a)     

The Schools Bill would not be going ahead in the current parliamentary period and although the government would be taking forward some of the proposals within it, that didn’t require any additional legislation, the Bill itself would not be progressing; 

a)     

Exam Boards and OFQUAL had been consulting with relevant teachers in schools which had been the key mechanism for understanding the pressures schools had been under around changes to exam systems from the pandemic in which schools had gone from teacher assessed grades back to an exam style system. There could be some work undertaken with Youth Parliament to understand children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing to understand how they felt during the run up to exams;

b)     

Plymouth had 53 settings in Plymouth which had met the criteria to take part in the early maths, language and social development training with 17 practitioners and 15 settings having benefited from completing phase one of the early professional development programme;

c)     

Plymouth had been allocated four places per term with three cohorts per year for the national rollout of expert mentors;

d)     

Plymouth had partnered with SWIFT for the national professional qualification for early years leadership and council officers had been working with leading practitioners to run the programme which had a cohort of 24 practitioners with 16 from the city of Plymouth;

e)     

Plymouth would have a stronger practice hub which would be led through Plymbridge nursery and day care, Ham Drive nursery school and day care, The Cabin and Becky’s Tiny Teddies. Trauma informed training would be rolled out to all settings and would bring into Plymouth settings and early years, regionally, approximately £2 million;

f)      

Tina Brinkworth, Head of Skills and Post 16 would provide information to the Committee on:

                      I.        Whether City College Plymouth had faced any challenges in relation to T-Level courses and the quality that they provided and if there had been challenges, what dialogue had taken place?

                             II.            Challenges within the interim report mentioned the 45 day work experience aspect of the course and issues establishing corporate business partners. Is this something the Council could help with to offer high quality business placements?

  III.            Provide information on whether any work had been completed with the University of Plymouth in respect of a mentoring programme for T-Level programmes.

g)     

Teaching of reading for secondary school pupils had been a specific focus within the Place based plan and had been tasked with raising the basic standard of English and Maths to grade five and above. The place based plan would target the historic dip that had been seen in Year 7 pupils where children’s progress started to plateau and potentially did not recover. Plymouth would be looking to address that in terms of the government announcement of £24 million to boost children’s literacy and to work on the transitions between primary and secondary schools;