a)     

For children in Plymouth at the end of KS2, the combined average of children achieving the expected standard in reading, writing and maths was 65% which was 1% above the national average and had been a first for Plymouth to get above the national average. Data also showed Plymouth was 2% higher than the southwest regional average;

b)     

74% of children achieved the expected standard in English reading, 70% in writing and 71% in maths. English writing came in lower at 70% which could be attributed to less writing undertaken due to the two years of the COVID pandemic;

c)     

Writing had been identified as an area of recovery as part of the place based plan particularly amongst boys and writing at KS1 which had historically been areas of weakness in Plymouth;

d)     

For KS4 results, work undertaken through the place based evaluation showed that 67% of Plymouth’s secondary schools had improved their progress at eight score, 87% improved their attainment 8 score, and 88% had seen an improvement in their basics in English and maths. In relation to achievement of grade 5 or better in English and maths Plymouth stood at 45.9% compared to a national average of 49.8% this gap had been closing rapidly.

For progress 8 there had been a slight variance in the figure but Plymouth stood at -0.2 compared to national 0.03 which was against Plymouth’s -0.29 in 2019 for the previous comparison. Attainment 8 figures showed Plymouth had 47.5% compared to the national figure of 48.8% which showed an improvement in closing the gap and also an improvement on 2019 figures.

e)     

KS4 figures for staying in education or entering employment figures stood at 94% which correlated with national figures;

a)     

When the Department for Education published the final validated data this would come back to the Committee to report on disadvantaged groups and also KS1 and end of KS1 attainment data and Year 1 phonics. The Education team would also provide an update for KS4;

b)     

Plymouth City Council had a data sharing agreement with schools which allowed the team to share provisional data. It was acknowledged that one of the downsides of the provisional data is that the data kept changing;

c)     

Although there had been a gap between Plymouth’s children, the service were assured that the gap would continue to close and it remained focussed to close the gap rapidly to provide the best outcomes for children in the city;

d)     

When data had been finalised, the service could look at attainment and progress in particular localities in the city and where identified where there had been high deprivation, low attainment and then through the place based plan talk to CEO’s of trusts and headteachers of maintained schools to find out what additional support they required. The service would also challenge schools where there had been a gap to provide a combination of challenge and support;

e)     

Plymouth City Council had worked with schools in the city on the Pupil Premium strategy to understand how this was used by schools. The Education Endowment Fund regularly published strategies which worked well to support children to catch up particularly in English and maths.