effective Buying for your School
The DfE has updated its non-statutory guidance on buying practice in schools to reflect new public contracting regulations. You may want to receive and note this document in your Finance Committees and pass on the link to your School Business Managers.

This week I highlight new DfE non-statutory advice on the transition to the 0-25 SEND system and plans to improve reading standards in primary schools

DEPARTMENT FOR EDUCATION ADVICE ON THE TRANSITION TO THE NEW 0 TO 25 SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL NEEDS AND DISABILITY SYSTEM
Non-statutory Departmental advice has been produced by the Department for Education to help recipients understand their obligations and duties in relation to the Children and Families Act 2014 (Transitional and Saving Provisions) (Amendment) Order 2015. Section 8 is specifically intended for schools.

PLANS TO IMPROVE READING STANDARDS IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS
A new action plan  to help improve reading standards in primary schools, including new funding for book clubs, has been announced by School Reform Minister Nick Gibb to mark World Book Day.

‘Reading the next steps’ outlines new measures, including:

• a new programme to support up to 200 primary schools, where reading attainment at key stage 2 is currently low, to set up book clubs and promote library membership, to inspire thousands more pupils to develop a love of literature;
•  urging all primary schools to arrange library membership for all their year 3 pupils (age 7 to 8);
• boosting the promotion of poetry in schools by funding new resources to help primary teachers to introduce poetry recitation to their pupils at an early age, as well as funding a further year’s extension of the national poetry recitation competition, Poetry by Heart.