The council’s future role in education June 2016 [Final] Standards First

Introduction The Council Plan for sets out our commitment to supporting improvement in our education and skills sector, ensuring a good local school place for every child and a non-selective model of education. To successfully deliver on this commitment it is important to consider the changes to education being introduced by the government’s reform programme set out in the Education for All Bill, specifically in relation to: School governance School improvement Special educational needs School place planning and admissions This document does this, summarising our thinking and proposing changes to the role of the council in education in the years ahead. We would welcome your feedback, details of how to respond are on the last page of this booklet. 2 | Standards First

School Governance Effective leadership and governance arrangements are at the heart of every great school, holding leaders to account for educational performance and ensuring that money gets well spent. The government is clear that it wants to move to a system where every school is an academy, even though there is no clear evidence to show that academies raise standards overall 1. We do not think being an academy school or maintained school necessarily means governance is stronger. Good governance is largely down to good governors. So we will continue to support governance, further developing our governor support services. We want schools to choose whether or not to become an academy based on how likely this is to impact on standards. So we will give schools the choice of remaining as a maintained school or converting if this will improve outcomes for children (Proposal 1). Standards First | 3 1 Education Select Committee into England's school system, 2015

4 | Standards First Academy schools are directly funded by the Department for Education (DFE). Regional School Commissioners are responsible for tackling underperformance. In the white paper Educational Excellence Everywhere, the DFE sets out its expectation that most academy schools will join multi- academy trusts of between 10 to 15 schools. The council does not have a role in approving academy applications or brokering multi- academy trusts. This is for the Regional School Commissioner and we will not be providing advice on this (Proposal 2). The council would however expect that any school becoming an academy would have thought through which trust it should join in order to improve standards and may provide challenge on this. We remain committed to working with our academy schools but recognise the different legal relationship, especially with regard to school improvement and funding.

School improvement Working together with schools and local school leaders, we have made significant progress in improving the local school performance. In April 2016, 90% of the maintained schools in Milton Keynes were judged by Ofsted to be good or outstanding. But there is more to do if we are to reach our goal of a good local school place for every child in Milton Keynes. Funding for school improvement is changing. The DFE has now signalled its intention to cease providing funding directly to councils at the end of 2016/17 academic year. From this date the council will change to become a school improvement provider to both academy and maintained schools (Proposal 3). We have thought long and hard about this, but on balance believe we have a distinctive high quality offer which, if schools want to buy back, we should continue to make available. Standards First | 5

Special educational needs There are no significant changes to our role in relation to special educational needs. The government will still expect us to take the lead in identifying, assessing and making provision for children with special educational needs and disability. So we will continue to embed the reforms introduced by the Children and Families Act 2014 aimed at giving children, young people and their parents, greater control and choice in decisions while ensuring that their needs are properly met and there is a clear focus on outcomes. For those children and young people with the most significant needs, we will continue to work towards converting statements into Education, Health and Care Plans, underpinned by a co-ordinated assessment by all agencies with a clearer focus on outcomes. Standards First | 6

7 | Standards First School place planning and admissions Similarly, the government is not proposing to take the responsibility for school place planning or admissions away from the council. So, we will continue to have a duty to ensure every child has a school place, including that there are sufficient school, special school and alternative provision places to meet demand. We are also being required to continue to organise and fund home to school transport and help prevent children missing education. And our role around early education remains, having responsibility for developing a range of provision for two, three and four year old early education and promoting take up, especially amongst families facing disadvantage. We are also fully committed to working with employers to increase the number of apprenticeships.

Collaboration The council has a community leadership role and we believe this extends to education. Local people expect the council to play its part in fostering collaboration between schools. Our current arrangements were designed when things were very different. So we propose a new approach - a school congress (Proposal 4). The congress would replace current meetings with head teachers, chairs and vice chairs of governing bodies and school improvement organisations. We think it should have an independent chair and bring together primary, secondary and special heads along with governors, meeting termly to exchange news and ideas, share good practice and celebrate success. It would be a larger event. Standing committees on issues of general concern could also be created, for example teacher recruitment. Standards First | 8

Recap Our proposals are designed to put standards first by: Giving good and improving maintained schools the choice of continuing as a maintained school if becoming an academy is not likely to have an positive impact on standards. Staying outside of the academisation debate, leaving it to schools to make decisions about when and if to convert, and which multi academy trust offers the most benefit to school effectiveness. Becoming a school improvement provider to academy and maintained schools, offering high quality services. Establishing an independently chaired schools congress to provide a forum for dialogue and collaboration. 9 | Standards First

Next steps We will be listening to feedback on the proposals in this document during June As part of this we will be holding an event for head teachers and chairs and vice chairs of governing bodies. Share your views with us by ing us at: Standards First | 10